This is the story of Danny (Li), a slave who has lived his whole life without any sort of normal human education, with the mind and personality of a young child, with only one lesson learned: how to fight. Treated like a dog by his owner/boss, Bart (Hoskins) which includes having to wear a collar, Danny has been raised to be a lethal fighting machine who fights in illegal gladiator-style fight clubs, where he earns lots of money for Bart as the undisputed champion. After a car accident that lands Bart in a coma, however, Danny meets a kind elderly blind piano tuner (Freeman) on the run because he knows secrets some bad guys don't want known, who uses music to teach Danny some things about the world and about being human...
Two families, bound by tradition, are locked in a brutal war. Asian and African American gangs are vying for control of Oakland's waterfront. But when the first causality is the Asian warlord's son Po, the gang war becomes more dangerous than either side ever imagined. News of the murder gets back to Po's big brother Han, a decorated ex-cop wrongly imprisoned in a Hong Kong jail. And it's only a matter of time before Han makes his way to American shores. An outsider in his own family in search of the truth, Han uncovers nothing except more questions. And he has become a target, not only to the African American camp, but also to faceless assassins whose firepower reaches far beyond the working-class waterfront. In a world of vicious rivalries and violent betrayals, Han has no choice but to declare war himself. But unlike the others, who can only use weapons, Han is a weapon. And falling into his sightlines can be a deadly mistake.
Fourth in the series of uber-successful action films directed by Richard Donner. Gibson and Glover return as Los Angeles detectives who can't seem to get through a day without a shooting, a robbery, or a car chase.
