Frank Lee is more than just a celebrated martial artist; he’s practically a superhero, able to knock down evildoers before they know what hit them. Renowned for bringing White Crane kung fu to North America, Frank evolved his own style of full contact fighting and established himself as coach, promoter and the owner of a successful fight gym.

But as far as his son, filmmaker Corey Lee, is concerned, Frank, a champion at everything else, has never quite been a champion father. Frank’s status as a trainer and world-renowned coach have kept him at an emotional and physical distance from Corey.

After decades of estrangement, Corey sets out on a bridge-building mission: he will try to connect with his father by training with him again for the first time in 25 years.

It will not be easy for a man in his forties—with two children of his own—to take up the gruelling routine that proper training demands. And the training is indeed tough, almost as leather-tough as Frank himself. But as the teacher-student relationship progresses, the father-son relationship begins to reassert itself, at first incrementally and in often surprising ways.

Corey accompanies his father to Hong Kong, where Frank revisits the much-changed haunts of his troubled youth. Corey is given a chance to learn more about his dad and to reconnect with a vital part of his own culture. It is in China that the emotional journey Corey has set in motion comes to an unexpected and moving climax.