These five plays, translated from tapes made by the translator at actual performances, represent basic dramatic types and performance styles. Mixing historical or legendary events with scenes from everyday life, their plots are based on intrigue, love, and the struggle for power.

While China is traumatized by military cliques during the Warlord Era in the 1920s, Japan has grown into the most powerful foreign national group in Shanghai. Although the city is being torn by the Japanese, the upscale cabaret nightclub Casablanca remains a haven for a mishmash of clienteles, including the mustachioed entrepreneur Ku and the sultry singsong girl Kiki. Ku is none other than the legendary hero Chen Zhen in disguise, who singlehandedly...

At the height of the Warlord Era, China is being torn apart through internal conflict, allowing Japanese forces to gain a foothold in Northern Shanghai. Meanwhile, a celebrated Chinese hero returns to the mainland seven years after the fight that made him a myth, and assumes the identity of a caped crusader in order to expose the clandestine alliance between the Japanese and the mafia, and procure a vital assassination list.