Plot
Late at night, in an empty bar in the present day (the mid-1990s), an old man enters and awaits service. Not long after, a group of thugs arrives and attempts to rob the till. The old man defeats them easily, one by one, with hand-to-hand combat. Amazed, the bartender asks how he learned to fight. The old man replies, "It was long ago..." The story flashes back to Christopher Dubois, a pickpocket in his mid-twenties, living in 1925 New York City. Orphaned as a child, Dubois looks after many young orphans by performing cons and stealing. After stealing a large sum of money from a group of gangsters, Dubois and the children are found by the gangsters. Dubois subdues the gangsters, but the struggle draws the attention of the police.
After promising to return to the children, Dubois escapes the police by stowing away on a boat. He is found out and imprisoned by gun smugglers and pirates and forced into physical labor. Eventually, the crew decides Dubois is no longer needed, but before he can be killed, the pirate ship is attacked and boarded by a mercenary Englishman, Lord Edgar Dobbs. After saving each other's lives, Dobbs agrees to help Dubois return home but deceives him and sells Dubois into slavery on an island off the coast of Siam, where Dubois is trained in Muay Thai fighting.
Six months later, Dobbs and his partner Harry Smythe find Dubois fighting in a Muay Thai match and see that he has become a skilled fighter. Dobbs later assists (and exploits) Dubois, buying his freedom so the now-expert fighter can represent the U.S. in a Kumite-like tournament called the Ghang-gheng, held in the Lost City of Tibet. There, representatives of Germany, Soviet Union, Scotland, Spain, Turkey, Brazil, Korea, Siam, Greece, France, China, Japan, Okinawa, Africa and Mongolia fight in elimination bouts. The tournament winner receives a valuable statue made of solid gold, the Golden Dragon. Along for the journey are American reporter Carrie Newton and heavyweight boxing champion Maxie Devine.
Dubois ultimately wins the tournament by defeating Khan, the representative of Mongolia, and he is given a medal and proclaimed the greatest fighter, but does not accept the Golden Dragon. Instead, he trades it for the lives of Dobbs and his comrade Harry, who were sentenced to death for previously trying to steal the Golden Dragon. In the bar, Dubois explains he returned to New York and helped the children get off the streets. Devine helped to train many great fighters, while Dobbs and Harry opened a trading post deep in the Amazon. In the final scene, a book closes, revealing its title and author: The Quest by Carrie Newton.
