The film is a connection of three inter-twining stories. The first about a butcher who takes revenge on a swordsman for humiliation , the second is about a chef who has his apprentice makes an eight-course meal for the powerful Eunuch Liu . The final story is about a warrior with a powerful sword melted from other champion swords , but the sword does not work as expected during combat. " Desire" is set in a remote area in Ancient China where a butcher named Chopper (Liu Xiaoye) is in love with Madam Mei ( Kitty Zhang ) and tries to buy her, but is beaten to her by the swordsman Big Beard ( Senggerenqin ) who gets her first . Humiliated , he tries to commit suicide but is saved by a beggar using a cleaver of incredible quality .
In " Greed ", which is the master chef's story , the Swordsman Dugu Cheng ( Ashton Xu ) brings a lump of black iron that was cast by Fatty Tang (You Benchang ) by melting down weapons from defeated champion warriors . In " Vengeance ", which is the beggar's story of the cleaver , a master chef ( Mi Dan ) is instructed to prepare his renowned eight-course specialties for the powerful Court Eunuch Liu ( Xie Ning ) who will be in the area in a month's time. To safeguard his recipes, the master chef chooses his mute apprentice (Ando Masanobu ) to be his successor and imparts the secrets of his specialties.
The mute must learn all eight of the chef's secret signature dishes before the arrival of the royal eunuch Liu ( Xie Ning ), who is renowned for his cruelty. If the food disappoints, the whole staff will die. The trainee chef must use it to complete the mythical eighth dish, known as " the eight immortals cross the sea " . This is a dish so quickly and expertly prepared that the fish doesn't know it's dead .
