An FBI Agent pairs with a troubled Taiwan cop to hunt for a serial killer who's embedding a mysterious fungus in the brains of victims.

Two different men each find their true meanings in life. Leslie and Tony, two lower middle-class bachelors, are bosom friends. Leslie is a wandering soul who seems unable to settle down. He give got fired and his girlfriend left him. Tony is a frustrating musician and a part-time worker at an elderly home. He doesn't like old people, but works there only to get close to his dream girl WAI.

Two independent stories involving chess wizards are interwoven to satirize the politics of the Chinese Cultural Revolution as well as Taiwan's capitalist boom of the 1970's.