In the 1930s, few people had heard of Wing Chun. Chen Shi, a Wing Chun practitioner, came to the then “Kung Fu Capital” of China – Tianjin, hoping to open a school to promote this martial art. Little did he know that the local rules required that if one wanted to establish his own school, he first had to challenge eight established schools and emerge as the winner. One must also recruit a young local as his disciple to fight for him. After winning the challenge, the young disciple would be forced to leave Tianjin, with the master staying back to start the new martial art school.   

    Training a disciple took time, so Chen Shi conveniently married a Tianjin woman before finally finding someone who could sacrifice for his plan. Everything went smoothly as dictated by the custom and his school was about to open. However, a warlord took control of the local martial art community. When his soldiers were evicting Chen Shi’s disciple, they accidentally killed the young man. The master then decided to give up promoting Wing Chun and take revenge for his disciple. He assassinated the warlord when the latter was hosting the opening ceremony for his school and faced the besiege by all martial art schools in Tianjin head-on.