Asian Hawk ( ) leads a mercenary team to recover several lost artifacts from the Old Summer Palace, the bronze heads of the 12 Chinese Zodiac animals which was looted by foreigners in the 1800s. Assisted by a Chinese student and a Parisian lady, Hawk stops at nothing to accomplish the mission.

A serial killer in the San Francisco Bay Area taunts police with his letters and cryptic messages. We follow the investigators and reporters in this lightly fictionalized account of the true 1970's case as they search for the murderer, becoming obsessed with the case. Based on Robert Graysmith's book, the movie's focus is the lives and careers of the detectives and newspaper people.