Playing the unscrupulous collector of artifacts JC, Chan must recover 12 priceless bronze zodiac animal heads from China's Summer Palace, which in the opening scene of the film, was depicted as being ruthlessly looted by colonialists. Freelancing for the slimy businessman/counterfeiting ring operator (Platt), JC lands in France, where he meets Coco (Yao) working to repatriating ancient artifacts and the naive descendents of one of the Palace's plunderers (Weissbecker).... and the adventure begins.