In the 1890's, Suzie, an 18-year-old Chinese stowaway, leaves her hiding place on a ship after it docks in San Francisco, only to find herself in the middle of the tong wars and a witness to the murder of a runaway "love-slave." She makes her escape and finds work at the Mandarin Club, owned by her distant uncle Wong, who heads the Red Dragon tong.

"The hatchet men of the bloody "tong" held a claw-like hold on an empire of slave girls, opium dens, and vice!"