The young Emperor (Chang Chen) and his sister the princess (Faye Wong) find life behind palace walls too mundane, always plotting their escape. Most of the time, their mother the Empress Dowager and the palace guards foil their plans. Eventually, only the princess manages to escape, disguised as a man.

Enter another set of siblings. Lung (Tony Leung), the village bully, is an uncouth and rough man whose ambition in life is to just be a drifter. He has a younger sister, Phoenix (Zhao Wei), a tomboyish girl who operates a small restaurant and is looking for her true love.
Things get complicated when the princess arrives at the village and meets the siblings. She is attracted to Lung and vice versa. This confuses Lung (she is disguised as a man, after all!), so he sets out to match make his sister with his new friend. At the same time, Phoenix is also attracted to the princess. Further to add to the confusion, the Emperor manages to find his way to the village, where he soon falls for Phoenix!

It takes the intervention of a goddess to get everyone on the right road. But is it already too late to heal the wounds of disappointment and separation?

With the jokes coming thick and fast with confusions, complications, misunderstanding, reversed gender roles and class differences, Jeff Lau's outrageously zany laugh-a-minute 'Chinese Odyssey 2002' (produced by none other than famed Hong Kong cineast Wong Kar-Wai) is a hoot, a rip-roaring spoof on everything from martial arts to romantic comedy!