American soldier of fortune O'Hara (Gary Cooper) becomes the target of politically ambitious Chinese warlord Gen. Yang (Akim Tamiroff) when the mercenary accepts a dicey assignment to transport money for a peasant uprising against Yang. On the way to deliver the cash, O'Hara meets an alluring woman (Madeleine Carroll) whose father (Porter Hall) is in cahoots with Yang. But all is not what it seems in director Lewis Milestone's tense thriller.