The setting is thirteenth century Ming-dynasty China; a decadent Emperor is beset by both Chinese and Japanese pirates who are fought off by a dashing husband-and-wife kung fu team. Derek Elley writes, “The Valiant Ones...is replete with the expected ebb and flow of artifice, suspicion and sylvan sussuration--Hu's masterly skill at evoking a sense of dislocated reality, the pregnant calm which signals imminent danger, best seen in the forest attack in which Yu Ta-yu (Ch'iao Hung) silently signals his battle plan on a go board from a flautist's information. And both amongst the inept Ming organization and the pirates themselves, Hu shows his perennial concern for the ruthlessly rigid pecking-order of power structures--expressed, as always, through skill in the martial arts.”