The film revolves around an orphaned boy who grew up in a kung fu university and becomes a talented basketball player.[2] The youngster, Fang Shi Jie (Jay Chou) grew up at the Kung-Fu School. He practiced excellent Kung-Fu and was equipped with good skills. When he was punished by his principal to stay on the streets for one night, he demonstrated his incredible accuracy to a down-and-out hustler, Wang Li. On the pretext of helping him search for his family, Wang Li invited him to play basketball at 'First University' as the new star of its basketball team. Meanwhile, Wang Li capitalized on media interest in Shi-Jie to make money via interviews and news articles.
After joining the basketball team, Shi-Jie found that Li-Li whom he had admired for a long time is the sister of Ting Wei (Bo-Lin Chen), the leader of basketball team. Shi Jie was desperate to draw her attention. Therefore, he attempted to compete with Xiao Lan (By Baron Chen), who is Li-Li's idol. The competition between Shi Jie and Xiao Lan generated an unstable atmosphere within the team. After Ting Wei counsels Shi Jie, the basketball team becomes more unified. Meanwhile, he helped Shi Jie combine his foundation of Kung-Fu skills into basketball techniques, which in turn brought his skills into full play and helped the team win many rounds of the inter-varsity tournament.
By the time of the finals, the major competitor faced by Shi Jie and his team members was the team led by Lee Tien. Lee used to be on the First University basketball team alongside Ting Wei and Xiao Lan, but became arrogant and was lured to their competitor's camp. The competing team comprised of players who had been banned from all basketball games in Japan. The competing university also bribed the referee of the final game. Although Wang Li had enlisted the aid of Shi Jie's kung-fu teachers, the opposing team had put in place a number of measures to prevent First University from winning, up to and including injuring First University's star players Shi-Jie, Ting Wei and Xiao Lan. Thus, due to both unscrupulous fouls from the opposing team and the referee's biased decisions and outright interference, First University was defeated. Unwilling to admit defeat to such unjust conditions, Shi Jie recalls a technique his first teacher had utilized, and managed to turn back the clock. Eventually, First University won fair and square.