Jack Yang, orphaned during a horrific incident in the Tai Ping Revolution in China, and his friend Charlie Lam seek their fortunes in the tin mines in Emu Flat, North-East Tasmania. The mines attract fortune-hunters of all kinds: a crooked mine manager and his muscle-bound minder; Terry Conway and Lizzie Wiggins, working girls in search of a better life; Master Mou in search of spiritual riches; and the psychopathic Wu Ying, in search of victims, or 'cracked eggs', to suck dry. Terry sees Jack as the man she came to find, but Jack, certain that Wu Ying is the man who destroyed his family, is too

obsessed with exacting a savage revenge.