Within the walls of the Shaolin Temple are perhaps some of the most powerful and mastered martial arts fighters in the world. Shaolin Death Squads deals with these relentless monks of combat and their struggle to keep the Shaolin Temple from being overthrown by the evil Qing Emperor Yung Cheng.

A country bumpkin arrives to help his brother's rice business. Things get out of hand while a rival company becomes corrupt. The bumpkin, an ace martial artist, fights off the rivals. Angered, the rivals hire a martial arts expert to fight the hero, only to get beaten up himself. The expert send his teacher to hurt the hero and succeeds. The hero is sent to a temple where he learns a new style of kung fu. Now with the skills, our hero is ready to get even.

The plot deals with a search for a valuable pearl, dubbed the Buddha's Relic, which is sold to an unwitting Japanese emissary by a corrupt Ching Dynasty prince who seeks to steal it back for his own purposes.