Prominent gang leader Cyrus calls a meeting of New York's gangs to set aside their turf wars and take over the city. At the meeting, a rival leader kills Cyrus, but a Coney Island gang called the Warriors is wrongly blamed for Cyrus' death. Before you know it, the cops and every gangbanger in town is hot on the Warriors' trail.

The setting is 1960s Hong Kong, and righteous reporter Ching On (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) publishes an article exposing corruption in the police force. Unfortunately, he's framed for drug distribution and confesses to the charges when the corrupt cops threaten his family. Forced to undergo the rigorous hazing rites of all new inmates, On struggles to regain hope and rise above his situation. Meanwhile, On's loyal girlfriend (Pinky Cheung Man-Chi) is terrorized by the cops who put him away, and On faces new challenges, and even finds new allies, while stuck in prison.

The true story of Henry Hill, a half-Irish, half-Sicilian Brooklyn kid who is adopted by neighbourhood gangsters at an early age and climbs the ranks of a Mafia family under the guidance of Jimmy Conway.

After working as a drug courier and getting into a brutal shootout with police, a former boxer finds himself at the mercy of his enemies as they force him to instigate violent acts that turn the prison he resides in into a battleground.