In a small village named Rack-Armor Terrace in Hebei, at the foot of the Great Wall of China, a local peasant called Ma Dasan (played by Jiang Wen) is caught by surprise when a man bursts into his home one night and deposits two men in gunnysacks, instructing him at gunpoint to keep them captive but alive for the next few days and interrogate them. The man, identified only as "Me", leaves before Ma can catch a glimpse of him. One of the gunnysacks contains Kosaburo Hanaya (Kagawa Teruyuki), a belligerent Japanese sergeant; the other Dong Hanchen (Yuan Ding), an obsequious Chinese interpreter working for the Imperial Japanese Army. Ma hurriedly enlists the help of his fellow villagers. Fearing both the mysterious "Me" and the Japanese, the village decides to follow the instructions from "Me" and detains the prisoners in Ma's cellar. Hanaya repeatedly attempts to provoke the peasants into killing him, but Dong, fearing for his own life, alters Hanaya's words in translation to make him appear conciliatory.