In FRIENDS, Hua Heng (David Chiang) is a poverty-stricken aspiring painter whose day job involves painting the ads that go up on the sides of buildings. He and his buddies hang out in a makeshift gym set up in an abandoned building where they train and practice kung fu. His girlfriend is Gao Xin (Lily Li), a bar maid who is in debt to loan sharks. Into their lives comes Jiaji (Alexander Fu Sheng), who happens upon Hua Heng in a street fight with local thugs who'd made fun of the painting he's carrying and decides to help him out. Afterwards, Jiaji tags along with Hua Heng and follows him to the gym, where he proves his own skill at kung fu in an impromptu fight with one of the group. Unbeknownst to them, Jiaji is a rich boy, the son of a Hong Kong billionaire (Lu Ti), and he decides to stay with Hua Heng and not go back to his sheltered home life, where his preoccupation with kung fu was his only outlet for self-expression.