A modern and hilarious rendition of the classic Chinese tale, Stephen Chow is a successful artist-poet who is frustrated with his many wives and decides to run away from home. When he is mesmerized by the gorgeous maid Qiu Xiang (Gong Li) and falls in love with her, he tries every possible way to sell himself as a servant to her family, only to find out her mistress (Cheng Pei-pei) is actually an old family nemesis.