In New York City, police officer Samuel “Sam” Edward Macon gets into a fistfight with three men while attempting to arrest them. After taking a beating, he gets the upper hand, and knocks them out. Sam returns to his patrol car to rest, and a fourth criminal drives into the back of his vehicle, purposely pushing his cruiser into the East River. Sam is supposedly killed, and given a police funeral. Meanwhile, Sam awakens in a hospital, and barely recognizes himself. He is visited by a man named Conn MacCleary, and learns he has been recruited by a secret organization, and his face has been surgically altered to disguise his identity. Along with his transformed face, Sam is given the alias “Remo Williams,” and told he will act as a vigilante against corrupt police officers and politicians. Remo leaves the hospital in a stolen ambulance. However, MacCleary emerges from the back, and directs him to drive, at gunpoint. They arrive at a research facility known as the National Bank. Remo is introduced to Harold W. Smith, the head of the secret organization, who uses his position as Assistant Research Manager to track criminal government activities. Smith threatens Remo’s life if he refuses to assist, and is told that the three of them are the only members of the organization. MacCleary drives Remo to his first assignment, and sends him into a building to murder a man. Inside, Remo finds an elderly Asian man named Chiun. Remo asks the man where his boss is, assuming that is who he was sent to kill. However, Chiun asserts he is the sole occupant, and stands still as Remo shoots at him, stealthily dodging the bullets. Chiun beats Remo by barely lifting a finger. MacCleary enters, and asks Chiun’s opinion of their new recruit, and Chiun agrees to train Remo despite the fact that he “moves like a baboon.” MacCleary orders Remo to live with Chiun, and learn to use his mind as a weapon with the ancient art of Sinanju. Meanwhile, Harold Smith researches the financial records of businessman George Grove and learns that his project, “HARP,” an early weapons detection system he created for the government, earns billions for his company, Grove Industries. Smith discovers that someone else is trying to access Grove’s file. Elsewhere, Major Rayner Fleming is denied access to the HARP files, and reports the error to her superior, General Scott Watson. She demands the oversight be corrected and her access reinstated. Remo becomes restless with Chiun’s slow teaching methods. Sometime later, Major Fleming oversees the testing of a new “AR-60” gun, also created by Grove Industries, and witnesses it backfire on a soldier, killing him. General Watson reports the mishap to weapons funder, George Grove, who advises Watson to bury the report. Major Rayner Fleming confronts Grove about the excessive spending for his weapons project. Harold Smith tracks her actions via computer, and notes Grove’s reaction to Major Fleming’s inquiries. Smith sends MacCleary and Remo to get close to Rayner Fleming, and protect her from Stone, one of Grove’s henchmen. Stone returns to Grove with photographs of Remo, and Grove orders him to kill Remo in order to see what organization comes forward to claim his body. As Remo practices his Sinanju balance techniques on scaffolding surrounding the Statue of Liberty, Stone hires three construction workers to kill him. Remo fights the men. When a large bag drops from the sky, Remo’s attackers mistake it for his body, and are convinced he is dead. However, Remo emerges and attacks the men. Stone watches from below and sends two more gunmen after Remo. Chiun arrives and kills a man who aims his gun at Remo’s back. Remo reports Stone’s attack to Harold Smith, but Smith refuses to go after Grove claiming it would hurt their operation. Smith explains that if their identities were discovered, they would have to take their own lives to protect their secrets. Chiun admits he has been ordered to kill Remo in the event of their discovery. Sometime later, MacCleary and Remo break into Grove’s aerospace facility. While MacCleary steals computer files, Remo discovers the HARP prototype. Remo inadvertently triggers an alarm, and their presence becomes known. As the men flee, MacCleary is shot in the back. He gives Remo the files, and tells him to leave. MacCleary is captured and placed in a makeshift hospital bed, as Grove’s men prepare to question him. Left alone, MacCleary uses a knife to cut his life support machine, and kills himself. Smith tells Remo that the HARP defense system does not work, and Grove is scamming the government out of millions. He sends Remo to follow Grove to a military weapons testing site called “Mount Promise,” and advises him to make Grove’s death look like a “perfect accident.” At Mount Promise, George Grove shows Major Fleming photographs of her and Remo, and insinuates that they are working together. She leaves in anger at the accusations, and encounters Remo outside, disguised in Army fatigues. As she insults him, it occurs to her that Remo works for Army intelligence, and he allows her to believe this notion. Major Fleming apologizes to Remo, believing they are both investigating the faulty AR-60 weapon created by Grove. Grove sends one of his men to handle Major Fleming, and she and Remo are taken to a testing facility, and led in to an airtight chamber. When they are locked inside, Remo sees Grove’s henchman, Stone, through the chamber window, and realizes they are trapped. Stone gasses them, knocking Major Fleming unconscious. He enters the room wearing a gas mask, and strangles Remo, who removes Stone’s gas mask, and smashes his face into the window, pressing the thug’s diamond-encrusted front tooth into the glass, creating a weak point. Remo takes a running leap, smashing the window to escape. Grove learns that there was a fatality in the gas chamber, and is surprised to learn it was Stone, not Remo and Fleming who died. In the presence of General Watson, Grove hides his disappointment. General Watson believes Remo murdered Stone and kidnapped Major Fleming, and orders his men to capture Remo. Elsewhere, Remo and Rayner Fleming make their way through a forest, and become friendly, nearly sharing a kiss. Chiun follows them into the woods, and insults Remo for fraternizing with Fleming, who is insulted when Chiun tells her that a woman’s place is “at home making babies.” Remo accuses Chiun of being there to kill him, in the event that he is unsuccessful murdering George Grove. However, Chiun claims he only came to oversee his pupil’s Sinanju practice. The threesome make their way through the forest, and hijack a truck they find being repaired by the side of a road. However, the brakes fail, and they are forced to jump from the moving vehicle. Chiun did not bail out in time, but Remo finds him, unharmed, in the crushed truck cab. Chiun calls Remo “my son,” and waits with Major Fleming while Remo completes his mission to kill Grove. As Remo runs through a field, mines explode around him. He leaps onto a log being transferred by a pulley, rigged above the forest. While he dangles from the log, Grove fires high-powered artillery at him from a truck. Remo releases the log, which rolls down a hill and hits the truck carrying Grove and General Watson, and knocks it over a cliff. Remo joins Chiun and Major Fleming at a boat dock to make their escape. However, Grove emerges from the wreckage, pointing a gun at him. Remo dodges the bullets using his Sinanju training. He ignites a fire, which moves toward the overturned truck, causing an explosion that kills Grove. Elsewhere, Harold Smith listens to instantaneous classified reports of George Grove and General Watson’s deaths. As Army officers surround them, Chiun runs across the surface of the water toward the boat. Remo and Chiun flee, leaving Fleming behind to maintain her innocence. She smiles in amusement as they escape.