A god murders your father before you're born, and your mother spends your entire childhood hidden away, waiting for the moment she can fight back with nothing but a magical lantern. When that moment comes, it's not a grand celestial war, it's a mother's desperation against the uncle who owns the sky. The folklore is old enough that everyone thinks they know how it ends; this film bets everything on making you feel the weight of that ending anyway.

A young boy named Chenxiang grows up unaware of his extraordinary heritage: his mother is a goddess, his father a mortal man. Their marriage is forbidden, and his uncle, the stern and powerful god Erlang Shen, punishes them by killing his father. His mother escapes and gives birth to her son, but later Erlang Shen kidnaps Chenxiang. She fights to get him back and loses, and the boy is forced to live in his uncle's palace on the sacred mountains while his mother is imprisoned beneath a mountain. Still very young, Chenxiang slips out of the palace carrying the magical lotus lantern his mother lost in the battle, a light able to drive away evil. His journey brings him into adventures with many figures from Chinese mythology as he grows into a brave young hero who must face his uncle to free his mother, and who finds love along the way. The film is an action adventure fantasy built on traditional Chinese folklore.