The Escape From Huang Shi is the story of a young British journalist named George Hogg (Jonathan Rhys Meyers) who is covering the Japanese occupation of China in pre-World War II Asia. Along the way he meets a beautiful Australian nurse named Lee Pearson (Radha Mitchell) and the two begin courting. One day they encounter a bombed out orphanage with nearly sixty children still alive in it and they decide courageously to lead the children to safety. The journey to rescue is extremely hard and perilous though as they must transverse nearly a thousand miles of mountainous terrain all while being pursued by Japanese forces who will kill them all if they are caught.