Protagonist Sidhu (Akshay Kumar) is the lowest on the totem pole, cutting vegetables at a road side food stall in Chandni Chowk in Delhi. He longs to escape his dreary existence and looks for shortcuts- with astrologers, tarot readers, & fake fakirs basically believing anything except himself, despite his father figure Dada's (Mithun Chakravorty) best efforts. His redeeming moment arrives when two strangers from China claim him as a reincarnation of a war hero in the past and take him to China. Sidhu now dreams of wine, women and a princely existence in foreign lands. Thanks to the devious translator, a conman by the name Chopstick (Ranvir Shorey), little does he know that he is being taken to the promised land to rid the Chinese village of the vicious smuggler Hojo (Gordon Liu).

Sidhu blissfully sets forth to China with Chopstick. Along the way he meets Sakhi (Deepika Padukone), the Indian-Chinese spokesmodel known as Ms. Tele Shoppers Media, or Ms. TSM, who has embarked on a journey to the land of her birth and her presumed-dead father and twin sister Suzy. Suzy, also known as the femme fatale Meow Meow (also played by Padukone) works for Hojo, not knowing Hojo tried to kill her father. Sidhu, through a series of lucky coincidences, initially manages to sidestep being beaten by Hojo's men, but Hojo eventually catches up with him and exposes him as the buffoon he really is. Hojo kills Dada, and a disgraced Sidhu, left for dead himself, vows revenge. He encounters an amnesiac vagrant who turns out to be former Police Chief Chiang, the father of Sakhi and Suzy. Chiang recovers his memory, with his Kung Fu skills still intact. He takes Sidhu on as his apprentice, and after months of training, Sidhu sets off to defeat Hojo, free the village, reunite the sisters, and win Sakhi's love.