Sacramento, late 1980s. Yello, a young Mien refugee who sells crack with his brothers Ray, Cesar, and KeeJohnny, is ambushed and shot outside his mother’s house. Katherine, the girl he has just fallen for, takes him to the hospital where her mother Karen works as an ER nurse, then hides him at her family’s lake house to heal.

While Yello recovers, his street family falls apart. KeeJohnny is arrested in a motel raid, swallows his drugs, and dies in custody. Cesar and Ray blame the police and struggle with their grief. At the same time, Big Sean, the violent crack addict who rules the apartment complex, recovers from a near-fatal beating and brings his cousin Oakie in from Tennessee to kill the Asian crew. Flashbacks take Yello back to his childhood village in the Golden Triangle and the knife attack that left him permanently disfigured.

Yello moves between two lives. At the lake he finds love, safety, and a chance at a different future. In the neighborhood, Ray and Cesar recruit younger boys and prepare for war. Oakie is killed while waiting in the dark to ambush Yello, and Big Sean dies after a neighbor slashes him open, crawling to a payphone as the residents he terrorized watch. Yello is left torn between Katherine’s world and the brothers he would die for.

The third installment follows Kao and his mother as they are forced into a refugee camp. Their situation grows more desperate as starvation and disease sweep through the camp, exposing young Kao to the cruelty and hideous acts of men pushed to the brink.