When his merchant father turns him over to Mongolian emperor Kublai Khan (Benedict Wong) in exchange for open trade routes, young Marco Polo (Lorenzo Richelmy) finds himself in service to the merciless ruler and working as a scout to gather valuable information about the Khan's adversaries. But he also must spend his time training with a blind martial-arts expert (Tom Wu) and navigating the ins and outs of an unfamiliar culture.