Set in the Gobi Desert, the story follows two protagonists, Captain Li (Jiang Wen) and Japanese emissary Lai Qi (Kiichi Nakai) - both first-class warriors and master swordsmen. After decades of service to an emperor of Tang Dynasty, Lai Qi yearns to return to Japan, but his only chance to get back to Japan is to capture and execute Captain Li, a renegade soldier wanted for leading a mutiny when he refused orders to kill female and child prisoners.

Li and Lai Qi battle, but finally agree to delay their final personal fight until the caravan carrying Wen Zhu and a Buddhist monk is brought to safety. Wen Zhu is the daughter of a deceased general whom Captain Li once saved.

The monk, however, is carrying a pagoda containing a sacred bone of the Buddha, that attracts the attention of the region's ruthless bandit leader An (Wang Xueqi). Lai Qi and Li, accompanied by Li's former posse of soldiers, who forsake their peaceful lives to return to his side, must face the cruelty of the desert, the region's barbaric bandits and the brutality of the overlord's men before they can finally face one another.

(China Daily 10/24/2003 page9)