The movie describes the audience of the nameless protagonist (Jet Li) with the King of Qin (Chen Daoming), the largest of the warring kingdoms of China. The hero describes how he encountered three assassins after the king's life. The full story is revealed as a series of flashbacks, where the hero finds and defeats the assassins: the master of the spear, Long Sky (Donnie Yen), the beautiful Flying Snow (Maggie Cheung), and the calligrapher swordsman Broken Sword (Tony Leung). Through stylistic martial art sequences unfolds a story of romance and betrayal, as the king tries to find out the true motives of the unnamed hero, and tells a story of his own.