Ashes of Time 1994

Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung) leaves his home at White Camel Mountain on the day of his brother’s wedding and drifts toward a desert village, where he opens an inn and offers his services as a killer. The place becomes a crossroads for wandering martial artists and shifting loyalties, a quiet outpost where honor, vendetta, and fate rub against each other as sand swirls outside the doors. Ouyang’s presence unsettles the locals and draws in rivals who test his resolve, while the inn’s walls absorb whispers of old feuds and new ambitions. In this harsh corner of the world, every visitor carries a price, every rumor hides a motive, and the line between hunter and hunted grows hazy with each passing night.

Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Ka Fai), a close friend of Ouyang, arrives at the inn each year to share a drink and a long talk before continuing his journey back to White Camel Mountain. On one such visit, he brings a jar of wine that is said to erase memories. Ouyang declines to drink, sensing trouble or perhaps sorrow in the bottle, while Huang quietly indulges. The glass seems to loosen the past rather than erase it, and Ouyang leaves the following day, pondering the deeper currents that drive his friend—currents tied to a woman and to choices that have haunted them both for years.

Murong Yang / Murong Yin (Brigitte Lin) is introduced as a prince of the former Yan kingdom who seeks Ouyang’s help to kill Huang Yaoshi after Huang breaks a drunken promise to marry Murong Yin, her sister. Murong Yin later visits the inn herself and asks Ouyang to kill Murong Yang, arguing that her brother has become possessive and will not allow her to marry Huang. Ouyang discerns that Murong Yang and Murong Yin are one and the same person, and the revelation plunges the woman into a destabilizing psychosis. The figure resurfaces years later in legend as the invincible swordsman Dugu Qiubai, a name that echoes through the story as a testament to a fractured identity and the cost of denying one’s own desires.

Blind Swordsman (Tony Leung) is an old friend of Huang who parted ways with him over his attraction to Huang’s wife, Peach Blossom. With his sight steadily failing, he longs to return home to see Peach Blossom one last time. At Ouyang’s urging, he offers his services to the village to defend them from a bandit gang, hoping the earnings could fund his journey home. He faces hundreds of bandits alone, and despite his courage, he is overwhelmed and killed, leaving behind a trail of memory and sacrifice that shadows the inn and its guests.

Looking to avenge her brother, a girl from the village presents herself with a mule and a basket of eggs, but Ouyang sends her away, unsettled by the personal risks involved. She remains at the inn, refusing to abandon her quest for a chance to see him change his mind. Girl with Mule (Charlie Yeung) becomes a quiet reminder of the costs that accompany every decision made within these desert walls. Soon after, Hong Qi (Jacky Cheung)—a down-and-out martial artist—takes up the girl’s offer, kills the soldiers in exchange for a single egg, and loses a finger in the process. After healing, he leaves the inn with his wife and later earns fame as the Northern Beggar, a symbolic turn in a life shaped by hunger, loss, and a hard-won code of conduct.

Meanwhile, the inn carries its own sorrow. Ouyang learns that his sister-in-law, whom he never fully moved on from, died of illness two years earlier. Before her death, she asked Huang to deliver the jar of wine to Ouyang. In the wake of this revelation, Ouyang decides to drink the wine himself. The act triggers a fierce transformation: he burns down the inn, returns to White Camel Mountain, and reconstitutes himself as the Western Venom, a figure defined by vengeance, isolation, and a singular, burning purpose.