Ashes of Time

[GeneChing]

Hmm, I couldn't find an Ashes thread. It's time for one.


Wong Kar Wai takes 'Ashes' to 'Ashes' (http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/09/DD5513D4FG.DTL&hw=ashes+of+time&sn=001&sc=1000)
Jeff Yang
Thursday, October 9, 2008

It's not a stretch to say that "Ashes of Time," which opens Oct. 17 in a lustrous, lovingly remastered new edition, is Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai's most polarizing film. Those who love it, myself included, call it one of the classics of contemporary cinema. Those who don't dismiss it as confusing and soporific - and it's easy to see their perspective.

Its narrative is opaque; characters drift through its story line on skewed trajectories, intersecting briefly before sailing out of the camera's span of attention. It is the most languidly paced martial arts film ever made; the entirety of Sammo Hung's action choreography adds up to perhaps a dozen out of the film's 93 minutes.

Most frustrating of all, at least for audiences weaned on Hollywood formula, it has neither a real ending nor a true beginning: The film's main characters, martial artists by the name of Ou-yang Feng the Poison West (played with a hustler's grace by the late, great Leslie Cheung) and Huang Yaoshi the Evil East (a debauched Tony Leung Ka Fai), arrive unintroduced and leave almost unillustrated, as if the richest part of their stories lie still ahead.

But all of this is intentional on Wong's part. He conceived "Ashes" as a prequel to one of China's great pulp classics, Jin Yong's epic swordsman novel "Eagle Shooting Heroes." For Chinese viewers, Ou-yang Feng and Huang Yaoshi are like Superman and Batman, figures who hardly need introduction. "These are characters from the second-best-selling Chinese-language text in the world," says Wong, "second only to Mao Zedong's 'Little Red Book.' "

This alone would make "Ashes" interesting, even if it wasn't a must-see on its own merits, and it is - a work full of haunting dialogue and indelible imagery that demands repeated viewing. But there's more going on here than dazzles the eye. Made in 1994, the first film Wong shot under the auspices of his production company, Jet Tone Films, "Ashes" is a movie about transitions, capturing a set of legends in the frozen moment before they became legendary.

"The characters in 'Ashes' are all facing a series of dilemmas," says Wong. "They're at a decision point. They can choose to go forward or go back. But until they choose, they're stuck with nothing but memories. And memories" - Wong grins beneath his omnipresent sunglasses - "are a *****."
Hong Kong is burning

Wong's works are more epochal, more resonant with the cultural moment, than those of virtually any other filmmaker, in part because of a creative process that draws heavily from his surroundings: improvised dialogue, spontaneous staging and narratives assembled in the editing room. So it isn't surprising that "Ashes" thematically reflects its environment - a society and industry poised at the brink of enormous change.

"Film to me has always been a way of showing where we are and where we can go," says Wong. "And when I look back at 'Ashes,' I feel it says a lot about Hong Kong cinema at that time."

In the early '90s, Hong Kong film was at its peak of popularity, its stars and creators at the height of their careers. But this burgeoning success contained the seeds of self-destruction. "In the '90s, we set the trends, we wrote the rules," says Wong. "But even then, it was clear to me that we had to be bolder and more aggressive - to not be afraid to not follow those rules."

And so with "Ashes," Wong embraced Hong Kong's most populist genre and then upended it, shattering its conventions. He took the era's best loved stars and pushed their personas to the point of distortion - for example, brilliantly reinventing the androgynous hero(ine) character Brigitte Lin made famous in movies like "Swordsman II" as a self-hating schizoid with dueling multiple personalities. The result was a work with its own dual personality - simultaneously an homage and a rebuke to an industry in danger of succumbing to complacency.
Shifting seasons

The veiled admonition in "Ashes" proved prescient. By the 1997 reunification of Hong Kong with China, the cinema industry in the former British holding was waning, victim of its own creative bankruptcy. Many of its best and brightest had left to seek out new opportunities in the West or, like Lin, retired from showbiz.

One of the casualties of Hong Kong's cinematic decline was "Ashes" itself. "We didn't know how to properly preserve things then, and now, no original film version exists," says Wong, who calls "Ashes" his "abused child." "We had to revisit this film if we wanted to save it."

So Wong has spent two years seeking out copies of "Ashes," weaving together fragmentary pieces of celluloid memory into a document that preserves the past, but also out of necessity reframes it. "We couldn't do a 100 percent restoration," he says. "There are pieces missing, there are parts beyond repair; we were forced to make certain editorial decisions."

One of the decisions was to refocus the narrative into five chapters, each named after a phase in the Chinese almanac. "Chinese people have a very different sense of time from Westerners," says Wong. "In the West, time is a straight line; in China, time is a series of cycles that continue to repeat" - like the changing of seasons and the great wheel of incarnation.

The restored film begins and ends in Jingzhe, a season of blooming and rebirth, a cycle of renewal that matches Wong's own mind-set a decade and a half after the film's original release. It's his belief, after all, that the release of "Ashes," in its sleekly resurrected form, comes during another transition point for Wong and the industry that made him.

"We are at another historical moment for Hong Kong cinema," he says. "We now have access to the enormous audience of the mainland, 1.3 billion people, where three new theaters are being built every day. Our canvas is now much, much bigger. And I think our best days are still ahead."

[SimonM]

Interesting... want to see this...

notes title, will have to hunt for a copy

[iron_silk]

...when I watched in a the theatre (when there was still Chinese theatres) where I live.

I understand that idea he had behind the movie and appreciate it since I grew up watching the television series back in the 80's.

I think it would have been way more impressive and geuine prequel if he actually used the story of the characters set out in the novel.

He was able to tell the story with the actual information background from the novels then I would think it would be much more creative. They he did it just seems like a story not really related (other than a few elements taken from the books).

[GeneChing]

When I first saw it, I hadn't read Jin Yong and didn't make the connection. Now I have a better idea about what this film was about.

[GeneChing]

I hope I get invited to a screener next week...

'Ashes of Time—: Classic film gets a makeover (http://www.mercurynews.com/movies/ci_10678765?nclick_check=1)
By Susan King
Los Angeles Times
Article Launched: 10/10/2008 12:00:00 AM PDT

LOS ANGELES — When the Asian financial crisis hit Hong Kong a decade ago, the lab where director Wong Kar Wai stored his prints went into bankruptcy.

On extremely short notice, Wong had to retrieve all his materials in just one evening. Much to his chagrin, Wong discovered that the lab hadn't been storing his prints in ideal conditions. His first independent production, the 1994 martial-arts epic "Ashes of Time," was in dire straits.

"When we checked all the material, 'Ashes of Time' was in a very bad situation because the film was actually in pieces," says the 50-year-old filmmaker ("In the Mood for Love," "2046"). "The negatives were soaked (with water) and had marks and scratches. We realized we would have to do something, otherwise the film wouldn't exist. We were forced to revisit the film."

While making other movies, Wong spent more than five years restoring and restructuring the cerebral martial-arts drama into "Ashes of Time Redux," which recently screened to warm notices at the Cannes and Toronto Film festivals, and opens locally Oct. 17.

In 1992, someone suggested to Wong that he read Louis Cha's martial-arts epic "The Eagle Shooting Heroes." The four-volume novel revolved around two elderly heroes, the Lord of the East and the Lord of the West.

"It was first published in the 1950s," Wong says. "It is like the second bestseller only to Chairman Mao's book. Generations of people have read this book. Now
people consider it more than a martial arts novel. Some compare it to (serious) literature."

"The Eagle Shooting Heroes" had been adapted several times before for the screen. So Wong tried a different approach: He would do a prequel, presenting the two protagonists as young men.

The resulting film "was very controversial because it's not exactly what people would have imagined," he says. Revisiting these characters before they became lords, Wong determined "we would have more space for ourselves to figure out the story. I read in one article Cha said his inspiration for these two characters came from Shakespeare, so I grabbed everything I know about Shakespeare, westerns, Chinese martial arts and Japanese samurai films. It is more like Shakespeare vs. Sergio Leone, but in China."

The late Hong Kong actor and pop superstar Leslie Cheung ("Farewell, My Concubine") stars as Ouyang Feng, a mysterious man who lives in the Chinese western desert after he was rejected by the love of his life. Cynical and without remorse, he makes a living hiring swordsmen to do contract killings. He becomes known as the Lord of the East.

Tony Leung Ka Fai plays Huang Yaoshi, Feng's swordsman friend who visits him in the desert every year to tell him his adventures. He becomes the Lord of the West.

Although "Ashes of Time" was released in Asia and in France in 1994, it played only Chinatown cinemas in the United States. So when it came time for Wong to restore the film, it was difficult finding prints from overseas distributors.

Eventually he found usable materials at the Museum of Chinese History in New York, as well as a warehouse in San Francisco that belonged to an owner of a Chinatown cinema that had been shut down.

But even with this material, "Ashes of Time" wasn't complete.

"When we got all the material and looked at it, we realized a 100 percent restoration wasn't possible," he explains. "Part of the film was too bad to be restored."

The only way to salvage the film was to restructure the story. The original version, he says, is less straightforward than "Deux." "The film is now 10 minutes shorter than the original," he says. "We had to replace some of the parts with alternative takes."

And the film is now structured into chapters just as a novel. "We used other takes from the material (we had) to create a linkage (between chapters)."

Resurrecting "Ashes of Time" was an emotional experience for Wong, not just because of his memories of his frequent collaborator Cheung, who committed suicide five years ago at age 46 but also because "Ashes" was his first independent production.

"This was the only way you could make films you really believed in and cared about," he says. "It tells you a lot about Hong Kong cinema in the 1990s. It was one of the best moments ever. You can see the energy and possibilities. This is where we came from."

"Ashes of Time Redux"

Opening: Oct. 17
Rating: R (violence)
Cast: Starring: Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Maggie Cheung
Director-writer: Wong Kar Wai
Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes

[Zenshiite]

I've only ever seen it in a really bad DVD transfer that I got from Netflix. I look forward to seeing it in a more presentable manner.

I wasn't even sure what I thought about it the first time I watched.

[Li Kao]

Hmm I'm really looking forward to seeing this remastered version as well. The version I saw years ago was a pretty crummy transfer as well. I do remember being pretty psyched to see this movie, as I was/am a huge WKW fan, although I have to say it was one of my least favorite of his films. Not so much because of the disjointed sequence of time (though it took more than 1 viewing to really digest what was going on), and certainly not because of the cast or acting -- it's probably the most star-studded of any of WKW's movies. I think it was just that the none of the characters really engrossed me or left a lasting impression.

I felt the same way about his last movie and Hollywood debut -- My Blueberry Nights. Don't get me wrong -- I enjoyed that movie and Ashes of Time -- they just weren't as enjoyable or entrancing as some of his others, like Happy Together, As Tears Go By, Chungking Express, Days of Being Wild, and In the Mood For Love. I'm also kind of bummed that WKW isn't working with cinematographer Christopher Doyle any more either -- I think he really helped to create those unforgettable and unique visual moods from WKW's earlier films.

I'm still going to check this release out on DVD -- maybe I will have a different impression of the film this go-round.

[GeneChing]

...I know, I know, sacrilege. I respect his work but it's always seemed a bit overrated to me. Nevertheless, I'm eager to see this.

Here's the official REDUX trailer (http://www.sonyclassics.com/ashesoftimeredux/trailer.html).

[Li Kao]

To be honest, I've tried to introduce some of his movies to friends over the years and not many have gotten into them. His stuff can get quite melodramatic and there isn't much action or humor to be had -- the kind of movies where you sit there in silence and watch the spectacle of the characters falling apart. One thing I will say -- Christopher Doyle and WKW were masterful at using colors, angles, visuals to paint a mood and he really knows how to capture the unsaid -- Tony Leung in particular has always amazed me how expressive he can be with just facial expressions. Leslie and Maggie have had some really great roles as well over the years.

I have a hard time verbalizing why his stuff appeals to me -- I guess it's the cinematic equivalent to listening to Dylan's "Blood on the Tracks" -- painful and yet poignant. Incredibly depressing and yet you shake your head in amazement at the same time.

[jethro]

When they release Ashes "Redux" on DVD, I hope they include the original version, because I've never seen it. I think I saw the version that Zenshiite saw. Completely unwatchable. The worst picture quality I've ever seen.

[GeneChing]

Read the articles above. The original version was lost.

[jethro]

Yeah I read it. Hopefully they can port over a good version so that people can see the original, and then see the redux. That's what I'm hoping for.

[GeneChing]

He breaks the first rule of movie reviews - don't just synopsize the flick.

jethro - if WKW had a good version of the original, he wouldn't have had to do the redux.


Martial arts movie survives translation
MOVIE REVIEW: 'ASHES OF TIME REDUX' (http://media.www.thespartandaily.com/media/storage/paper852/news/2008/10/14/StudentCulture/Martial.Arts.Movie.Survives.Translation-3485665.shtml)
Adam Browne
Issue date: 10/14/08 Section: Student Culture

Hong Kong director Kar Wai Wong also wrote the screenplay for "Ashes of Time Redux," an action movie based on a novel called "The Eagle Shooting Heroes" by Louis Cha.

The film is a remake of a 1994 version, "Ashes of Time," as indicated in the end credits, recut, remastered and updated in 2008.

This is evident whereas parts of the film are clearly shot in a different, grainier film style.

Set in the Gobi Desert in China long ago, the movie tells the sad tale of a lovelorn assassin who has gone into the wasteland because he has lost the woman he loved.

He and a friend decide to have one last meeting together, where his friend tells him about a wine that can erase memory. Then one of them takes the wine, forgets all about the other man and wanders off into the unknown.

The narrative is split into seasons, beginning on the night of a mysterious solar eclipse and it's illustrated with vibrant color and sepia-toned flashbacks; the harsh, sand-swept desert; rushing torrents of rain and bright days and cool, dark nights shot in moonlit colors.

Apparently, the assassin's friend was in love with his brother's wife, and they had an affair, ending in him leaving for another land. Then the friend wanted him dead for cheating on him.

In the desert town much later, the assassin was living alone, and he learns that bandits are attacking a village nearby.

And since he acts as a middleman for hiring other people to kill for him, he offers the job of killing the bandits to a passing stranger who is a swordsman.

The stranger apparently came into the village on his own, where he met a girl with a donkey and a basket of eggs, who wanted revenge on the group of bandits for the death of her brother.

In another instance, a woman pretends to be a man to gain the trust of the assassin and falls in love with him, is rejected and goes into hiding.

It turned out that she was an expert with the sword also, so much so that she can make water fly out of the sea by where she lives, as though she controls the sea with her sword. This doesn't seem to go anywhere so I suspected it was a dream.

The woman ends up not fighting anyone, which was unfortunate because there was so much buildup for her character.

Much of this movie was symbolic, so there were times that it was hard to tell what was a dream, a symbol or an actual event.

It also made more sense seeing information in the end, and in the narrative and credits, indicating this was actually a remake of an earlier work the director was attempting to make cohesive and whole with a different formula.

As for gore effects, this movie has plenty, including a few decapitations, a finger-severing scene and various hacking and slashing sword fights.

The narrative, though, was not all action. The acting was in Cantonese, so I had no way to critique the acting.

As for the emotional context, it was quite dramatic, and there were long periods of talking, but what they said was subtitled in interesting ways, so it flowed well.

The U.S. studios should never dub this into English because it would probably be obscured considerably. Western production companies have problems getting good dubbing on foreign films, especially from Hong Kong.

I'd probably rent it again just to clear up what was going on because with all the flashbacks and the use of original and new footage, it was hard to tell at times who was talking to whom and why.

Since it was a Chinese movie with English subtitles, there was something lost in translation, but it was a good film.

*This movie is scheduled to open in the Bay Area on Friday.

[jethro]

This version looks pretty good- http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FxKv0Mu72r4

They could port that over. I just want it on my TV screen. I hate watching movies on youtube.

[GeneChing]

Ashes has already left our local theater - only a one week run. I think it's still playing in S.F., but I'm not going to be able to get up there to see it. :(

Reviewed by James Bond! Just kidding...


‘Ashes of Time Redux' (http://www.catholic.org/ae/movies/review.php?id=30253)
By Roger Moore
10/27/2008

The Orlando Sentinel (MCT) - In Hollywood, directors used to earn their stripes by tackling that archetypal American genre, the Western. In China and Japan, martial arts epics fill that bill.

Before he made his mark "Chungking Express" and the quieter-than-quiet melodramas "In the Mood for Love," "My Blueberry Nights" and the interminable "2046," Wong Kar Wai took a shot at making his "Chinese Western." "Ashes of Time," a brooding, naturalistic prequel to the four-volume "The Eagle Shooting Horses" novels, came out in 1992, a slash-and-spatter martial arts piece that plays like a Chinese imitation of a Samurai Western. Now he's dusted it off, edited it, cleaned up the colors and given it a new score.

But if you're in the mood for a martial arts actioner, be warned. Even back then, Wong Kar Wai was in the mood for love. And talk. Lots and lots of talk. "Ashes of Time Redux" is all mood and narration and gorgeous images and extreme close-ups of very pretty actors, but precious little action.

In the deserts of China's lawless past, Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung) lives alone, a killer for hire. Once a year, his friend and fellow swordsman Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Ka Fai) visits. One year, he brings magical wine with him, wine that takes away your memories, both the painful and the wistful.

Ouyang recalls the woman who broke his heart, and we meet Yin and Yang of Huang's womanizing past. Murong Yang wants to hire Ouyang to kill Huang. And his sister, Murang Yin (Brigitte Lin), wants Ouyang to kill her brother for keeping her from her man.

There's a lot of confusing business with other swordsmen showing up, bandits slaughtered and haunting memories recalled and then forgotten. Some characters seem cribbed from Japanese Samurai tradition (the blind swordsman), and all are so under-explained as to make the viewer impatient for another blurred, impressionistic sword-fight. Lacking the literary context to it all is like trying to make sense out of "The Phantom Menace" without ever seeing the earlier "Star Wars" movies.

"Ashes of Time Redux" may be higher-minded than your average Drunken Master/Monkey Fist martial arts quickie. It's also a lot less entertaining. And Wong Kar Wai seems considerably more out of his depth than other Chinese filmmakers who have slummed in the martial arts genre. This can't compare to Chen Kaige's "The Emperor and the Assassin" or Yimou Zhang's "House of Flying Daggers."

But for some reason, "Ashes" has been restored and is earning a wide U.S. release. Considering the source, be grateful. He could have re-issued "2046."

[Li Kao]

Unfortunately I haven't been able to find it here in Phoenix at all. Bummer as I've never seen a WKW movie on the silver screen. Though I didn't really expect this to make much of a ripple except with maybe die-hard Hong Kong movie buffs.

[GeneChing]

Every review seems to say that this is a big screen experience and it's impossible to find on the big screen. I saw Chungking Express on a big screen (well, not that big - it was a small Chinatown theater) but it didn't move me that much. In fact, I remember feeling it was a bit too frenetic.


Ashes of Time Redux (R) *** | Moody martial arts tale explores extreme sadness (http://www.miamiherald.com/entertainment/movies/reviews/story/747757.html)
BY RENE RODRIGUEZ
rrodriguez@MiamiHerald.com

You should know going in that you will not be able to digest the beautifully convoluted narrative of Ashes of Time Redux in one viewing, no matter how closely you're paying attention. Originally made in 1994 (the same year Wong Kar Wai made his U.S. breakthrough with Chungking Express), the film has been released in a number of alternate versions and cuts over the ensuing 14 years. This new edit is the director's definitive imagining of his martial arts fantasy, but that fact doesn't make this version any easier to follow.

No matter. Wong's films (Inthe Mood for Love, 2046) are rarely about plot and more often about mood and feeling and, mostly, melancholy. Ashes of Time Redux is set in ancient China and has sequences of sword-fighting, balletic action and equally balletic bloodletting. But action-hungry fans are bound to be baffled, if not outright irked, at Wong's refusal to deliver the kinetic thrills the genre is known for, opting instead to shoot much of the big setpieces (and there aren't that many) in impressionistic still frames, slow-motion and flash cuts.

In fact, Ashes of Time Redux, which centers on a hired assassin (Leslie Cheung) and the assortment of clients who come to see him, is a gorgeous, dreamy meditation on romantic longing and heartache. This digitally remastered and rescored edition (with music by Yo-Yo Ma) amps up cinematographer Christopher Doyle's color palette to surreal extremes, reportedly incorporates bits of previously unseen footage (Wong refuses to reveal just how many, if any, new scenes are present) and makes the various stories about broken and lonely hearts a tad more streamlined.

But the film's appeal remains. Ashes of Time Redux is primarily a sensory experience that deserves to be seen on as big a screen as possible. That's where its lovely, haunting images -- a sad-faced woman on a horse, the light reflected from a pool of water skittering across her face; the impossibly large shadows the bars of a bird cage cast across a room; a solitary figure traversing a nearly-pink desert under an impossibly blue sky -- coalesce into a reverie of the sort of sweet, delicious sadness only a broken heart can generate.

Cast: Leslie Cheung, Jacky Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung.

Writer-director: Wong Kar Wai.

Producers: Wong Kar Wai, Jeffrey Lau, Jacky Pang Yee Wah.

A Sony Pictures Classics release. Running time: 93 minutes. In Mandarin and Cantonese with English subtitles. Violence, gore. In Miami-Dade: Regal South Beach; in Palm Beach: Shadowood.

[jethro]

Every review seems to say that this is a big screen experience and it's impossible to find on the big screen. I saw Chungking Express on a big screen (well, not that big - it was a small Chinatown theater) but it didn't move me that much. In fact, I remember feeling it was a bit too frenetic.

I saw it a long time ago, so I can't remember for sure ifI thought it was too frenetic, just boring. I swear thought I was the only one that didn't like that movie.

[doug maverick]

hey thats the old version this is the new version. its like watching the original blade runner and comparing it to the final cut. which was freaking amazing. when george lucas and speilberg touched up star wars and E.T. it was just stupid. but what ridley did with BR. with just really simple things made that movie a super masterpeice. i know he always wanted to do a sequal and i know the dvd sales for the final cut were through the roof really really big numbers so hopefully he gets a chance to.

[GeneChing]

Yea, I'm so bummed I missed this on the big screen. I'm just not going to be able to get up to S.F. for it. I'm not even sure it's still running up there even.

Ashes not that martial but definitely art (http://www.torontosun.com/entertainment/movies/2008/10/31/7259481-sun.html)
By LIZ BRAUN, SUN MEDIA
Last Updated: 31st October 2008, 3:20am

Ashes of Time Redux is a special film for Wong Kar Wai fans.

This is a revisiting of his rarely-seen 1994 movie Ashes of Time, which was known as the director's only martial-arts movie; Ashes of Time Redux was introduced here in September at the Toronto film festival.

The 'martial arts' tag confused viewers the first time around and will again, for while the film does indeed involve skilled swordsmen carving each other up in the desert, Ashes of Time Redux is a dream-like meditation about love, loss, memory and yearning. The cinematography is gobsmacking.

The story is based on Louis Cha's martial arts novel, The Eagle-Shooting Heroes and the storyteller is Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung), a loner who lives in the desert nursing his broken heart. Seems the woman he loved (Maggie Cheung) married his brother, because Ouyang left her alone too long.

Every year, Ouyang is visited by Huang (Tony Leung Ka Fai), another swordsman and adventurer. Huang appears to be quite a ladies' man, but his annual visit proves to be in the name of true love.

The stories Ouyang tells involve a swordsman who is going blind (Tony Leung Chiu Wai), a barefooted swordsman (Jacky Cheung) and his dedicated wife (Bai Li), a girl who can't afford vengeance (Charlie Young) and a murderous brother and sister team (Brigitte Lin in both roles) who seem to be two sides of the same form of suffering -- unrequited love.

"The root of man's problems is memory," says Ouyang at the beginning of the film, and when Huang visits, he brings a gift of magic wine that eradicates memory.

Regret over lost love seems to be the memory most worth losing.

Huang wanders off and encounters the blind swordsman; there are arresting flashbacks to the blind swordsman's wife, Peach Blossom (Carina Lau).

That skirt-chasing Huang later gets into trouble for jilting another woman, but as everything unfolds in an imaginary world with its own mysterious rules, it's almost impossible to keep track of the characters.

Wong Kar Wai has said that he wanted to show these martial-arts heroes at a time when they were still ordinary people and before their ascent to legendary status.

The cinematography says otherwise, with almost everyone bathed in an otherwordly golden light.

The light and colour throughout the film are often extraordinary, and a new soundtrack featuring Yo Yo Ma is generally mesmerizing.

And battle scenes are more like ballet, only with blood -- beautifully choreographed and somewhat dream-like in the way they unfold. There's a fair amount of dying in slo-mo. It's all lovely but confusing, not unlike love itself.

The passage of time is rarely pretty, however, and Ashes Of Time Redux is all about that.

This is a film for followers of Wong Kar Wai and for fans of nostalgia.

You know who you are.

[jethro]

hey thats the old version this is the new version. its like watching the original blade runner and comparing it to the final cut. which was freaking amazing. when george lucas and speilberg touched up star wars and E.T. it was just stupid. but what ridley did with BR. with just really simple things made that movie a super masterpeice. i know he always wanted to do a sequal and i know the dvd sales for the final cut were through the roof really really big numbers so hopefully he gets a chance to.

I don't know if you are responding to me with this, but you may have misunderstood my comment. I was commenting on what Gene said abotu Chungking Express. But I may have to check out the dc of Blade Runner. I remember that movie was just average, maybe a little bit above average, but I wil try and check out the dc.

[doug maverick]

I don't know if you are responding to me with this, but you may have misunderstood my comment. I was commenting on what Gene said abotu Chungking Express. But I may have to check out the dc of Blade Runner. I remember that movie was just average, maybe a little bit above average, but I wil try and check out the dc.

well its not a DC cut every cut of that movie was a DC. this is a Final Cut. and i agree first time i saw it i was like eh, and when i saw the final cut at the zeigfeild (world reknowned theater in new york) and then again on dvd, i was astounded.

[Li Kao]

Not my favorite WKW, but it still had some strong performances -- I really liked Faye Wong's character and I'll agree that the 1st 1/2 of the movie (with Brigette Lin's character) was *very* frenetic, although I think he just wanted to portray the hectic pace of Hong Kong streets at night as well as well as the whole assassin thing, so I thought it was sort of a way to affect the mood. Although I don't always like that kind of jerky camerawork -- like the fight scenes in the 1st couple of Bourne movies where you can't really tell what's going on.

Haven't seen the Blade Runner Final Cut, though that one is a classic -- I'll have to check it out.

[jethro]

hmmm, maybe I don't remember it being too frenetic because I'm just used to it after seeing so many HK movies. A lot of the Hk movies I like move at a very fast pace. So maybe that's why I liked the stuff with Brigitte Lin, but the stuff with Faye wong and Tony Leung I found BORING. But then again, that's not the type of movies I like to watch. HK action, wuxia, and comedies, mainly Stephen Chow is what I prefer.

[Zenshiite]

So it looks like I might be able to swing checking this out this weekend. It opened here in Portland OR today.

[GeneChing]

...I suppose I'll enjoy the DVD on my HD widescreen. Still, nothing like the big silver screen, but the run was so short, we'll have to make do.

Martial arts reverie a beauty (http://www.canada.com/montrealgazette/news/movies/story.html?id=818bb59e-b1e4-4558-aaa4-8b28fe81bccf)
JOHN GRIFFIN, The Gazette
Published: Friday, November 07

Ashes of Time Redux

Rating 4

Starring: Leslie Cheung, Li Bai, Maggie Cheung and Carina Lau

Finally, there is some small justification for nailing a flat-screen television on the wall where a perfectly good painting should hang. It's called Ashes of Time Redux, it's a movie by Chinese auteur Wong Kar-Wai, and it's literally as pretty as many, many pictures.

It's in theatres now and should be seen in this format immediately. But it will also look fine playing on an endless loop over the mantelpiece when it eventually comes out on DVD.

Who knows? Watched often enough, it may even make sense. If you think you know Ashes from somewhere, you do. Redux (As in Apocalypse Now Redux) is a completely reworked version of the jinxed 1994 production that almost totalled the director's career, and forced him to make the happily uncomplicated Chungking Express while the whole mess was on hiatus.

Genius cinematographer Christopher Doyle's ravishing colour and visuals have been enhanced, the editing edited, the story - a cyclical meditation on memory, mortality and the folly of undue pride - partially decoded, and the score smartened up, with cello courtesy of the masterful Yo Yo Ma.

We are told that this is the version of his martial arts reverie Wong Kar-Wai wished for way back when. Believe it. The stripping away and/or addition of certain effects and trickery place this in the pantheon with his all-atmosphere classics like In the Mood for Love.

Ah, yes, the beauty. Ashes is set in a golden desert, broken by oasis splashes of green, skyscapes, distant mountains, and any number of the more handsome men and women on Earth. The late Leslie Cheung is a heartbroken, hardbitten former hitman who moved to the desert after the woman he loved rejected him for another man who happened to be his brother.

Solitary now, but for the parade of idiosyncratic swordsmen he hires for various and sundry contract jobs - revenge murders, protecting helpless villagers from marauding banditos astride gorgeous horseflesh - he has lots of time to think of paths not taken.

Thanks to a handy bottle of magic wine that wipes out memory, he also has time to forget. Into this metaphysical limbo swim visions of Li Bai, Maggie Cheung and Carina Lau, that's right, the loveliest women on the planet.

There is magnificent swordplay, though it comes late in the proceedings and is without the impossible acrobatics so beloved of mainstream martial arts epics. Instead, they and this visually dazzling film are full of the fast cuts, fractured, blurry light, elegant slow motion and repetitive images for which the director is internationally revered. See Ashes of Time Redux now, then see it again and again and again, at home, where that painting should be.

[Mr Punch]

The Roger Moore review says that the blind swordsman archetype is cribbed from Japanese popular MA (movie) tradition... is that true? There must have been notable Chinese versions of blind fighters before?

[GeneChing]

I confess, I don't quite *get* Wong Karwai. He's a filmmaker's filmmaker. If you're into film, you roll over and soil yourself over the amazing things he's doing with his cinematography. I can see where that's cool and all, but his works never quite come together for me. What makes Ashes even more complicated is that it's a prequel to a mammoth classic of wuxia literature, Jin Yong's Eagle Shooting Heroes, which of course, I haven't read. Don't get me wrong - this is a gorgeous film and it undeniably showcases the power of one of my favorite actresses, Maggie Cheung. Many of the shots are astoundingly creative. But it's slow, plodding and full of melancholy. That contributes to the overall mood, and in the end, delivers something, but it's not the wine of forgetfulness as promised.

If you're into art film and martial arts, it's a must see.

If you just want to see some ass kicking kung fu, skip this one.

I will say that this is a spin on the blind swordsman archetype (if you want to discuss Zatoichi, we do have a thread for it (http://kungfuqigong.com/forum/showthread.php?t=34433)). It's not fair to say that this was cribbed from Zatoichi. In all of those blind warrior films, the hero is already blind. In Ashes, the hero is going blind. That's a completely different dynamic, more akin to Robert Vaughn's character in Magnificent Seven. It's not about having sightless superpowers. It's the opposite - grappling with the inevitable decay of the flesh. One is a comic book fantasy and the other is a very palpable reality.

[Zenshiite]

I think Redux is much better than the original cut. I actually got.

Also, fun fact, did you know that Kar Wai produced another movie simultaneously with Ashes of Time called 'Eagle Shooting Heroes' that was actually a comedic musical take on the story? With the same cast as Ashes, no less. http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Eagle_Shooting_Heroes/70101658?trkid=222336&lnkctr=srchrd-sr&strkid=1656054453_0_0

[Shaolinlueb]

post must have got lost.

i own this movie. it kinda sucks from what i remember.

[GeneChing]

... I love the final two paragraphs in this review. Lucia really nails it.

DVD REVIEW: Remixed 1994 Classic Turns Kung-Fu Genre on Its Head (http://www.californiachronicle.com/articles/yb/128364044)
April 02, 2009
By Tony Lucia, Reading Eagle, Pa.

When, in one of the DVD's extras, critic J. Hoberman describes "Ashes of Time Redux" as something like "Last Year at Marienbad" with moments of intense swordfighting, he comes as close as anyone has to capturing the elusive essence of Wong Kar-Wai's remix of his 1994 romantic reverie.

That is to say, anyone expecting a conventional kung-fu picture -- its source novel already having been the basis for several -- would be confounded. I'd guess that was Sammo Hung's reaction: The martial-arts superstar who choreographed the action saw his elaborate sequences pared down to brief, impressionistic interludes that play like dreams within dreams.

Then again, throw preconceptions out the window and you might be blown away.

No, this is not the world of, say, "Once Upon a Time in China" (not quite as good a title, but apt) or the supercilious artiness of a "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" or even the giddier efforts of King Hu ("A Touch of Zen").

It's that of a genre reinvented, from the inside out.

As with his star-crossed treatment of science fiction in "2046," Wong molds the swordplay epic to serve his obsessive themes of love without hope, of time frozen in longing, of memory freighted with regret.

It takes place nowhere -- a windswept shack in the Mongolian Desert. A swordsman (the late Leslie Cheung) confers with business clients: killers, and those looking to have someone killed.

A man demands revenge on the suitor who spurned his sister -- then she shows up seeking the death of the brother. Or are they the same person?

A swordsman losing his sight hangs out, waiting for a job so he can make enough to return to his village for one last glimpse of the peach blossoms. Or is it someone named Peach Blossom?

A reckless young man sharpens his talent, only to nearly lose everything. Or has he gained much more?

And as for the proprietor? He, too, knows about loss.

Dazzlingly filmed by the infl uential Christopher Doyle and designed by William Chang, "Ashes of Time Redux" came about when the lab where the elements of the original film were stored went bankrupt and Wong found them on the verge of decay. (More of this story is included in the extras, including a 40-minute interview with Wong that in itself merits a rental.)

"Redux" is mostly a restoration, and partly a revision; there are subtle changes, including some newly recorded music, but the general, episodic shape is largely intact.

Wong's almost ridiculously attractive cast amounts to a Who's Who of the 1990s Hong Kong fi lm industry: Besides Cheung, in a marvelously opaque, internalized performance that reminds us of what we've lost, there are Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Tony Leung Ka Fai, Maggie Cheung and Jacky Cheung, Brigitte Lin and Charlie Yeung.

They don't so much perform, though, as haunt the film. Seasons pass; they languish. Closure? Their characters' fates are relegated to a few elliptical titles. That Wong so brusquely dismisses narrative elements that would serve more conventional filmmakers as foundation is key to his vision: A fight to the death ultimately is of less import than the reasons for seeking oblivion.

[GeneChing]

It was also kind of a hellish watch...:rolleyes:

Wong Kar-Wai Reminisces About Hellish Shoot for 'Ashes of Time' (http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/wong-kar-wai-reminisces-hellish-664065)
10:45 AM PST 12/9/2013 by Lee Hyo-won

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/sites/default/files/2012/08/wong_kar_wei_-_p_2012.jpg
getty Images
Wong Kar-Wai
The Hong Kong filmmaker tells South Korean fans that the 1994 film encouraged him to make "Chungking Express."

SEOUL -- Wong Kar-Wai looked back to a time when he was making a movie "with the determination to die," during a promotional event for the South Korean premiere of Ashes of Time Redux.

Though the 2008 version of the original 1994 Ashes of Time, which included digitally re-mastered audiovisuals as well as new subtitles, narration, and music, was introduced in Korea through local film festivals, it was released in Korean theaters on Dec. 5.
Wong met with local fans for the occasion and reminisced about the tough conditions under which he completed the film.
"I was determined to die after shooting Ashes of Time in the [Gobi] desert," he said in a theater in Seoul. "It was my first time setting the backdrop of a film in the desert instead of a city, as well as in ancient times rather than the present."
He spent two years filming in the desert with great resolve, he said. "There were requests to include heavy martial arts sequences but I made no compromises. I felt very proud about that and learned to trust myself. I felt unafraid to take on any film after shooting Ashes of Time and was able to complete my next project, Chungking Express, in just two months."
Though the production wrapped rather swiftly for Chungking Express, post-production was a challenge. Wong had finished editing the film just 90 minutes before its premiere, and had to rush deliver it to Hong Kong theaters.
But because the analog film cases could only each hold 10 minutes’ worth of the film, not all nine boxes of the 90-minute-long movie were delivered to all of the theaters. Some audiences who did not get to see the last 10 to 20 minutes saw different endings to the film.
"Because of Chungking Express, Hong Kong theaters came up with a new rule not to screen films until the entirety of its footage arrives,” he said.
Ashes of Time Redux is now showing in local theaters along with Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love (2000).