Ashes of Time
| Ashes of Time | |
|---|---|
Film poster
|
|
| Traditional | 東邪西毒 |
| Simplified | 东邪西毒 |
| Mandarin | Dōng Xié, Xī Dú |
| Cantonese | Dung1 Ce4 Sai1 Duk6 |
| Literally | Eastern Evil, Western Poison |
| Directed by | Wong Kar-wai |
| Produced by | Wong Kar-wai Jeffrey Lau Jacky Pang |
| Screenplay by | Wong Kar-wai |
| Story by | Louis Cha |
| Starring |
Leslie Cheung Tony Leung Ka-fai Brigitte Lin Tony Leung Chiu-Wai Carina Lau Charlie Yeung Jacky Cheung Maggie Cheung |
| Music by |
Frankie Chan Roel A. Garcia |
| Cinematography | Christopher Doyle |
| Edited by | Hai Kit-wai Kwong Chi-leung William Chang Patrick Tam |
|
Production
company |
Jet Tone Productions
Beijing Film Studio Tsui Siu Ming Production Scholar Films Pony Canon Inc. |
| Distributed by | Newport Entertainment (HK) HKFM (US) |
|
Release date
|
|
|
Running time
|
100 minutes 93 minutes (Redux) |
| Country | Hong Kong |
| Language | Cantonese |
| Budget | HK$40,000,000 (estimated) |
| Box office | HK$9,023,583 (HK) US$1,912,490 (Redux) |
Ashes of Time is a 1994 Hong Kong film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, and loosely based on four characters from Jin Yong's novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes.
Wong completely eschews any plot adaptation from the novel, using only the names to create his own vision of an arguably unrelated film. During the film's long-delayed production, Wong produced a parody of the same novel with the same cast titled The Eagle Shooting Heroes.
Although it received limited box office success, the parallels Ashes of Time drew between modern ideas of dystopia imposed on a wuxia film has led many critics to cite it as one of Wong Kar-wai's most under-appreciated works.
Due to the original prints being lost Wong re-edited and re-scored the film in 2008 for future theater, DVD and Blu-ray releases under the title Ashes of Time Redux. The film was reduced from 100 to 93 minutes. Both the original and Redux versions can still be found on Asian markets, while only the Redux version is available to western markets. Several criticisms of the Redux version have been noted, such as poor image quality and color mastering from the source material, cropping and removal of portions of the bottom image, poor English translations, and the re-scoring.
In this film, set in ancient times in China, Leslie Cheung plays an agent, Ouyang Feng, hiring famous bounty hunters. His character is portrayed as a fallen swordsman driven by greed and heartless to both friend and foe. He was perpetually being spiteful of love as his own love history was not nearly so beautiful. His bounty-hunters came and went as was narrated by Ouyang Feng himself as based on the Tung Shu predictions.
In essence, he was a loner with little love, but the bounty hunters that worked for Ouyang Feng, like Blind Swordsman and another of his best fighters, Hong Qigong, discovered the intangible secret of true love while Ouyang retained his attitude towards his fighters and the precious lessons that they have taught. However, the thread that runs through the entire narrative has clearly the spirit of refusal in the sense that one should reject another before he gets to be rejected in the future. To illustrate, nearly every character in this story has resorted to being selfish and malignant in order to prevent being rejected by others, be it in love or in comradeship as their individual hardships have moulded their attitude turning them into heartless and cold individuals in order to survive in the uncompromising desert where the story is set.
...
Wikipedia