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| Ashes of Time Redux | |||
"Back in 1994, six years before Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon introduced wuxia (the Chinese chivalry/swordplay genre) to a large American audience, Hong Kong director Wong Kar-wai set out to create a particularly ambitious and singular example of the form. Wong, who would go on to make such modern classics as Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love, cast virtually every major Hong Kong star — Leslie Cheung (now deceased), Maggie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, both of the Tony Leungs — and used a revered novel, The Legend of the Eagle Shooting Heroes, as (very) loose inspiration. Production took so long that he shot Chungking Express during a break in filming. The result, Ashes of Time, was so gorgeously incomprehensible that it was barely released in the US, and thereafter fell into semi-obscurity, known only to buffs and cultists. Hoping to correct that, Wong now presents Ashes of Time Redux, a fairly radical revision that adds cutting-edge digital effects and an entirely new score (performed by cellist Yo-Yo Ma) to a more streamlined, less allusive edit of the original narrative. The basic story … remains the same: a series of tangentially related encounters between Leslie Cheung’s brooding loner, who works as a broker for assassins-for-hire and their clients, and the various folks who wander by seeking succor and/or revenge. But the Redux cut is a little shorter and a lot easier to follow, if only because it’s now much more evident that the plot is just an excuse for Wong to orchestrate one self-contained, visually ravishing set piece after another." – Mike d’Angelo, Las Vegas Weekly "There is no such thing as the end when it comes to a Wong Kar-wai film, or so it seems.… Mr Wong has a long-nurtured reputation for taking his time when it comes to making movies.… His 1994 swordsman film, Ashes of Time, a delirious swirl of color and blinding star wattage, was two years in the making, though given Mr Wong’s recent work on it, you could say it was closer to a 14-year labor of love…. Yet it’s understandable that Mr Wong would stall and delay and stretch months into years because time itself… is one of his great themes …" – Manohla Dargis, New York Times "Wong heightens action tropes the way Sergio Leone found arias in western showdowns.... Asked to deliver a sword-fighting extravaganza, Wong perversely blurs, fractures and pixilates the choreography while having his all-star cast lounge around in overlapping reveries, soaking in the director’s themes of memory, being and love. (The “tumult of the heart” referenced in the opening Buddhist crawl is the focus.) No less than the romantics of his later films, Wong’s ancient warriors are obsessed with time and passion... Radically (almost maddeningly) disjointed but never less than intoxicating, Wong’s most obscure film is a trance worth falling into." – Fernando F Croce, Slant magazine |
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| Dun che sau duk, Hong Kong 1994/2008 | |||
Director/Screenplay: Wong Kar-wai With: Brigitte Lin (Yin Mu-rong/Yang Mu-rong), Leslie Cheung (Feng Ou-yang), Maggie Cheung (the Woman), Tony Leung Chiu-wai (Blind Swordsman), Jacky Cheung (Hung Chi), Tony Leung Ka-fai (Huang Yao-shi), Bai Li (Hung Chi’s wife), Carina Lau (Peach Blossom), Charlie Yeung (young girl) 93 mins, DV (16:9) In Cantonese, with English subtitles M violence Auckland Film Society |
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