Ashes of Time Redux

(Wong Kar Wai, 2008, Hong Kong, 94 minutes)

Screening in 35mm!

Every major Chinese-language director seems to make at least one wuxia in their career—Ang Lee with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Hou Hsiao-hsien with The Assassin, Zhang Yimou with Hero, etc.—and 1994’s Ashes of Time is Wong’s. Based on legendary Chinese text The Eagle Shooting Heroes, by Louis Cha (which book Wong says is as vital to Chinese culture as The Lord of the Rings is to English culture), Wong does not exclusively draw within the lines of the novel. Ashes of Time alternates between three of the novel’s four main characters, Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung), Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Kar Fai), and Hong Qi (Jacky Cheung), as well as the Wong-invented character of The Blind Swordsman (played by Wong regular Tony Leung Chiu-wai), and with Maggie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Carina Lau, and many more in smaller roles. Wong, ever the tinkerer, kept working on Ashes of Time for many years after its initial release, and in 2008 premiered this new cut, Ashes of Time Redux, which, among other things, featured a new score with cello solos performed by Yo-Yo Ma.

In Cantonese with English subtitles.

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