Ashes of Time is a 1994 Hong Kong film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, and inspired by characters from Jin Yong's novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes. Director Wong Kar Wai regards the film as his most important work.

Summary

The film follows the main antagonist Ouyang Feng, from the novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes, when he is a young man crossing paths with other important characters. The movie humanizes Feng and depicts the events that lead to his descent into villainy. It sometimes completely subverts the intended meaning of the novel, as in Feng's copulation with his sister-in-law, which is depicted as sinister and taboo in the book but is shown as true love in the film; the longing for her serves as a common theme that echoes throughout the movie.

Cast

Production

In the 1960s, King Hu's Come Drink with Me raised the artistic level of wuxia films. Wong grew up immersed in wuxia culture. In 1972, Bruce Lee's The Way of the Dragon brought jianghu culture to the global stage. In the mid-1990s, wuxia films entered a new stage. Wong selected characters from "new-school" wuxia novelist Jin Yong's novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes and created an unprecedented wuxia story. The film's story is a prequel to the novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes as it imagines the older characters when they were younger. It focuses on the main antagonist (Ouyang Feng) and humanizes him into a protagonist while retaining his despicable qualities. Feng, known as the Western Venom, crosses paths with the other powerful wuxia masters. Their backstories are depicted with great liberty and sometimes completely subvert the intended meaning from the novel. During the film's long-delayed production, Wong produced a parody of the same novel with much of the same cast (in different roles) titled The Eagle Shooting Heroes. Using negatives from around the world, 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.

Soundtrack

The music was composed by Frankie Chan and Roel A. García, and produced by Rock Records in Hong Kong and Taiwan. It was released in 1994. The redux version features additional cello solos by Yo-Yo Ma.

Reception

Critical response

When the film opened in Hong Kong it received mixed reviews. Critics found it so elliptical that it was almost impossible to make out any semblance of a plot, Wong Kar Wai made an introspective film that focuses on the main characters’ inner lives rather than their martial arts performances. This decision is very rare in a wuxia film (a genre of fiction about martial artists in ancient China). In The New York Times, Lawrence Van Gelder also gave Ashes of Time a mixed review: "For those who seek metaphors, Ashes of Time... presents the eye as well as the illusions of vision. One character is nearly blind. Another, a swordsman, goes blind in the middle of a horrendous battle. Two characters, Yin and Yang—one presented as a man, the other as his sister—are identical. And there is a brief appearance by a legendary sword fighter who hones his skills against his own reflection. For those who seek battle, Ashes of Time offers intermittent blurs of action, streaks of flying figures, flashing steel, and rare spatters and gouts of moist crimson, all washing across the screen like hurried brush paintings. Like the attainment of wisdom, Ashes of Time requires a long journey through testing terrain." The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 78% of critics have given Ashes of Time Redux a positive review based on 87 reviews, with an average rating of 6.80/10. The site's critics consensus reads, "Wong Kar Wai's redux, with a few slight changes from his 1994 classic, is a feast for the eyes, if a little difficult to follow." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100 based on 20 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Awards and nominations

Box office

Ashes of Time grossed HK$9,023,583 during its Hong Kong run.