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Ashes of Time

1994 Hong Kong film by Wong Kar-wai From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Ashes of Time
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Ashes of Time (Chinese: 東邪西毒) 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. In September 1994, it was selected to compete for the Golden Lion at the 51st Venice International Film Festival. Director Wong Kar Wai regards the film as his most important work.

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Plot

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Ouyang Feng leaves his home at White Camel Mountain on the day of his brother's marriage. He sets up an inn near a desert village, where he offers his services as a killer and crosses paths with traveling martial artists. Huang Yaoshi, a close friend of Ouyang's, stops by the inn every year to drink with Ouyang before heading for White Camel Mountain. On one particular visit he brings a jar of wine, capable of erasing memories, but Ouyang declines to indulge. Huang drinks a cup himself, which Ouyang deduces is over a woman, and departs the next day.

Murong Yang, a prince of the former Yan kingdom, asks Ouyang to kill Huang as the latter had reneged on his drunken promise to marry his sister, Murong Yin. Murong Yin later visits and asks Ouyang to kill Murong Yang, as she believes her brother has become possessive and does not want her to marry Huang. Ouyang eventually deduces that Murong Yang and Murong Yin are one and the same. Descending further into psychosis, the character reemerges a few years later as the invincible swordsman Dugu Qiubai.

Blind Swordsman, an old friend of Huang's before breaking with him over the latter's affection for his wife, Peach Blossom, visits the inn. Rapidly losing his eyesight, he wishes to go home and see Peach Blossom one last time before he goes completely blind. At Ouyang's recommendation, he offers his services to the village, protecting them from a bandit gang and hoping the money could fund his trip home. Facing hundreds of bandits alone, he is eventually overwhelmed and killed.

Looking to avenge her brother who has been killed by a group of soldiers, a girl from the village offers up her mule and a basket of eggs, but Ouyang rejects her. She decides to stay by the inn until Ouyang changes his mind. Hong Qi, a down-and-out martial artist, takes up the offer and kills the soldiers in exchange for a single egg, but loses one of his fingers in the process. After recovering, he leaves the inn with his wife, and later becomes the famed Northern Beggar.

Ouyang is informed that his sister-in-law, whom he never truly move on from, has died after an illness two years earlier. Before her passing, she asked Huang to bring Ouyang the jar of wine. Ouyang ultimately decides to drink the wine, after which he burns down the inn, returns to White Camel Mountain and establishes himself as the Western Venom.

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Cast

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Production

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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.[4] 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.[4]

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.[5]

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.[6] The film was reduced from 100 to 93 minutes.[7]

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.[8]

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Reception

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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).[9]

In The New York Times, Lawrence Van Gelder also gave Ashes of Time a mixed review:[10]

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."[11] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 69 out of 100 based on 20 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[12]

Awards and nominations

Box office

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

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References

External links

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