Ashes of Time Redux 2008

In 1994, the same year they took the world by storm with the breathlessly urban Chungking Express, cinematographer Christopher Doyle and director Wong Kar-wai imbued the wuxia genre with languorous romantic longing in Ashes of Time. The late Leslie Cheung plays an agent working with swordsmen-for-hire. The clientele is a who‘s-who of the heyday of Hong Kong cinema, all at the height of their glamour. Marketed at the time as a stellar action extravaganza, the film foundered and has long been impossible to see in a good copy. Moments before hitting ‘print‘ on this year‘s programme, we secured screenings of Wong‘s newly revamped, re-edited and rescored version as premiered to critical euphoria two weeks ago at Cannes. Rejoice. The romance has only deepened with time. "Memories should be made of this." — J. Hoberman, Village Voice
"Wong has explained that he set out to make the definitive edition of Ashes after he discovered that there were many versions floating about, authorized and not. Culled from prints gathered from around the world, this newly re-edited and digitally tweaked iteration runs about 10 minutes shorter than the original, and rather more coherently. The fragmented story involves a melancholic desert dweller who functions as a kind of broker for various swordsmen (Tony Leung Chiu-wai included) and their clients (Brigitte Lin, among others). Drenched in shocking color - the desert shifts from egg-yolk yellow to burnt orange under a cerulean sky - the film is Mr Wong‘s most abstract endeavor, a bold excursion into the realm of pure cinema. It also now seems like one of his most important." — Manohla Dargis, NY Times