Ashes Of Time Redux

Lee Marshall in Cannes
19 May 2008 16:54

Dir: Wong Kar-wai. Hong Kong. 1994/2008. 93mins.

The first surprise about Wong Kar-wai's revamped, re-edited and rescored version of his 1994 cult wuxia classic Ashes Of Time is just how little has been changed. The second is how much these minor tweaks still have helped clarify the Hong Kong auteur's interpretation of Louis Cha's historical fantasy novel The Eagle-Shooting Hero, confirming that his most poetic, experimental film belongs not in the curiosity cabinet but on the big screen.

Wong Kar-wai is still a potent arthouse name. The difference between this and most previous other re-edits is that large swathes of its potential audience will not have seen the original – which was patchily distributed at the time, and has since been available only on muddy Hong Kong laserdisc or incomplete French DVD. So distributors' main targets will be receptive new viewers, rather than the small brigade of hardcore Wong fans.

In the end it's still Chris Doyle's striking original vision that dominates. Despite an end credit for extra cinematography from Kwan Pun-leung, new material is minimal, stretching, at a guess, to less than a minute in all (most of the extra five-and-a-half minutes' running time is taken up by the longer end credits). A few fight scenes have impressively been re-edited and one spectacular water sequence featuring Brigitte Lin looks new.

The seasonal chapter headings of the film's five interlinked stories – spring, summer, autumn, winter and spring – have been reinstated. Colour has also been digitally remastered. But the main novelty is aural, not visual. Chinese musical prodigy Wu Tong has completely rearranged the original score, giving it a lush sweep that enhances the wistful yearning of these stories of memory and desire. World-famous cellist Yo-Yo Ma also features as a soloist.

In the end we are left with the feeling that Wong has simply restored, rather than revisited, one of the most remarkable works of his career. Ashes Of Time uses its wuxia source material as a peg on which to hang a ravishing study in displaced, frustrated desire and loneliness, with a star-studded cast at their prime (Maggie Cheung has never looked more beautiful, or Tony Leung Ka-fai more tragically romantic). The drifters that pass through the film's remote desert locus are bound together by the film's narrator, the late Leslie Cheung, playing a world-weary agent who, for a fee, puts clients in touch with swordsmen-for-hire. Four years after Cheung's suicide, Ashes Of Time Redux reminds us of what a fine actor he was.

Production companies/backers
Jet Tone Productions
Block 2 Pictures
Scholar Film Co Ltd

Worldwide distribution
Fortissimo Films
(31) 20 627 3215

Producers
Wong Kar-wai
Jeff Lau
Jacky Pang Yee-wah

Screenplay
Wong Kar-wai
based on the story by Louis Cha

Cinematography
Christopher Doyle

Production design
William Chang Suk-ping

Editing
Patrick Tam
William Chang Suk-ping

Music
Frankie Chan
Roel A Garcia

Additional score and rearrangement
Wu Tong

Main cast
Brigitte Lin
Tony Leung Chiu-wai
Leslie Cheung
Carina Lau
Tony Leung Ka-fai
Maggie Cheung
Charlie Young
Jacky Cheung

http://www.screendaily.com/ScreenDailyA ... ryID=39049

dleedlee wrote:93mins

Weird...last time I saw the original version it ran 98m.

And this one apparently has 5 & 1/2 minutes of extra material (according to the above passages), yet it runs 5 minutes shorter than the original version. Hmmm, very interesting...

Yes, the timing is a bit puzzling.

The seasonal chapter headings of the film's five interlinked stories – spring, summer, autumn, winter and spring – have been reinstated.

This is good news, the theatrical screenings I've seen always had them intact.

one spectacular water sequence featuring Brigitte Lin looks new.

I wonder if this extends the old scene or the reviewer simply forgot about the original. I never liked the water jet scene myself, it looked too artificial to these eyes.

I'm curious about the new soundtrack. The original has always been my favorite, hands down.

Ashes of Time: Redux
Dung Che Sai Duk

(Hong Kong ) A Sony Pictures Classics release (in U.S.) of a Block 2 Pictures, Scholar Film Co. presentation of a Jet Tone Prods. production, in association wth Beijing Film Studio. (International sales: Fortissimo Films, Amsterdam.)
Directed by Wong Kar-wai.

With: Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Kar-fai, Brigitte Lin, Tony leung Chiu-wai, Maggie Cheung, Jacky Cheung, Carina Lau, Charlie Young, Bai Li.
(Cantonese, Mandarin dialogue)

By DEREK ELLEY

The temptation of artists to fiddle with their earlier works brings preditably mixed results in "Ashes of Time: Redux," helmer Wong Kar-wai's revisitation of his 1994 swordplay movie that competed at that year's Venice fest to connoisseur plaudits but general bemusement. For a long time not widely available on ancillary, and with the original negatives and sound materials imperilled, pic has now been restored in a version that more than captures the strikingly vivid, super-forced color palette of Christopher Doyle's lensing. "Redux" goes out stateside via Sony Pictures Classics in September.

New version of Wong's genre-bender runs two minutes shorter than the Venice print and five minutes shorter than the Hong Kong version. (Latter was bookended by swordplay montages to increase the action quotient, as there's relatively little fighting in the very philospohical, talky film.) But apart from a few dialogue excisions, added intertitles denoting various Chinese solar terms, and Taiwanese actress Brigitte Lin now speaking her own dialogue in Mandarin, it's basically the same densely plotted movie that played Venice.

With two exceptions. Completely new main and end titles, in color, replace the original's stark black-on-white ones and the original music score by Frankie Chan and Roel A. Garcia has been almost entirely replaced by new material and re-arrangements by Beijing-born Wu Tong, including cello solos by frequent Wu collaborator Yo-Yo Ma.

Both decisions have the effect of taking the pic out of the period in which it was made and giving it a look and feel that was largely alien to Hong Kong cinema of the mid-'90s, as well as separating it from the territory's pop-culture tradition. Wong has essentially rewritten his own auteurist history, re-positioning the pic among his output from "In the Mood for Love" onwards.

Chan and Garcia's lyrical synth-based score, with its breathy woodwind, rousing main theme and even other-worldly vocals, has been replaced by a much heavier, darker, more classical-Western score, which makes the whole viewing experience even more claustrophobic, in line with Wong's past three features.

Movie is still an amazingly bold take on an established genre -- as bold visually and structurally for its time as "Hero" (also lensed by Doyle) was to be eight years later. But it's now a picture divored from its true cultural and temporal roots.

Reviewed at Cannes Film Festival (Special Screenings, non-competing), May 18, 2008. Running time: 93 MIN.
http://www.variety.com/index.asp?layout ... egoryid=31

With two exceptions. Completely new main and end titles, in color, replace the original's stark black-on-white ones and the original music score by Frankie Chan and Roel A. Garcia has been almost entirely replaced by new material and re-arrangements by Beijing-born Wu Tong, including cello solos by frequent Wu collaborator Yo-Yo Ma.

Both decisions have the effect of taking the pic out of the period in which it was made and giving it a look and feel that was largely alien to Hong Kong cinema of the mid-'90s, as well as separating it from the territory's pop-culture tradition. Wong has essentially rewritten his own auteurist history, re-positioning the pic among his output from "In the Mood for Love" onwards.

Chan and Garcia's lyrical synth-based score, with its breathy woodwind, rousing main theme and even other-worldly vocals, has been replaced by a much heavier, darker, more classical-Western score, which makes the whole viewing experience even more claustrophobic, in line with Wong's past three features.

I was kind of surprised that the Screen Daily reviewer (first post here) didn't make more of this. Scores are such integral parts of any film, and to essentially replace an existing on with a brand new one opens up all kinds of potential for emotional re-interpretation on the part of the viewer, and I can't help but think that's a bit of a cheat, even if the revamped film still packs a punch. I wouldn't doubt that the new score is as good as a lot of writers are saying it is, but I suspect (only beccause I haven't seen it, of course) that the Variety writer makes a salient point about the new score separating the film from both it's context in Hong Kong film history and the greater Hong Kong pop culture of the era, which spawned it. Granted, it's Wong's film to do with as he pleases, but Elley's probably right in suggesting that Wong wouldn't have done these things even if he'd have had the chance in 1994.

And solos by Yo Yo Ma? How seven years ago . . .

And solos by Yo Yo Ma? How seven years ago

Not as bad as the Drums a la Tan Dun (CTHD) ! It's de rigueur anymore for all epic Chinese films anymore, it seems.

Derek Elley's review reads like he is more intimately familiar with the film than Lee Marshall's.

For me, replacing the score has the same effect as replacing the actors. But we'll see...

Brian Thibodeau wrote:

With two exceptions. Completely new main and end titles, in color, replace the original's stark black-on-white ones and the original music score by Frankie Chan and Roel A. Garcia has been almost entirely replaced by new material and re-arrangements by Beijing-born Wu Tong, including cello solos by frequent Wu collaborator Yo-Yo Ma.

Both decisions have the effect of taking the pic out of the period in which it was made and giving it a look and feel that was largely alien to Hong Kong cinema of the mid-'90s, as well as separating it from the territory's pop-culture tradition. Wong has essentially rewritten his own auteurist history, re-positioning the pic among his output from "In the Mood for Love" onwards.

Chan and Garcia's lyrical synth-based score, with its breathy woodwind, rousing main theme and even other-worldly vocals, has been replaced by a much heavier, darker, more classical-Western score, which makes the whole viewing experience even more claustrophobic, in line with Wong's past three features.

I was kind of surprised that the Screen Daily reviewer (first post here) didn't make more of this. Scores are such integral parts of any film, and to essentially replace an existing on with a brand new one opens up all kinds of potential for emotional re-interpretation on the part of the viewer, and I can't help but think that's a bit of a cheat, even if the revamped film still packs a punch. I wouldn't doubt that the new score is as good as a lot of writers are saying it is, but I suspect (only beccause I haven't seen it, of course) that the Variety writer makes a salient point about the new score separating the film from both it's context in Hong Kong film history and the greater Hong Kong pop culture of the era, which spawned it. Granted, it's Wong's film to do with as he pleases, but Elley's probably right in suggesting that Wong wouldn't have done these things even if he'd have had the chance in 1994.

I'm in two minds now as I've never seen the original film but it inches ever closer to the top of the "to watch" pile (unlike a lot of films, I know EXACTLY when and where I bought this - NY Chinatown March 2007!). Should I wait for the new version or watch the original version on my crappy Mei-Ah DVD with the burnt-in subs and unremastered visuals?

Aaarrgh!

Personally, I'd go for the original version first. That is the film Wong created on the first go-round, after all. This bit you quoted should be the strongest motivation:

Both decisions have the effect of taking the pic out of the period in which it was made and giving it a look and feel that was largely alien to Hong Kong cinema of the mid-'90s, as well as separating it from the territory's pop-culture tradition. Wong has essentially rewritten his own auteurist history, re-positioning the pic among his output from "In the Mood for Love" onwards.

I'm not saying that the new version will be bad. It will probably be phenomenal. It doesn't sound like he George Lucased all over it, but nevertheless, ASHES does occupy an important place in mid-90's Hong Kong cinema, and hopefully can still be enjoyed within that context. I certainly hope a future DVD or Blu-Ray (Criterion??) might contain both versions. The Mei Ah DVD may not be perfect, but the film within it is still a real treat!

.

OK, thanks for that. I'll try that one out first .