Ashes of Time Redux

Up until now, the little-seen 1994 Wong Kar Wai film Ashes of Time was known to aficionados only through a poorly digitized DVD.

No more. As an older and wiser filmmaker, Wong has re-edited his admittedly sloppy original, added a lovely cello score by Yo-Yo Ma and adjusted the coloration to add more emotional power to the landscapes. The result: Ashes of Time Redux, an almost-masterpiece whose newfound majesty rivals the best of the director’s later films.

Ashes rotates a number of characters in and out of its narrative, but its primary protagonist is Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung), a heartsick loner who has dealt with the abandonment of his lover (Maggie Cheung) by surrendering himself to the desert. Feng makes his living as a gruesome middleman; he hires professional swordsmen to assassinate the enemies of vengeful locals and pockets the difference.

Feng is approached by Murong Yang (Bridgette Lin) and asked to arrange the killing of Feng’s old friend Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Ka Fai) as revenge for jilting Yang’s sister. Feng’s ambivalence forces Yang away.

The balance of the film, which includes several doomed requests from mercenaries and civilians alike, meanders aimlessly, but always returns to Feng’s solitude as both his damnation and saving grace.

It is impossible to tell much more because Ashes, by design, defies encapsulation. The film’s style is bound to the personalities of its characters, who are often haunted by hallucinatory visions. As a result, Ashes’s plot runs wild, but Wong never loses control; like Feng, he’s a master craftsman who doesn’t apologize for his limitations.

There are narrative circles and dead ends, but somehow it doesn’t matter; the movie adds up to something far larger than its individual scenes. What that something is is wonderfully open-ended. Is it a story of unrequited love? An existential dilemma dressed up as a Kurosawa western? A nihilistic denouncement of humanity? Wong lets the viewers decide for themselves – an act of artistic bravery that belies his relative inexperience (Ashes was only his fourth directorial effort).

Fair warning: Despite the film’s dynamo potential, don’t expect a chopsocky kaleidoscope like Zhang Yimou’s Hero and House of Flying Daggers. Like Sergio Leone, Wong prefers to tease his audience with long, languorous takes and then follow them with quicksilver violence. The film’s few short battles show the heroes as powerful but human; they’re miles away from Zhang’s godlike archetypes.

Their humanity is entirely in keeping with the remainder of Wong’s catalogue, which has always focused on vulnerable romantics victimized by fate. Ashes’s true power comes not from the aggression of its characters but from the tenderness of their creator.

Rating: ****