Ashes of Time Redux (Wong Kar Wai, 2007)

[zedz]

I've always loved this film, and the redo is magnificent. Considering that it's a film about the inevitability / impossibility of forgetting, it seems to me completely appropriate that every time I see it it appears slightly different - aided immeasurably by the fact that every time I've seen it (four times: 35mm, VHS, DVD, Redux) it probably has been slightly different!

The film's visuals are so hallucinatory they blow other trippy desert films (e.g. Jodorowsky) out of the water, and that's leaving aside the astonishing "blowing stuff out of the water" shots. In the new version I missed the initial battle scene, which struck me on first viewing as the most imaginatively-conceived action sequence I'd ever seen, all kinetic smears in frozen, headlong time, but several similar sequences remain in the second half of the film to keep me happy. Doyle is consistently inventive, wringing effect after stunning effect from simple filters and basic lighting props. Unlike some of his projects, however, his work here seems to be perfectly in tune with the material, and he also shows that he can hold back to deliver a couple of the most exquisite close-ups ever committed to celluloid - those breathtaking shots of Maggie Cheung towards the end.

This is also a film where Wong's trademark loose, improvisatory narrative mode works beautifully: the stories have the approximated, smoothed feel of oral histories handed down and shaped by multiple retellings, and that sense of half-remembering is beautifully embodied in the film's oblique visuals and distracted editing. (Added bonus: the underlying story actually does hold together if you go to the trouble of reconstructing it). By rights, 2046 should have worked in the same way, since it has a lot of the same qualities, but I find it much less satisfying as an organic, sensual, visceral experience.

I'm sure this will be out on DVD soon enough, but if you have the chance to see it on the big screen, don't pass it up: one of the all-time-great movie-movies.

[manicsounds]

So Artificial Eye for the UK, Sony for the US. I still wonder if they are both thinking about including both cuts for the DVD.

[Cosmic Bus]

Very nice-looking trailer in HD; that horribly overused scream Sony(?) added near the end made me chuckle, though.

Fourteen years on, it's kind of strange to think the trailer is the first time many people will have seen this film in something other than an abysmal DVD transfer. It'll never play in this area, so I'm certainly anticipating the disc (hopefully high-def, too) release in... spring of '09?

[kupo]

I'm hoping this film will wash away the lingering aftertaste of My Blueberry Nights for any disappointed Wong fan.

I must say, after my previous viewing (I've only seen the original version to date), I considered this lower-tier Wong, along with Fallen Angels. But, with repeated viewings of his output, my opinions on his filmography has shifted greatly (I now see Fallen Angels as the apotheosis of a great deal of his middle-period style, and thus, even if I don't enjoy it quite as much as Chungking, I ultimately feel it is a more important film...if that makes any sense). And the more I've thought about this film, the more I'm thinking that seeing Redux might confirm this as essential-Wong, along with the likes of Mood.

A question for those that have seen it: how do you feel about the new score? I admit the old score was...odd. But that's exactly why I loved it so much. From those I've heard commenting on the film, the consensus seems to be that the new score sounds more typical to the "mainstream" wuxia films that have been popping up.

[poohbear]

Does anyone know how wide of a release this is going to get in the US?

[Grimfarrow]

So Artificial Eye for the UK, Sony for the US. I still wonder if they are both thinking about including both cuts for the DVD.

No. It's impossible.

[Cde.]

So Artificial Eye for the UK, Sony for the US. I still wonder if they are both thinking about including both cuts for the DVD.

No. It's impossible.

I'm guessing this is due to a rights issue. Couldn't whoever owns the rights release a quality DVD of the original cut? I'm sure there's a market for it. If such a DVD doesn't appear, it would seem Wong is guilty of Lucasing.

[Cde.]

True. I just thought he may view the Redux as the 'final' version of his work and prefer that the original cut not see distribution. Nonetheless, that probably wouldn't stop anyone from releasing it anyway.

[royalton]

It's a real shame if the original does not get a better release. I'd love to see both in an SE.

It's a beautiful, spellbinding film; one you can sort of languish in, like all his work. At first it can be perplexing if you're expecting a wu xia blowout spectacular, but once you realize that it's simply another amazing mood piece with a different kind of backdrop, it reveals itself to you. The one thing that still perplexes me, though, is the identity and the purpose of the shots at the beginning and end of the film, of the two longhaired swordsmen fighting, first on a cliffside, then at night. It looked like Hong Qi and Huang Yaoshi, but I couldn't be sure.

[Grimfarrow]

It's impossible because the original negatives are gone. You won't get any other version except for the Redux one.

[poohbear]

It's impossible because the original negatives are gone. You won't get any other version except for the Redux one.

The French and Japanese dvd debunks this theory.

[Grimfarrow]

It's impossible because the original negatives are gone. You won't get any other version except for the Redux one.

The French and Japanese dvd debunks this theory.

They are not from the original negative. Plus, if you're satisfied with the quality of those versions, then you already have them.

[Cde.]

Surely there's some quality prints somewhere? It would be a shame if a lot of the missing material is never seen in decent quality.

Surely, if Wong was able to make the Redux, it's possible to make a higher quality transfer from existing materials.

[jon]

Will anybody be seeing this in New York on October 10th? I'm planning on heading down there for the weekend, but am not quite sure where/when/how public it will be. I want to order the tickets as soon as possible, maybe through the theatre. Any information would be awesome. I am kind of in the dark on this and can't find any good information online.

[chaddoli]

You can't buy tickets this far in advance at most theaters. Maybe somebody knows for sure, but I figure this will be playing at one of the downtown arthouses like the Landmark Sunshine or the Angelika, so keep checking for those theaters. I'm sure when the theater is announced I (or somebody else) can post it.

[MichaelB]

Surely there's some quality prints somewhere? It would be a shame if a lot of the missing material is never seen in decent quality.

When I saw it in 35mm in London in (I think) the late 1990s, the print was in pretty poor condition.

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

Wong says that they intended to do a straight restoration, but too much of it was deemed unrestorable, and that's when he started recutting it. I suppose it wasn't a big leap from "let's use some alternate takes to fill in the gaps" to "let's add some Yo-Yo Ma here." I would be fine with seeing the HK cut brought up to the standard of, say, the TF1 disc (no world-beater, but much better-looking than the alternatives), or failing that, a "best attempt" restoration with lower-quality footage for the "unsalvagable" sections -- I can see how that might be unappealing for theatrical distributors, but I think it'd work as a video release. But I'm not holding my breath.

[thirtyframesasecond]

I saw this earlier in the week. It seems to be showing only in one London cinema.

I haven't seen the originally released version so can't make any direct comparisons. I understand though that more emphasis is placed upon the Ouyang Feng character in this version. You wonder whether WKW is trying to cash in on the current wuxia revival, but this film couldn't be any different to the Zhang Yimou model. Both share a similar aesthetic brilliance - Chris Doyle was the DoP for Hero, but it essentially works like any other WKW film - the ruminations on love and loss could have come straight out of Chungking Express.

[Antoine Doinel]

An interview with WKW about the flim.

[Adam]

LA Times article on it today:

THE INDIE EYE

ONE MORE TIME: Director Wong has re-edited his 1994 “Ashes of Time” after the original materials deteriorated.

When the director discovered that prints of his 1994 work were damaged, he set out to restore the film.

By Susan King, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 5, 2008
WHEN THE Asian financial crisis hit Hong Kong a decade ago, the lab where director Wong Kar Wai stored his prints went into bankruptcy.

On extremely short notice, Wong had to retrieve all his materials in just one evening. Much to his chagrin, Wong discovered that the lab hadn't been storing his prints in ideal conditions. His first independent production, the 1994 martial-arts epic "Ashes of Time," was in dire straits.

"When we checked all the material, 'Ashes of Time' was in a very bad situation because the film was actually in pieces," explains the 50-year-old filmmaker ("In the Mood for Love," "2046") during a recent visit to Los Angeles. "The negatives were soaked [with water] and had marks and scratches. We realized we would have to do something, otherwise the film wouldn't exist. We were forced to revisit the film."

While concurrently making other movies, Wong spent over five years restoring and restructuring the cerebral martial-arts drama. "Ashes of Time Redux," which recently screened to warm notices at the Cannes and Toronto Film festivals, opens Friday in theaters.

A new approach

BACK IN 1992, someone suggested to Wong that he read Louis Cha's martial-arts epic "The Eagle Shooting Heroes." The four-volume novel revolved around two elderly heroes, the Lord of the East and the Lord of the West.

"It was first published in the 1950s," says Wong. "It is like the second bestseller only to Chairman Mao's book. Generations of people have read this book. Now people consider it more than a martial-arts novel. Some compare it to [serious] literature."

"The Eagle Shooting Heroes" had been adapted several times before for the screen. So Wong tried a different approach: He would do a prequel, presenting the two protagonists as young men.

"Ashes of Time" "was very controversial because it's not exactly what people would have imagined," he says. Revisiting these characters before they became lords, Wong determined "we would have more space for ourselves to figure out the story. I read in one article Cha said his inspiration for these two characters came from Shakespeare, so I grabbed everything I know about Shakespeare, westerns, Chinese martial arts and Japanese samurai films. It is more like Shakespeare versus Sergio Leone, but in China."

The late Hong Kong actor and pop superstar Leslie Cheung ("Farewell, My Concubine") stars as Ouyang Feng, a mysterious man who lives in the Chinese western desert after he was rejected by the love of his life.

Cynical and without remorse, he makes a living hiring swordsmen to do contract killings. He becomes known as the Lord of the East.

Tony Leung Ka Fai plays Huang Yaoshi, Feng's swordsman friend who visits him in the desert every year to tell him his adventures. He becomes the Lord of the West.

Though "Ashes of Time" was released in Asia and in France in 1994, it played only Chinatown cinemas in the U.S. So when it came time for Wong to restore the film, it was difficult finding prints from overseas distributors.

Eventually he found usable materials at the Museum of Chinese History in New York, as well as a warehouse in San Francisco that belonged to an owner of a Chinatown cinema that had been shut down.

But even with this material, "Ashes of Time" wasn't complete. "When we got all the material and looked at it, we realized a 100% restoration wasn't possible," he explains. "Part of the film was too bad to be restored."

The only way to salvage the film was to restructure the story. The original version, he says, is less straightforward than "Deux."

"The film is now 10 minutes shorter than the original," he says. "We had to replace some of the parts with alternative takes."

And the film is now structured into chapters just as a novel. "We used other takes from the material [we had] to create a linkage [between chapters]."

Resurrecting "Ashes of Time" was an emotional experience for Wong, not just because of his memories of his frequent collaborator Cheung, who committed suicide five years ago at age 46 but also because "Ashes" was his first independent production.

"This was the only way you could make films you really believed in and cared about," he says. "It tells you a lot about Hong Kong cinema in the 1990s. It was one of the best moments ever . . . you can see the energy and possibilities. This is where we came from."

It's playing at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art on Tuesday Oct 7, and teh story says it's opening in theatres on Friday. Looking forward to it.

[Barmy]

For me this is by far WKW's best film and his only masterpiece. His rather stale ruminations work fine for one film, not a career.

I had no issues with the grindhousey 35mm prints of the original.

The new version is more conventionally plotted--to its benefit. I think they went a bit overboard with the harsh colors. But it is awesome, and certainly the 2nd best film of 2008 after The Fall.

Chris Doyle btw is still a drunk.

[colinr0380]

New York Film Festival Q&A with Wong Kar-Wai, Christopher Doyle and Brigitte Lin.

[hearthesilence]

IFC Center is apparently going to screen a 35mm print of the Redux version.

[Persona]

Wow, this thread gets bumped and I have to witness some Wong slander which I am far too sensitive for.

At any rate, I have never seen the redux. Reading the list of changes it's difficult for me to imagine it being nearly as good as the OG, but I would love to see some version of this film in a nice format since the DVD transfer that I saw of the original cut was truly terrible.

[beamish14]

IFC Center is apparently going to screen a 35mm print of the Redux version.

I saw this in a completely empty theatre at the Laemmle Sunset in Hollywood, an arthouse multiplex that was shut down some years ago. I remember it screened with the trailer for Shotgun Stories, which made me crack up (I’ve still never seen the movie; the trailer just seemed to be endless sounds of said firearm cocking and firing)