Movie review: Ashes of Time Redux (Dung che sai duk redux)

Leone in the Gobi? Think of it as a Spaghetti Eastern.

by John P. Meyer

Director Wong Kar Wai (My Blueberry Nights) made an epic Chinese language martial arts picture back in 1992 called Ashes of Time (Dung che sai duk). As Wong explains it, the film never got much screentime around the world (particularly in the U.S.), so he decided to start fresh using original film footage and redo it for contemporary worldwide release.

Thus the "redux" appended to the title of the present version, Ashes of Time Redux (Dung che sai duk redux).

There's a scene in the middle of this lushly-photographed, desert-set actioner which so resembles a Sergio Leone Spaghetti Western that you might start looking around for the Man with No Name and his signature stub of a cheroot: a veritable army of bedraggled looking irregulars in straw sombreros (O.K., so they're really more like coolie hats) storms the position of a heroic loner, and - after the requisite sizing up on both sides of the argument - slashing swords sing, replacing the ricocheting sounds of gunfire.

But - unfortunately, for action lovers - such bravura touches come all too infrequently, and we are left for most of the 93 minute runtime to wade through a rather dense and hard-to-follow story line involving love and loss and the way in which it affects the actions and eventual dispositions of a very confusing panoply of characters.

Take Murong Yin / Murong Yang, for instance (both played by the lovely Brigitte Lin). This girlie-man / woman makes an early appearance as a complicating player in the lives of erstwhile buddies Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Ka Fai) and Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung), who get together each Spring to reminisce on old times and generally try to figure out why they aren't actually friends anymore. Yin/Yang ends up sword-slashing the stomach of Huang and then later surreptitiously cuddling up to Ouyang in the playing out of a convoluted relationship morass which eventually sees the Yang persona disappearing entirely, with Yin going on to become a legendary swordswoman. (With one Hell of a swordstroke, I might add.)

The story is told primarily from the viewpoint of Ouyang Feng, who - as a result of the love of his life marrying his brother - sequesters himself in the desert and hangs out his shingle as a sword for hire - though only as a middleman. He sponsors itinerate swordsmen who wander into his neighborhood and acts as their agent, shopping their services to local villagers who want problems solved (i.e., people killed). Ouyang becomes a sort of self-reflective misanthropist hermit, living alone in a staw hut atop a promontory where he can look out (and down) on the sparse humanity around him while navel gazing endlessly over the state of his flawed existence.

A range of characters come under Ouyang's purview, including a young woman (Charlie Yeung, as "the girl") desperate to have her husband (or is it her brother?) avenged; he was attacked and killed by a cadre of soldiers in the nearby village, and she offers up a basket of eggs and a mule to Ouyang if he will arrange to have them slashed to pieces. But the cynical (and/or pragmatic) Ouyang accepts only cash on the wineskin for his services, and so the woman takes up residence in front of his hut where she determines to wait (with her eggs and mule) until a sympathetic assassin wanders by. Which, it turns out, one eventually does, in the person of apprentice killer Hong Qi (Jacky Cheung).

These shifting narrative sands might prove too tedious to sift through were it not for the visual splendor of the production, thanks in part to cinematographer Christopher Doyle. As we've come to expect from Wong Kar Wai films, each scene is carefully composed and lushly lit, to the extent that it's almost worth viewing simply to oooh and ahhh over the dreamlike visuals. There's an early scene involving a straw birdcage which acts as a filter for the light striking the actors in an interior scene; it revolves slowly, painting a kaleidoscopic chiaroscuro on walls and faces. The camera dollies in front of the cage and we catch glimpses of its warm interior avian occupants. All quite hypnotic.

The periodic choppily-edited swordfights were choreographed by Jackie Chan protege Sammo Hung, and the dramatic, romantic score (by Frankie Chan and Roel A. Garcia) is supplemented by glowing cello solos courtesly of Yo-Yo Ma (added during the re-do of the original film). As the film nears its end, the lyrical melody approaches something that might have been orchestrated by the great Ennio Morricone, adding further to the marinara Western flavoring.

I have a feeling that a second viewing of Ashes might well prove more satisfying than the first one - which you can take, if you want, as an argument for holding out for the DVD.

• Staff
• Verified User
• Anonymous