This
Wong Kar-wai film is a singular experience.
With all the swordsmen of ancient China running around doing their
highly-stylized thing, the easiest label to give it is wuxia, but that doesn’t
quite cover it. Because, while there are
some excellent, beautifully-shot fight scenes set up at pivotal moments in the
story, the fighting itself isn’t what drives the proceedings. In the end, it’s part wuxia, part drama, part
romance, part existential desert wander.
At the
center of Ashes of Time is the
semi-reclusive Ou-yang Feng, who’s resided in the desert since he was on the
receiving end of some disappointments in love and life. Reclusive in that he doesn’t get out much,
semi- in that he gets a number of people coming to him. Ou-yang serves as a middle man between
swordsmen in need of work and people in need of swordsmen, be it for revenge,
protection, or escape. The narrative
meanders through a series of interconnected vignettes as, through Ou-yang, we
learn the stories of the people he meets, as well as a little more about what
brought Ou-yang to his present situation.
The
film offers up an arresting assortment of characters played by nearly everyone
Wong has ever worked with. Leslie Cheung
(Happy Together, Days of Being Wild) plays Ou-yang, and even though his performance
is a lot more subdued here than the other roles of his I’ve seen, it might
actually impress me the most. Besides
Ou-yang, I’ve only ever seen him play mercurial, magnetic types like Po-wing in
Happy Together, eye-catching and
unpredictable, and it’s cool to see him command the screen with the opposite
approach, being so still. Brigritte Lin
(Chungking Express) is fascinating as
a woman masquerading as her own brother.
So much to unpack in her plot, and I love watching Ou-yang get to know
both of them. I just adore Tony Leung
Chiu-wai (practically all of Wong’s films) as a swordsman with fading vision
who’s trying to earn enough to make it home before he goes completely blind. He carries the role with such quiet, soulful
grace, and he has the most gorgeous fight scene in the film.
Meanwhile,
Jacky Cheung (As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild) plays a poor but
confident swordsman striving to make a name for himself, and Tony Leung Ka-fai
(who I’ve not seen outside this film) has an interesting plot and a role that ties
many of disparate threads of the story together. There are also briefer appearances by Charlie
Yeung (Fallen Angels,) Carina Lau (Days of Being Wild, 2046,) and the
flawless Maggie Cheung (too many to list.)
That’s
a big chunk of the review spent on the cast and characters, but I’m at a bit of
a loss for how else to talk about it. If
you go into the film expecting something like Hero or Crouching Tiger,
Hidden Dragon, you’ll be disappointed, because there are really only a few
big wuxia sequences. Each is important
and stunningly filmed, but the larger point of the movie is the small, fleeting
connections made between these people.
It’s a film that’s kind of saturated with loneliness, heartbreak, and a
sad sense of arriving just a hair too late, and there’s something wonderful
about seeing that lift, if only briefly, in the moments when they’re able to
look past their own stories and see someone else’s.
Warnings
Violence
(including a few graphic shots) and mild sexual content.
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