Ashes of Time Review
Combining elements of Sergio_Leone and Michelangelo_Antonioni, Wong_Kar-wai's masterful Ashes of Time is both a lively recasting of Chinese martial art conventions and a fascinating meditation on memory. Like Wong's Chungking_Express, which he shot during Ashes's famously troubled production, this film concerns a handful of lonely, isolated souls who are so absorbed in their own melancholy world that they cannot connect with others. The Blind Swordsman (Tony_Leung_Chiu_Wai) is crippled by nostalgia for his earlier sighted days, while Huang Yaoshi (Tony_Leung_Ka_Fai) drinks "Happy Go Lucky" and manages to blot out his memory. Also like Chungking, Ashes sets its characters amid a sterile, alienating landscape (the Gobi desert), while articulating their innermost thoughts through the groundbreaking use of multiple voice-overs. And the whole production is brought to life thanks to Christopher_Doyle's gorgeous, lyrical cinematography. The all-star cast gives excellent, if enigmatic, performances. Juxtaposing hyperkinetic blurred streaks of violence with the wasteland of the desert, Ashes of Time brilliantly fuses visual poetry, a dreamlike non-linear narrative, and riveting action sequences to create one of the finest films Hong Kong has produced. Jonathan Crow, Rovi
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