Reviews for Wong Kar Wai’s Ashes of Time Redux

I have to admit, when I heard that Wong Kar Wai was going back in time to rework his 1990s gem “Ashes of Time” in an effort to improve it, I was ecstatic. Least of which because the best version I’ve ever seen the film in was on DVD and it was still atrocious, filled with scratches and other unsightly grains that don’t belong on a DVD. The film was simply a brilliant piece of heavy drama masquerading as a swordfighting movie, the popular genre of the time, and probably the only way Kar Wai could have gotten the film made, what with the script’s existential meanderings and all that great stuff all Wong Kar Wai movies should, and do have.

The film’s restored version has finally been shown for the first time at Cannes, and the reviews are in.

The Hollywood Reporter likes it:

The film is still a formal wonder, as it was 15 years ago, full of Wong’s signature step-printing technique, his off-kilter shooting angles and a flamboyant visual style that often produces something more like an abstract expressionist painting than a movie. But while it’s hard to be definitive about what’s different in the new version without comparing it shot by shot with the old, the music seems much more powerful and more fully keyed-in to the action, and the color is saturated and intensified to make the film even more stylized than it already was.

Boston.com’s critic liked it, too:

After Indy, I schlepped to “Ashes of Time Redux,” Wong Kar-wai’s remix (photo, above) of one of his earliest films and certainly his only martial arts movie. The original 1994 “Ashes,” which I haven’t seen (it’s available in a poorly done DVD version) apparently didn’t make much sense, and it certainly doesn’t now, but, lord, is it a vision to behold — a wu xia film turned into an abstract expressionist action painting. I believe the only redux-ing that has been done is a digital clean up, some trimming, and a new score with cello solos by Yo-yo Ma. In that case, what Wong and cinematographer Cristopher Doyle (who were present at the screening, along with the cast) created 14 years ago is either a masterpiece of in-camera wizardry or a triumph of lab work.

Variety, on the other hand, not so much. Apparently the reviewer never liked the original to begin with, so it was probably too much to ask him to like the redux:

New version of Wong’s genre-bender runs two minutes shorter than the Venice print and five minutes shorter than the Hong Kong version. (Latter was bookended by swordplay montages to increase the action quotient, as there’s relatively little fighting in the very philosophical, talky film.) But apart from a few dialogue excisions, added intertitles denoting various Chinese solar terms, and Taiwanese actress Brigitte Lin now speaking her own dialogue in Mandarin, it’s basically the same densely plotted movie that played Venice.

Movie is still an amazingly bold take on an established genre — as bold visually and structurally for its time as “Hero” (also lensed by Doyle) was to be eight years later. But it’s now a picture divored from its true cultural and temporal roots.

Variety’s review notwithstanding, it sounds like anyone who has appreciated the film back in the day will appreciate it even more now. Hopefully we’ll have a DVD that’s finally worth owning on top of it.