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Review
by LunaSea: |
Ever since his debut Romance of the Book and Sword (Shu
Jian Eng Chou Lu), the king of wuxia xiaoshuo Jin
Yong showed he had enough talent to become one of the greatest
novelists of the modern era. His novels have been adapted
for TV, film and even animated cartoons. His most important
work and a landmark of the genre was The Eagle Shooting
Heroes (She Diao Ing Xiung Zhuang), which has now become
a favorite amongst Jin Yong and wuxia fans.
Taking inspiration from that novel
is Wong Kar-Wai's epic melodrama Ashes of Time, which
took two plus years to shoot, went ridiculously overbudget,
and saw many different plot changes. Wong was a big fan of
Jin Yong's original work, and wanted to approach the author
to talk about some ideas. He was interested in the psychology
behind some of the characters, like the tragic life of Venomous
West/Huang Yaoshi. Unlike the book, where the character is
presented as a vile and adulterous man, Wong humanizes the
character, presenting him as a victim (like everyone else
in the film). Ultimately, the two couldn't meet, so Wong's
imagination started to run free, and created the labyrinthine
results you see on screen.
Ashes of Time represents a
prequel to the novel, with two of the main characters relegated
to secondary status (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai's Blind Swordsman
and Jacky Cheung's Hong Qi) and everyone else much younger
and inexperienced. Wong's goal is focusing on the psychological
and emotional reasons that brought the characters to the behavior
we see in the novel. The most striking example is the principal
character Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung). In the film he's still
a man who trusts people, and is not completely selfish. His
troubled relationship with a woman (Maggie Cheung) shapes
his character, and leads to his change to an evil and treacherous
man.
Wong mostly uses Jin Yong's
work as a starting point for his personal vision of the wuxia
world, where memories are more painful than battles against
hordes of swordsmen, and men give themselves up to fate and
are destroyed by their emotional distress. The Blind Swordsman
embarks on an impossible battle even though he knows he's
nearly blind. Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Ka-Fai) drinks the
wine that erases memory in hope of forgetting his love. Murong
Yang and his identical female alter ego Murong Yin (Brigitte
Lin playing both) react to rejection by becoming schizophrenic.
And then there's Ouyang Feng. He hides in the desert, away
from the pain of his past mistakes. Afraid of rejection, he
chooses to reject first, and ignores his heart. This is a
world where heroism doesn't matter, where stripping one's
emotions to become "stronger" (like the traditional wuxia
heroes) takes away the heroes' soul and leave them scarred
forever.
The extent of Wong Kar-Wai's revisionism
of the genre can be felt just by looking at the reaction by
conservative wuxia fans and critics. He took a de-humanized
world (where heroism was often more important than sentiments)
and injected humanity into it. We're presented with allegedly
invincible men who turn out to be people who crumble under
the pressure and pain of rejection and memory.
It's pointless trying to write about Ashes of Time's plot, as doing so would be entirely
too superficial, and leave out important facets of the story.
Possessing a rudimentary knowledge of the novel would help
as the film is extremely fragmented and often inaccessible.
However, with a careful eye and a few repeated viewings the
film's story is not so hard to grasp. What's important is
the mood Wong Kar-Wai creates, and the air of sorrow we feel
coming from each and every character. It may not be the wuxiapian Jin Yong and his hardcore fans (many of whom hated this film
with a passion) would have wanted, but Ashes of Time is one of the most intelligent works of the genre, mixing
melodrama with a deconstruction of many of the genre's formulas
and clichés. (LunaSea 2002) |
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