Ashes of Time Redux

Although sometimes described as Wong Kar Wai's adaptation of the Jin Yong novel Legend of the Condor Heroes, it would probably be more accurate to call Ashes of Time the wuxia version of Days of Being Wild. Despite marking his first venture into wuxia, Ashes of Time saw Wong disregard the conventions of the genre in favour of probing into the lives of the three heroes, drawing out sentimental themes of love and loss. The use of voice over driving multiple plot lines, the monologue quality of the dialogues, the baroque quality of its music and the self-conscious lyricism of its images have all added to the defamiliarisation of wuxia conventions. Although the three major battle scenes are choreographed differently, each one does away with the traditional wuxia conventions of movements and battle arrays. Without a doubt, Ashes of Time is an auteur film that shows the wuxia genre in a whole new light.