Ashes of Time Redux (Wong Kar Wai, 2007)

[hearthesilence]

I wasn't that familiar with this film and was holding out for a good version of the original cut, but after I posted, I looked through the rest of the thread. Dire to say the least.

It sounds like the literal film was always treated terribly - besides the original elements that were treated like garbage by the assholes at that facility that went belly up, it sounds like little effort was made to take care of the prints struck for U.S. exhibition either. (I guess we're lucky the Museum of Chinese History saved one, albeit in poor condition, but given the massive fire they had since the article upthread was published, if Wong didn't take it back, it probably didn't survive.) It's also discouraging that MichaelB said the one he saw in the 1990s was in poor condition as well.

So unless a good print survived in France/the UK or Japan (possibly needing English subtitles displayed somewhere off-screen), it's doubtful we'll ever get a decent 35mm print of the original version projected in the U.S.

Sadly those shitty DVDs may be the "best" way to see the original version. Pretty shameful for a film that was barely a decade old when they discovered the state it was in.

IFC Center is apparently going to screen a 35mm print of the Redux version.

I saw this in a completely empty theatre at the Laemmle Sunset in Hollywood, an arthouse multiplex that was shut down some years ago. I remember it screened with the trailer for Shotgun Stories, which made me crack up (I’ve still never seen the movie; the trailer just seemed to be endless sounds of said firearm cocking and firing)

I looked it up - I had no idea Shotgun Stories was a Jeff Nichols film, with Michael Shannon no less. The title sounded like the kind of made-up film you'd see in The Simpsons.

[Persona]

not to get too OT but Shotgun Stories might be my favorite Nichols, actually. has some of that raw Blood Simple appeal where the polish wasn't there yet and in some ways that was a good thing.

yeah, I have kind of resigned myself to the fact I probably won't ever get to see an ideal presentation of the original cut of Ashes of Time. hopefully I can check out the Redux at some point.

[therewillbeblus]

I've never seen the trailer, but Shotgun Stories is absolutely not a joke. It's a very sincere engagement with difficult material, and I'll second it as Nichols' best work. My brief thoughts from the First Features list project:

I'd also like to make a plug for Jeff Nichols' first film, Shotgun Stories, which is an excellent portrayal of alcoholism and classism's effects on family dynamics and inherited resentment like a disease, a stripped-down kitchen-sink Hatfield–McCoy feud based on the most logical motive for bitterness one can conceive of in real life: social-emotional disenfranchisement.

[yoloswegmaster]

I was scouring thru Twitter and I found this very interesting screenshot from a post made by David Bordwell that reveals that there is a third version of this film that not many people know about. This cut premiered at Venice and is different from the International version, and is missing many scenes found on the latter:



The same Twitter user also made a Google Drive file containing both cuts, with the Venice Cut being sourced from a French DVD. PM me if you would like the link to it.

[shiftyeyes]

I was scouring thru Twitter and I found this very interesting screenshot from a post made by David Bordwell that reveals that there is a third version of this film that not many people know about. This cut premiered at Venice and is different from the International version, and is missing many scenes found on the latter:

There's another cut as well. The Taiwanese version of the film is a few seconds longer and features a brief fight between Tony Leung Ka Fai and Joey Wong. In the HK version of the film, this is truncated to a very brief shot - an almost meaningless cutaway to Tony looking at a random woman, and the audio edit is quite jarring. The story behind this is Joey Wong was part of the original cast and is one of the stars of the sibling comedy film "The Eagle Shooting Heroes". She had to leave the film because the production went on and on forever. Because the film secured its Taiwanese financing with the originally announced cast which included Joey Wong, they were contractually obligated to have her in the movie somewhere. Anecdotally, this may also be the same reason Tony Leung Chiu Wai is at the end of "Days of Being Wild".

I uploaded the Taiwanese ending here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3O2bOWQFszY

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

In the original plot, Tony Leung Ka-fai played Duan Zhixing, the scion of a royal family engaged against his will to a Mongolian princess (Maggie Cheung); rather than go through with the marriage, he hides out in a brothel and falls in love with one of the women there. Joey Wong was cast in the latter role and worked on the movie for about a month, then Wong Kar-wai shut down the production and everyone went off to do The Eagle Shooting Heroes. WKW used the break to rethink the plot, and when filming resumed almost everyone was recast in a different role—for example, Leslie Cheung went from playing Huang Yaoshi to Ouyang Feng, Tony Leung Chiu-wai went from Ouyang Feng to a blind swordsman, and Brigitte Lin went from Wang Chongyang to Dugu Qiubai. Leung Ka-fai took over the part of Huang Yaoshi and the entire subplot with Duan Zhixing fell by the wayside, which meant Joey Wong was out (as was Veronica Yip, who played one of the brothel workers). As already mentioned, Joey Wong couldn't return after the hiatus, so her part couldn't be reworked to fit the new story and was reduced to a contractually-obligated cameo.

An odd postscript is that Joey Wong was very popular in South Korea (mainly thanks to A Chinese Ghost Story) and the slightly-extended Taiwanese cut of Ashes was released there as well.

[pistolwink]

Strange to think this film will have to be the future subject of some Vampyr-esque restoration job where scenes and shots are harvested from release prints the world over to create something resembling the same version of the film I saw on 35mm a few times in the 1990s and 2000s. Though it'll probably have to happen after WKW dies, since he seems devoted to his Redux. For my money the original cuts of Ashes of Time are as good as anything he's done.

Wasn't Tony Leung Chiu Wai in Days of Being Wild in part because a planned (but never made) part 2 was to feature his character? (That doesn't totally explain why Wong left him in part 1, of course. That ending is one of the more gloriously bewildering in film history.)

[The Fanciful Norwegian]

The story goes that the film was planned in two parts and that Tony Leung was to be the focus of the second. Leung's scenes were actually shot first in the Kowloon Walled City, alongside Maggie Cheung and Andy Lau (a snippet of Lau's work in these scenes appears in the alternate cut on the Criterion release). But the investors expected Leung to appear in the first part and to keep them happy, Wong proposed using that shot of Leung getting dressed as a teaser for part two, after the closing credits. Editor Patrick Tam suggested using it as the actual ending and found it synced up well with the "Jungle Drums" track, so that was that.

Joseph Chan (who worked on the film as an associate producer) believed the plan for the sequel was to have Mimi (Carina Lau) going to the Philippines to look for Yuddy and meeting Tide, who returns to Hong Kong for Su Li-zhen and discovers her in a relationship with Leung's character. There was also supposedly a role for Faye Wong as Li-zhen's sister. Another possibly apocryphal story is that In-Gear head Alan Tang tried to use the outtakes from Days of Being Wild to cobble together a sequel without Wong's involvement, but the footage was such a mess that no one could make heads or tails of it.

[zedz]

In the original cut of Days of Being Wild, Leung appears at the beginning and end of the film, as a kind of framing character / implied narrator. This is how I originally saw the film way back when, so I was confused by the confusion about his presence that everybody else reported!

(Including this original cut in the box set was one of the things Criterion got right. I wish they'd given the other films the same treatment!)

[shiftyeyes]

In the original plot, Tony Leung Ka-fai played Duan Zhixing, the scion of a royal family engaged against his will to a Mongolian princess (Maggie Cheung); rather than go through with the marriage, he hides out in a brothel and falls in love with one of the women there. Joey Wong was cast in the latter role and worked on the movie for about a month, then Wong Kar-wai shut down the production and everyone went off to do The Eagle Shooting Heroes. WKW used the break to rethink the plot, and when filming resumed almost everyone was recast in a different role—for example, Leslie Cheung went from playing Huang Yaoshi to Ouyang Feng, Tony Leung Chiu-wai went from Ouyang Feng to a blind swordsman, and Brigitte Lin went from Wang Chongyang to Dugu Qiubai. Leung Ka-fai took over the part of Huang Yaoshi and the entire subplot with Duan Zhixing fell by the wayside, which meant Joey Wong was out (as was Veronica Yip, who played one of the brothel workers). As already mentioned, Joey Wong couldn't return after the hiatus, so her part couldn't be reworked to fit the new story and was reduced to a contractually-obligated cameo.

An odd postscript is that Joey Wong was very popular in South Korea (mainly thanks to A Chinese Ghost Story) and the slightly-extended Taiwanese cut of Ashes was released there as well.

Thanks for the information! I was first introduced to Ashes of Time via the Redux edition over a decade ago. Thought it was interesting, but it left me a bit cold. It wasn't until about two years ago when I watched the original cut for the first time that I fell in love with it. I've been trying to read as much information as I can about the production, etc. but these are hard to come by in English articles discussing the film. I'd love to know more about the original intended plot! Most of the official quotes from WKW are rather vague and don't really get into the details.

[shiftyeyes]

Strange to think this film will have to be the future subject of some Vampyr-esque restoration job where scenes and shots are harvested from release prints the world over to create something resembling the same version of the film I saw on 35mm a few times in the 1990s and 2000s. Though it'll probably have to happen after WKW dies, since he seems devoted to his Redux. For my money the original cuts of Ashes of Time are as good as anything he's done.

Next year is the 30th anniversary of the film and I'm hopeful that Wong Kar Wai might be doing something to celebrate it. A bunch of deleted footage was included in that "One-Tenth of a Millimeter Apart" retrospective, including some newly restored footage of some of scenes from the original version. It was very exciting to see. Maybe that's why Criterion left Ashes of Time off their World of WKW set. Criterion/Janus also has the rights to The Eagle Shooting Heroes, so a multi-film box set with all the cuts must be coming! Probably not, but one can dream!

For my part, I tried my best to create an upscale/reconstruction of the original cut from the various DVDs. I think it turned out pretty decently and I wouldn't mind sharing with fellow fans of the film. If anyone's interested, feel free to send me a PM.

[beamish14]

Another possibly apocryphal story is that In-Gear head Alan Tang tried to use the outtakes from Days of Being Wild to cobble together a sequel without Wong's involvement, but the footage was such a mess that no one could make heads or tails of it.

I’m sure that Jesus Franco could have worked his magic on it

[feihong]

In the original plot, Tony Leung Ka-fai played Duan Zhixing, the scion of a royal family engaged against his will to a Mongolian princess (Maggie Cheung); rather than go through with the marriage, he hides out in a brothel and falls in love with one of the women there. Joey Wong was cast in the latter role and worked on the movie for about a month, then Wong Kar-wai shut down the production and everyone went off to do The Eagle Shooting Heroes. WKW used the break to rethink the plot, and when filming resumed almost everyone was recast in a different role—for example, Leslie Cheung went from playing Huang Yaoshi to Ouyang Feng, Tony Leung Chiu-wai went from Ouyang Feng to a blind swordsman, and Brigitte Lin went from Wang Chongyang to Dugu Qiubai. Leung Ka-fai took over the part of Huang Yaoshi and the entire subplot with Duan Zhixing fell by the wayside, which meant Joey Wong was out (as was Veronica Yip, who played one of the brothel workers). As already mentioned, Joey Wong couldn't return after the hiatus, so her part couldn't be reworked to fit the new story and was reduced to a contractually-obligated cameo.

An odd postscript is that Joey Wong was very popular in South Korea (mainly thanks to A Chinese Ghost Story) and the slightly-extended Taiwanese cut of Ashes was released there as well.

Thanks for the information! I was first introduced to Ashes of Time via the Redux edition over a decade ago. Thought it was interesting, but it left me a bit cold. It wasn't until about two years ago when I watched the original cut for the first time that I fell in love with it. I've been trying to read as much information as I can about the production, etc. but these are hard to come by in English articles discussing the film. I'd love to know more about the original intended plot! Most of the official quotes from WKW are rather vague and don't really get into the details.

I'm glad to hear someone besides me fell for this movie based on the international cut! The Redux was what started poisoning me against this new-fangled, post-2000 filmmaker who calls himself Wong Kar-Wai. If felt like Wong had practically clawed the guts out of what had been a very striking movie––one of the early viewings that made me a Hong Kong film fan for life (I rented the VHS tape from a shop in Westwood, along with Peking Opera Blues, The Bride with White Hair, and Full Contact; borrowed a VCR from my downstairs neighbors, a TV from my roommate, and watched all four films in a single evening).

When I hear these stories of all the recasting, I feel like this is the work of a fairly inexperienced filmmaker, who doesn't quite know what he wants out of his film (this would be Wong years later, though, as actors in 2046 would beg WKW in press conferences, "just tell me; am I still in the film? What was all that footage we shot for?") There's a little bit of that instability in Days of Being Wild, also, with Leslie Cheung being perfectly cast, but with Andy Lau seemingly uncomfortable playing a police officer. I wonder if the roundelay of changing roles in Chungking Express (Brigitte is a blonde and now she's not, Tony is a cop and now he's a restaurant worker, Faye is a restaurant worker, now she's a flight attendant, etc.) was inspired by this switching around of the roles Wong had in mind for all the actors. And maybe Wong's re-contextualizing the roles as he has interpreted them from the source material (maybe he cast the roles based more on his impression of the Jin Yong book, then as his own concept of the characters came together he felt the need to recast everyone).Then there's the way the same actors play the same story as a comedy, shooting at the same time for this film's executive producer. Parallels upon parallels. Mirrors reflecting story on production, production on story. Dizzying. Hopefully one day we get a version of the international cut restored, so that something good might come out of the twisted, sordid tale.