Trailer: Wong Kar-Wai's "Ashes of Time" Gets Full Makeover

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Trailer: Wong Kar-Wai's "Ashes of Time" Gets Full Makeover

Written by Arya Ponto

Saturday, 09 August 2008

Being a Wong Kar-Wai junkie and having loved pretty much almost his entire body of work (Happy Together's my favorite, what's yours?), Ashes of Time is one of those movies that nagged on me like a hungry Graboid. It's the sore thumb on a perfectly delicate hand, sticking out as the one bad movie. It'd be understandable if it was just mediocre, like As Tears Go By, but the fact that it's terrible is just confounding. Luckily there's a Redux coming out, and hopefully, 15 years later, Wong Kar-Wai had pieced together a new edit that fixes the movie completely.

Although the movie itself was bad, what really nagged me all these years is that I don't think I've ever given the movie a fair shot. The only available DVD copy of Ashes of Time is a now out-of-print 1998 transfer by Cav Distribution that is easily the most wretched and unprofessionally put together DVD ever made. That thing stunk more than a bull's carcass. The image quality was atrocious, the sound busted, the letterboxing was faulty and the subtitles were damn near unintelligible. Because of this, the existence of an Ashes of Time Redux is a win-win situation.

Not only is this new version re-edited, the scheduled DVD release will also be a new digital remaster. Also, seeing how the distributor is Sony Pictures Classics this time around, the hope is that they know how to subtitle properly—at least to the extent that you don't need a decoder ring to understand the dialogue. So even if WKW's new cut doesn't improve the film much, at the very least I can say that I don't like it with a clearer conscience.

Also, seeing the late Leslie Cheung on the big screen again, even if it is a re-release? Worth it.

Check out the new trailer by clicking the image.