mazon Prime has added a really strong mix of adventure film and battle epic to its catalog that no movie fan should miss. It’s a real rush of images.
When we go in search of the most visionary filmmakers of our time, we sooner or later end up with Wong Kar-Wai. The Hong Kong legend has created several timeless masterpieces on the big screen over the past few decades, most notably In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express.
Amazon Prime has now added one of his lesser-known films to its streaming service, which we definitely want to recommend to you. Ashes of Time is a visual rush that you rarely see. Breathtaking shots await you, held together by glowing colors and movements.
Ashes of Time on Amazon Prime: Wong Kar-Wai unleashes a wuxia epic in the desert
With Ashes of Time, Wong Kar-Wai ventured into the world of Wuxia cinema for the first time in 1994. This is a Chinese genre that focuses on sword fighters. Usually embedded in historical settings, we experience epic fights and adventures that often feature fantastic elements.
The linchpin of Ashes of Time is Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung), who runs a remote inn in the middle of the desert that is best known for one thing: shady characters come here to pass on murder contracts to swordsmen, who then carry them out for an agreed sum.
In the course of this, we get to know various characters that Ouyang has encountered in the course of his life, starting with Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Ka-Fai), who claims to have an enchanted wine that makes you forget the past. Huang urgently needs to forget, because he has messed with the wrong people.
Murong Yin (Brigitte Lin), for example, wants him dead because he left her sister at the altar. Now Ouyang is supposed to fix the matter, while other characters such as the half-blind swordsman (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Ouyang’s sister-in-law (Maggie Cheung) appear and bring their own stories with them.
Now on Amazon Prime: Ashes of Time lives completely from its images and movements
Ashes of Time does not follow a conventional narrative pattern. As in Wong Kar-Wai’s other films, one image blends into the next, as if we were following an eternal stream of thoughts and memories. At times, it’s easy to lose your bearings in this constant flurry of cinematic impressions that never seem to stand still.
Wong Kar-Wai draws us deeper and deeper into this world of enigmatic characters with extraordinary martial arts skills and pulsating emotions. Ashes of Time is a film like the heat shimmering in the desert, a fever dream of sublime beauty and an expressive cinematic poem that breaks all the rules.
Even in the context of a consistently astounding body of work, Ashes of Time stands out as one of Wong Kar-Wai’s most unique films. Rarely has the director – in close collaboration with his regular cinematographer Christopher Doyle – relied so heavily on the associative power of images, moving on an almost abstract level.
