Ashes of Time

Starring:Brigitte Lin, Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Jacky Cheung, Tony Leung Ka Fai, Li Bai, Carina Lau, Charlie Yeung, Shun Lau, Joey Wong
Director: Kar Wai Wong
Studio: Cav Distribution
Product Type: DVD

Average customer rating:

Do not buy this DVD
alltime worst dvd release ever
Deep
good movie, botched dvd
Haunting movie, frightening DVD

Ashes of Time
Starring: Brigitte Lin , Leslie Cheung , Maggie Cheung , Tony Leung Chiu Wai , and Jacky Cheung
Director: Kar Wai Wong
Manufacturer: Cav Distribution
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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ASIN: B00000INVJ
Release Date: 1998-10-14

Customer Reviews:

Do not buy this DVD.......2007-06-11

This DVD is one of the worst I've purchased. I agree with the other reviewers about the quality: It's horrible.

This is what the film looks and sounds like on this DVD:
It looks like it was shot with a camcorder while the film was projected in a movie theater, with all images not centered. There is a lot dirt and debris on the film reel. The color is faded to the black side so colors are dull and morbid. The bottom portion of the screen is blacked out for the English subtitles to display against. There is some pixellation about 6 minutes into the movie and then the audio/video goes terribly out of sink (about 1-2 second delay). The audio seems to have been recorded with a cassette tape and then transfered.

My assumption would be that this is a pirated movie except shot-in-the-theater pirated movies usually have much better quality. I was actually expecting someone to stand up and walk across the screen.

About the film itself:
I cannot tell you what this film is about because I couldn't stand watching more than 8 minutes of the DVD. I purchased it because this film by Wong Gar Wai was highly recommended by a respectable foreign film critic.

Do not waste your money. I purchased this DVD at a local DVD store but was at least able to return it for store credit because of the audio/video sync issue.

alltime worst dvd release ever.......2006-05-07

Make sure you read the review for that is rated 1 star up above. That person is not lying. So sorrRy if I get rude but this really pissed me off.

THE REVIEWS AMAZON HAS SAYS THAT THE DISTRIBUTER IS CAV DISTRIBUTION. THE ONE THAT I GOT WAS THE FAMOUS WORLD DISTRIBUTION. I HAVE ALWAYS HAD SUCCESS FROM THEM BECAUSE THEY SOMEHOW GET THE RIGHTS FROM COMPANIES LIKE CELESTIAL!!!, TAI SENG, MAI EH, AND MANY OTHERS. I CANNOT COMMENT ON WHETHER OR NOT THIS MOVIE IS GOOD. I CANNOT EVEN COMMENT IF THE CAV DISTRIBUTION VERSION IS GOOD, WHAT I CAN SAY IS MAKE SURE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU ARE BUYIGN BEFORE HAND. AND SINCE NOBODY IS ABLE TO COMMENT ON WHAT VERSION THEY GOT, I SUPPOSE I WILL BE THE LONER HERE. SO ONCE AGAIN, I HAVE THE WORLD MEDIA SOMETHING. AND IF SOMEBODY FINDS A GOOD VERSION OF THIS, CAN YOU PLEASE POST IT? I HAVE HEARD NOTHING BUT GOOD REVIEWS FOR THIS MOVIE, ANYBODY WANT TO TELL ME WHAT DVD VERSION YOU HAVE SITTING ON YOUR SHELF?

Deep.......2005-11-01

The movie is a wuxia movie with a twist. That twist is what makes Wong Kar Wai the celebrated director/filmmaker that he is. Wong Kar Wai sticks to genre and then takes it to the next level by doing what he does best, breaks it down - and uses his highly idiosyncratic style of cinematography. The movie is very loosely (and I mean very loosely) based on Jin Yong's "The Eagle Shooting Heroes." So loose in fact that one could argue that this movie is neither a wuxia movie or based on the book. Ouyang Feng (Leslie Cheung) is a disillusioned swordsman for hire. He left White Camel Mountain to run an inn in the desert. Ouyang Feng's real business is to serve as a middle-man between mercenaries and those who need them. He is all business. Among those who come into his space are Huang Yaoshi (Tony Leung Ka Fai) - who is involved with Feng's former love interest, Murong Yin/Murong Yang (Brigitte Lin) - being one and the same, she both loves and hates Huang Yaoshi. Others include a blind swordsman (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) who wishes to see his love and home before he finally loses his site. The couple, of sorts, that defy explanation is the combination of the blind woman played by Charlie Yeung and the character Hong Qi (Jacky Cheung), a swordsman who comes to her aid. To top that off, we should not forget the moving performances of Carina Lau and Maggie Cheung - without whom this picture would not be complete.

Stephen Teo argues that it is Kar Wai's characters that make his movies. In a move that follows "Days of Being Wild," it is the characters that show up for the smallest amount of time that leave a lasting impression. In the case of "Days of Being Wild," the last minute appearance by Tony Leung is arguably his best. In "Ashes of Time," Maggie Cheung shows up for only for a few minutes but she impacts all of Leslie Cheung's character. Carina Lau's character (and hands) is stunning - enough said.

"Ashes of Time" is a wild movie about love, desperation, and forgetting. Wong Kar Wai is better known as a director of art house films such as "Days of Being Wild" (available on Amazon.com) and a later movie - and my personal favorite - "In the Mood for Love" (also available on Amazon.com). His trademark style of seemingly freeform story telling and inventive imagery are deftly combined with Christopher Doyle's cinematography to produce this masterpiece. "Ashes of Time" is Wong's only wuxia movie to date. In it we find, I argue, his most developed characters and sense of experimentation. Certainly recommend it to those wuxia fans out there... but don't expect the clean story lines of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon or House of Flying Daggers... this one is messy and that makes all the difference.

Miguel Llora

good movie, botched dvd.......2005-07-17

This DVD is a botched production job, and Amazon will charge you to return it because it's "not the result of our error." Amazon's error is to distribute this dog of a product. Wait for a better release. Caveat emptor.

The sound track lags several seconds behind the picture (and the subtitles) for the first 45 minutes of the movie. And there's a lot of dialog. It's almost impossible to figure out who is saying what to whom.

But maybe the visuals alone are worth it? Not really: The bottom quarter of the picture is blacked out, to cover the Chinese subtitles -- which nonetheless peek out from time to time when there are two lines of them. This provides a nice black background for the English subtitles (which contain the predictable dumb typos), but wouldn't you like to see the whole picture? I know I would.

Only a couple of times, there are pixilated intrusions of images from some other movie, with white people in it, for a second or two. Spoils the willing suspension of disbelief, you know?

And only once, there is a snatch of dialog in English -- not likely part of this movie, whose setting is earlier than the advent of English.

You don't need to spend any money on this product. Amazon should be ashamed of itself for selling it.

Haunting movie, frightening DVD.......2005-04-06

'Ashes of Time' is the rarest of Wong Kar Wei's films and best remembered as the one that so confounded him that he went off and made 'Chungking Express' to clear his mind before finishing it. Actually, it's worth remembering in its own right, as he brings his uniquely romantic take on the world to the fantasy swordplay genre with the expected unexpected results. There are swordfights, most of them pretty good, but the fantasy is kept to the bare minimum with the focus on the emotional cost of being a professional killer. Love is lost and so are memories, vengeance is sought and denied, characters meet but fail to connect, secrets are kept and regrets shared, all filtered through Leslie Cheung's inn on the edge of the desert where he acts as agent for killers for hire. The interest here isn't in action but reasons, and in the emotional cost of pursuing a life of violence, all captured via his usual dreamlike imagery and poetic confessional narration. Part Hong Kong, part European, part Leone (acknowledged/plagiarised at times in the score), not everything works, but the parts that do are quite magnificent, whether it's a woman tracing her hand over the sleeping body of a man who is not her lover or the curiously memorable shots of the horse thieves waiting their turn in a battle.

It can get confusing - not only do the characters sometimes blur into each other but he even hires both Tony Leungs for key roles in the same film while Brigitte Lin plays dual roles and, just to add to the clarity, the film's chronology is very misleading - but it's worth bearing with. A film I'll definitely be returning to, and I suspect more than just the once.

However, this DVD edition is one to avoid for reasons already outlined in other reviews here. Instead, track down the Hong Kong Mei Ha release: the picture quality is grainy, but the English subtitling is much better handled.

Average customer rating:

Angela's Ashes
Starring: Robert Carlyle , Liam Carney , Eanna Mac Liam , Pauline McLynn , and Ronnie Masterson
Director: Alan Parker
Manufacturer: Paramount
ProductGroup: DVD
Binding: DVD

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