Ashes of Time: the Tragedy and Salvation of the Chinese Intelligentsia

Among the films of Wong Kar-Wai, the most avant-garde Hong Kong film director, Ashes of Time (1994) stands out most discordantly and merits special attention. Contrary to Wong Kar-Wai's other films1 which depict invariably the contemporary, modern, urban, and under-world, Ashes of Time is a martial arts costume film which claims to be an adaptation, or more precisely, a prequel, of The Eagle Shooting Hero by Louis Cha (Jin Yong), the most distinguished martial arts novelist. In this light, a comparison between the film and the novel presents an interesting angle to start my examination of the film.