Metrograph

The cream of Hong Kong/Taiwanese screen acting, including Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung Chiu-wai, and Leslie Cheung, unite in this otherworldly, elliptical, impressionistic, and entirely intoxicating arthouse wuxia, shot on location—with great difficulty and, thanks to DP Christopher Doyle, boundless ingenuity—in the remote Gobi Desert. Prompted by a necessary undertaking to preserve the original 1994 film’s surviving elements, Ashes of Time Redux is not merely a restoration but a stunning re-orchestration of Wong’s sweeping epic, creating an even more intensified expression of the director’s singular sense of cinematic construction. On-set, Wong would reportedly needle Doyle by asking him, after a take: “Is that all you can do?” Asked about this years later, Doyle would respond: “[This] should be the mantra for all people in the arts.”

Distributor: Sony Pictures Classics

35mm print courtesy of Sony Pictures Classics