Release CalendarTop 250 MoviesMost Popular MoviesBrowse Movies by GenreTop Box OfficeShowtimes & TicketsMovie NewsIndia Movie Spotlight
    What's on TV & StreamingTop 250 TV ShowsMost Popular TV ShowsBrowse TV Shows by GenreTV NewsIndia TV Spotlight
    What to WatchLatest TrailersIMDb OriginalsIMDb PicksIMDb Podcasts
    OscarsBest Picture WinnersBest Picture WinnersEmmysSTARmeter AwardsSan Diego Comic-ConNew York Comic-ConSundance Film FestivalToronto Int'l Film FestivalAwards CentralFestival CentralAll Events
    Born TodayMost Popular CelebsMost Popular CelebsCelebrity News
    Help CenterContributor ZonePolls
For Industry Professionals
  • All
  • Titles
  • TV Episodes
  • Celebs
  • Companies
  • Keywords
  • Advanced Search
Watchlist
Sign In
  • Fully supported
  • English (United States)
    Partially supported
  • Français (Canada)
  • Français (France)
  • Deutsch (Deutschland)
  • हिंदी (भारत)
  • Italiano (Italia)
  • Português (Brasil)
  • Español (España)
  • Español (México)
  • Cast & crew
  • User reviews
  • Trivia
IMDbPro

Ashes of Time

Original title: Dung che sai duk
  • 19941994
  • RR
  • 1h 40m
IMDb RATING
7.0/10
15K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
14,374
3,345
Leslie Cheung in Ashes of Time (1994)
A broken-hearted hit man moves to the desert where he finds skilled swordsmen to carry out his contract killings.
Play trailer2:20
1 Video
87 Photos
ActionDrama
A broken-hearted hit man moves to the desert where he finds skilled swordsmen to carry out his contract killings.A broken-hearted hit man moves to the desert where he finds skilled swordsmen to carry out his contract killings.A broken-hearted hit man moves to the desert where he finds skilled swordsmen to carry out his contract killings.
IMDb RATING
7.0/10
15K
YOUR RATING
POPULARITY
14,374
3,345
  • See more at IMDbPro
    • Director
      • Kar-Wai Wong
    • Writers
      • Louis Cha(novel "The Eagle Shooting Heroes")
      • Kar-Wai Wong(screenplay)
    • Stars
      • Brigitte Lin
      • Maggie Cheung
      • Leslie Cheung
    Top credits
    • Director
      • Kar-Wai Wong
    • Writers
      • Louis Cha(novel "The Eagle Shooting Heroes")
      • Kar-Wai Wong(screenplay)
    • Stars
      • Brigitte Lin
      • Maggie Cheung
      • Leslie Cheung
  • See production, box office & company info
    • 55User reviews
    • 124Critic reviews
    • 69Metascore
    • Awards
      • 9 wins & 16 nominations

    Videos1

    Ashes of Time Redux
    Trailer 2:20
    Ashes of Time Redux

    Photos87

    Tony Ka Fai Leung in Ashes of Time (1994)
    Tony Chiu-Wai Leung in Ashes of Time (1994)
    Tony Chiu-Wai Leung in Ashes of Time (1994)
    Tony Ka Fai Leung in Ashes of Time (1994)
    Leslie Cheung and Brigitte Lin in Ashes of Time (1994)
    Brigitte Lin in Ashes of Time (1994)
    Brigitte Lin in Ashes of Time (1994)
    Tony Ka Fai Leung in Ashes of Time (1994)
    Brigitte Lin in Ashes of Time (1994)
    Leslie Cheung and Brigitte Lin in Ashes of Time (1994)
    Leslie Cheung in Ashes of Time (1994)
    Tony Chiu-Wai Leung in Ashes of Time (1994)

    Top cast

    Edit
    Brigitte Lin
    Brigitte Lin
    • Mu-rong Yin…
    Maggie Cheung
    Maggie Cheung
    • The Woman
    Leslie Cheung
    Leslie Cheung
    • Ou-yang Feng
    Tony Chiu-Wai Leung
    Tony Chiu-Wai Leung
    • Blind Swordsman
    • (as Tony Chiu Wai Leung)
    Jacky Cheung
    Jacky Cheung
    • Hung Chi
    Tony Ka Fai Leung
    Tony Ka Fai Leung
    • Huang Yao-shi
    Li Bai
    • Hung Chi's Wife
    Carina Lau
    Carina Lau
    • Peach Blossom
    Charlie Yeung
    Charlie Yeung
    • Young Girl
    Joey Wang
    Joey Wang
      Shun Lau
      Shun Lau
      • Leader of Ouyang's Opponents in Opening Battle
      • (uncredited)
      Li Yin
      • Rebel swordsman
      • (uncredited)
      • Director
        • Kar-Wai Wong
      • Writers
        • Louis Cha(novel "The Eagle Shooting Heroes")
        • Kar-Wai Wong(screenplay)
      • All cast & crew
      • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

      More like this

      Days of Being Wild
      7.5
      Days of Being Wild
      Happy Together
      7.7
      Happy Together
      As Tears Go By
      7.0
      As Tears Go By
      2046
      7.4
      2046
      The Grandmaster
      6.5
      The Grandmaster
      Fallen Angels
      7.6
      Fallen Angels
      Chungking Express
      8.0
      Chungking Express
      The Eagle Shooting Heroes
      7.0
      The Eagle Shooting Heroes
      In the Mood for Love
      8.1
      In the Mood for Love
      My Blueberry Nights
      6.6
      My Blueberry Nights
      Farewell My Concubine
      8.1
      Farewell My Concubine
      The Hand
      7.5
      The Hand

      Storyline

      Edit

      Did you know

      Edit
      • Trivia
        This film had an exhausting effect on Kar-Wai Wong. While on hiatus during the editing process he wrote and shot Chungking Express (1994) to "clear his head".
      • Quotes

        Ou-yang Feng: People say, when you can't have what you want, the best you can do is not to forget.

      • Alternate versions
        Wong Kar-wai revisited the film and created the Redux version which premiered at the Cannes Film Festival 2008. This version has alternative footage and changes in the order of scenes. The Redux version has new opening titles, and the season's fade-ins introducing each chapter are new. It also has a new color-scheme and a new soundtrack. Some scenes from the original version have been deleted, for example the two main character's introduction in the beginning. The overall run time of the Redux version is slightly shorter than the original theatrical version.
      • Connections
        Featured in Century of Cinema: Naamsaang-neuiseung (1998)

      User reviews55

      Review
      Top review
      Ashes of Time Redux
      Near the end, the proprietor of an inn perched on the windy edge of a sandy desert that stretches to the horizon has an epiphany; he has never before actually stopped to observe the desert, not as a transition, but as destination, as something that you don't calculate how to cross, but observe as a place you have crossed to reach. I have written the almost exact same idea (different setting) in one of my screenplays. This is the personal connection with a favourite film I value so much. Film becomes more than film, I see film as dream, a consciousness briefly shared then forgotten. It's that feeling of dreaming the same dream with a great artist that makes me tingle.

      This is a film like the best of novels, a web woven of fragmented image and word, drives and desires, rendered cinematically alive when the two coalesce to reveal yawning chasms of human experience, the one common shared human experience we all know. The film's opening serves as present tense and WKW builds fascinating removes from it to the point where the final story of the film climaxes in the past with shocking reverberations that make me rush through the entire film, clawing my way back to the present and previous past occurrences, to change my perspective.

      At the beginning of the film, a master swordsman arrives at an inn to offer the inn keeper a gulp from a wine that makes you forget the past. The inn keeper refuses. Throughout the film we happen upon characters, or characters happen upon the film as it passes time in that wind-torn inn by the desert, fixed in position by memory, by their inability or willinglessness to let go a human passion or folly, revenge or love however distant and impossible. We all need something to live for the inn keeper muses, and we know sometime we'll cling to the uglier most obsessive aspects of our nature to get us through the night. But this is all we have, not something to separate us from animals because even a dog will come to know the hand that strikes it, but all we have as humans to distinguish us from creation, being able to cling to that sad bitter memory of unfulfillment for years and make our unvanquished madness dear to us.

      This is all a bit of a game, life is through the remove of storytelling, it becomes myth and fabrication, but what wouldn't we give to go back and play it again. In the end we discover that the wine that makes you forget the past is regular wine and a character is only set free when he finds out his love, love he had and denied until he realized how precious it was to him and came back to find it gone, has died. But that was already two years ago and he's stood in place for those two years, allowing himself to be released from his selfimposed exile when a piece of paper reaches his hands, as though even absolution from guilt or shame or obligation can only properly come to pass in an official manner.

      WKW gives us swordplaying spectacle to go with this but he doesn't focus on it. Swords strike and fighters leap into the air in blurry shapes of color and motion yet the eye doesn't rest on the details of the fight but rather centers on facial expressions and the maddening ferocity of it all, like it's all a dance and we're dancing right in the middle of it. To say this is a wuxia is to set different expectations for it. Here poetry is not a poetry of appearances. As with his previous films, WKW tells us marvellous things about obsession and release, the yearning to remember and forget, and about letting ourselves go into new beginnings.
      helpful•2
      0
      • chaos-rampant
      • Oct 18, 2010

      FAQ1

      • What are the differences between the Theatrical Version and the Redux Version?

      Details

      Edit
      • Release date
        • September 17, 1994 (Hong Kong)
      • Countries of origin
        • Hong Kong
        • Taiwan
      • Official sites
        • Official site
        • Official site (Spain)
      • Languages
        • Mandarin
        • Cantonese
      • Also known as
        • Ashes of Time: Redux
      • Filming locations
        • China
      • Production companies
        • Jet Tone Production
        • Block 2 Pictures
        • Scholar Films Company
      • See more company credits at IMDbPro

      Box office

      Edit
      • Budget
        • HK$40,000,000 (estimated)
      • Gross US & Canada
        • $174,273
      • Opening weekend US & Canada
        • $21,372
        • Oct 12, 2008
      • Gross worldwide
        • $2,009,694
      See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

      Technical specs

      Edit
      • Runtime
        1 hour 40 minutes
      • Color
        • Color
      • Sound mix
        • Mono
      • Aspect ratio
        • 1.85 : 1

      Related news

      Contribute to this page

      Suggest an edit or add missing content
      Leslie Cheung in Ashes of Time (1994)
      Top Gap
      By what name was Ashes of Time (1994) officially released in India in English?
      Answer
      • See more gaps
      • Learn more about contributing
      Edit page

      More to explore

      View list
      List
      New & Upcoming Superhero Movies and Series
      See the full list
      View list
      List
      Fall TV Guide: The Best Shows Coming This Year
      See the full list
      View image
      Photos
      Double Take: Celebrity Twins
      See the full list

      Recently viewed

      Please enable browser cookies to use this feature. Learn more.
      Back to top
      Get the IMDb App
      Sign in for more access
      Sign in for more access
      • Get the IMDb App
      • Help
      • Site Index
      • IMDbPro
      • Box Office Mojo
      • IMDb Developer
      • Press Room
      • Advertising
      • Jobs
      • Conditions of Use
      • Privacy Policy
      • Interest-Based Ads
      IMDb, an Amazon company

      © 1990-2022 by IMDb.com, Inc.