Ashes of Time, or Dung che sai duk (東邪西毒; pinyin: Dōngxié Xīdú, literally "The Heretic East and the Toxic West") is a 1994 wuxia film based off loosely on two characters from a Cha Liang-Yung novel, directed by Wong Kar-wai.

Cast includes

• Brigitte Lin
• Leslie Cheung
• Maggie Cheung
• Jacky Cheung
• Tony Leung Chiu Wai
• Tony Leung Ka Fai
• Li Bai
• Carina Lau
• Charlie Yeung

Plot

In this film set during the ancient times in China, Leslie Cheung played an agent, Ouyang Feng, hiring famous bounty-hunters and his character portrayed a fallen swordsman driven by greed and is heartless to both friend and foe. He was perpetually being spiteful of love as his own love history was not nearly so beautiful. His bounty-hunters came and went as was narrated by Ouyang Feng himself as based on the Tung Shu predictions.

In essence, he was a loner with little love but the bounty hunters that worked for Ouyang Feng like 'Blind Swordsman' (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and another of his best fighters, Hung Chi played by Jacky Cheung discovered the intangible secret of true love while Ouyang retained his oblivious attitude towards his fighters and the precious lessons that they have taught. However, the thread that runs through the entire narrative has clearly the spirit of refusal in the sense that one should reject another before he gets to be rejected in the future. To illustrate, nearly every character in this story have resorted to being selfish and malignant in order to prevent being rejected by others, be it in love or in comradeship as their individual hardships have moulded their attitude turning them into heartless and cold individuals in order to survive in the uncompromising desert where the film's main backdrop is set.

It had many moral implications but is less evident since the main character is Ouyang himself and most of the narration would unquestionably be centred on him.

See also

• Cinema of China

External link