Ashes of Time: Redux

Impressions before seeing it
I will say up front that I have not seen the original version of this movie. Nor had I seen any trailers or footage, but I was aware of its existence. A martial arts epic by my favourite Chinese director? SOLD!

How was it?
This is not a typical martial arts film. In fact it's not even a typical epic or a typical "redux" film: it's only about 90 minutes long, and shorter than the original at that. There are action scenes of course, but they are shot weirdly... It's almost as if Kar Wai was trying to use fast movement and editing in order to avoid showing the fight choreography in detail. But it's not really about the fighting. Being a Wong Kar Wai film, it's about love and relationships. And a lot of voiceovers with wise sayings and musings, which is what makes his movies charming.

I will say that the opening was badass. It was the kind of opening that makes you excited for the rest of the movie because it's just so damned cool. There were some other comparable sequences and a lot of nice visuals, but the rest of the movie didn't really live up to this initial hype. It wasn't bad by any means, but I did find it confusing at times. I think it was the characters; some of them were having identity crises, and there were a lot of phrases thrown around to describe unseen characters rather than actually use their names, so I found it difficult to keep track of who was being referred to and if they were supposed to have any significance to the plot. Maybe watching it again will help.

Recommendation
I don't know who this film's target audience would be. If you are a big martial arts fan, you will probably be disappointed. If you are a romance fan, you will probably also be disappointed (for a story about love I don't think the relationships were developed as well as Wong Kar Wai's other films). If you are a fan of the director, you might enjoy it because there are certainly recognizable elements of his style. But I would reccommend seeing his other films first so that you learn to appreciate him before moving on to this one.