Ashes of Time

Ashes of Time is a 1994 Hong Kong film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, and inspired by characters from Jin Yong's novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes. Background In the 1960s, King Hu's Come Drink with Me raised the artistic level of wuxia films. Wong grew up immersed in wuxia culture. In 1972, Bruce Lee's The Way of the Dragon brought jianghu culture to the global stage. In the mid-1990s, wuxia films entered a new stage. Wong selected characters from "new-school" wuxia novelist Jin Yong's novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes and created an unprecedented wuxia story. The film's story is a prequel to the novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes as it imagines the older characters when they were younger. It focuses on the main antagonist (Ouyang Feng) and humanizes him into a protagonist while retaining his despicable qualities. Feng, known as the Western Venom, crosses paths with the other powerful wuxia masters. Their backstories are depicted with great liberty and sometimes completely subvert the intended meaning from the novel. During the film's long-delayed production, Wong produced a parody of the same novel with much of the same cast (in different roles) titled The Eagle Shooting Heroes.