Ashes of Time

Ashes of Time (, literally "The Heretic East and the Venomous West") is a 1994 Hong Kong wuxia film directed by Wong Kar-wai, based very loosely on four characters from the Louis Cha novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes. Wong completely eschews any plot adaptation from Cha's novel, using only the names to create his own vision of an arguably unrelated movie. Although it received limited box office success, the parallels Ashes of Time draws between modern ideas of dystopia imposed on a wuxia film has led many critics to cite it as one of Wong Kar-wai's most underappreciated works. In this film, set in ancient times in China, Leslie Cheung plays an agent, Ouyang Feng, hiring famous bounty-hunters. His character is portrayed as a fallen swordsman driven by greed and 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... full article at wikipedia