Ashes of Time
Film poster
Traditional	東邪西毒
Simplified	东邪西毒
Mandarin	Dōng Xié Xī Dú
Cantonese	Dung1 Ce4 Sai1 Duk6
Directed by	Wong Kar-wai
Produced by	Wong Kar-wai Jeffrey Lau Jacky Pang
Screenplay by	Wong Kar-wai
Story by	Louis Cha
Starring	Leslie Cheung Tony Leung Ka-fai Brigitte Lin Tony Leung Chiu-Wai Carina Lau Charlie Yeung Jacky Cheung Maggie Cheung
Music by	Frankie Chan Roel A. Garcia
Cinematography	Christopher Doyle
Edited by	Hai Kit-wai Kwong Chi-leung William Chang Patrick Tam
Production company	Jet Tone Productions Beijing Film Studio Tsui Siu Ming Production Scholar Films Pony Canon Inc.
Distributed by	Newport Entertainment (HK) HKFM (US)
Release dates	17 September 1994
Running time	100 minutes 93 minutes (Redux)
Country	Hong Kong
Language	Cantonese
Budget	HK$40,000,000 (estimated)
Box office	HK$9,023,583 (HK) US$1,912,490 (Redux)

Ashes of Time (Chinese: 東邪西毒; pinyin: Dōngxié xidú; literally: “Eastern Heretic, Western Poison”) is a 1994 Hong Kong film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, and loosely based on four characters from Jin Yong’s novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

Wong completely eschews any plot adaptation from the novel, using only the names to create his own vision of an arguably unrelated film. During the film’s long-delayed production, Wong produced a parody of the same novel with the same cast titled The Eagle Shooting Heroes.

Although it received limited box office success, the parallels Ashes of Time drew 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 under-appreciated works.

Due to the original prints being lost Wong re-edited and re-scored the film in 2008 for future theater, DVD and Blu-ray releases under the title Ashes of Time Redux. The film was reduced from 100 to 93 minutes. Both the original and Redux versions can still be found on Asian markets, while only the Redux version is available to western markets. Several criticisms of the Redux version have been noted, such as poor image quality and color mastering from the source material, cropping and removal of portions of the bottom image, poor English translations, and the re-scoring.