Rating: 
Summary: Movie is wonderful, DVD copy is not.
Review: The movie is a wonderful peace of art. Wong Kar-wai is a visionary. He approaches movies with an artist's soul. Don't expect to grasp the concept of this movie on the first viewing. It takes a few times to understand. But because the movie is soo beautiful, you probably won't mind watching over and over again. The problem with the DVD is that they put a huge black line across the bottom of the screen for subtitles and they didn't bother to adjust the picture. So, being that this movie is such a visual high, it ruins it when you can't see half of the picture. Purchase the VHS Copy instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Fish Out Of Water
Review: There's no doubt that Wong Kar-Wai is a visionary director and accomplished storyteller. But Ashes of Time is to Wong Kar-Wai as Mallrats is to Kevin Smith, a slight blemish in an otherwise stellar career. Although Ashes of Time is a beautiful piece of film making and cinematography, it is an absolute turd of a movie. Jam packed with popular actors and pop stars who make Sophia Coppola look like an oscar winning actress, this film was in dire need of a few (major) script revisions. If Ashes of Time is the first Wong Kar-Wai film you've seen, don't write him off as a hack, Chungking Express, Fallen Angels and Happy Together are some of the best films to have come out of Hong Kong.
Rating: 
Summary: a visual poem
Review: This film has no plot and no time frame. It's about living with lost love, and has flashbacks, surreal images, incredible swordfights, dialogue that makes no sense at all mixed with pearls of wisdom, all put together with a poet's vision. There is a lot that reminds me of early Sergio Leone, and the terrific soundtrack adds to the "Spaghetti Western" feeling. the cast is GORGEOUS: Leslie Cheung, one of the world's greatest actors, is fabulous as always. Brigitte Lin is stunningly beautiful and so strong..and Tony Leung, who's eyes speak volumes, is wonderful. The screen presence of these 3 actors is so powerful, they don't need a plot ! Don't try to figure out who is killing who and why, that will all fall into place on about the 10th viewing...just watch this film with your heart.
Rating:
Summary: Don't watch this US release version!!!
Review: This film is awesome, but this version of the DVD is horrible. You have to see the Hong Kong version. This version by World Video has lots of digital glitches, shots missing, is out of sync at parts and has a big black bar with new bad English subtitles to cover up the original Chinese and English subtitles. Get the Hong Kong version and watch it.
Rating: 
Summary: The Worst DVD masterring I've ever seen! A Disaster!
Review: This is a horrorible disaster for the movie, the director and viewers. I can't believe that there exists a DVD company which produces this kind of work and puts it in market with any expectation of business. I know some Hong Kong DVD producers are not much concerned about the quality of works, but it is just beyond my expectation. The worst DVD mastering I've ever seen, and I don't think there would be any worse than this in the future. The No.1 DVD you should never buy, see, or ever try to!
Rating:
Summary: Think twice about DVD version
Review: This is a spectacular film to behold. One of Wong Kar-Wai's best but the DVD transfer is the worse I have ever seen. No budget involved basically. Half of the frame is missing because of the subtitle bar. One can deal with the slight inaccuracies in translation but the subtitles aren't in sync with the images. Perhaps, buy the cheaper VHS edition if you are really desperate to own.
Rating:
Summary: Great film, Terrible DVD
Review: This is a travesty! A great film destroyed by poor DVD transfer. Don't buy this DVD. Wait for some other company to release a better one.
Rating:
Summary: Good movie, awful DVD
Review: This is great movie. No doubt about it, but quality of DVD is horrible. Picture sometimes got blurred, sound is very low quality. This is worst DVD ever. Movie is more then worth to watch, but not from that DVD.
Rating:
Summary: Not what I expected
Review: This is not the usual hong kong movie that Im use to seeing Its very different with little fight scene. So dont expect crazy fight scene but looking just at the cover of the movie and the name does sound like its going to be like a fighting movie. So Im glad I rented this first so I wasnt stuck buying the movie.
Rating: 
Summary: a brilliant, beautiful movie - on VHS.
Review: This is one of my favourite movies of All Time - the story is moving, the cinematography is painfully beautiful, and the characters are fascinating. The DVD mastering, accoringly, is perhaps the greatest injustice the movie could have possibly suffered. The source from which the DVD was dubbed was in *terrible* condition. Your local rental store's VHS copy probably looks like it's in better shape. The picture is very scratchy. Even worse is the subtitling. The subtitles in the VHS version were very thoughtfully written and give a good sense of the poetry of the original script. The only problem is that they are sometimes a little (read: teeny bit) hard to read. The DVD version "overcomes" this problem by BLACKING OUT the bottom 20% of the screen and displaying new subtitles on the black bar. Two problems with this method - they didn't resize the picture at all. You simply lose the bottom fifth of the picture. Also, the subtitles in the DVD version are a much poorer translation of the original. They are almost comical at times, they depart so far from Wei's original vision. I would whole-heartedly recommend this movie to anybody, especailly lovers of Hong Kong cinema or Asian period peices. Please save yourself a lot of disappointment, though, and pick up the VHS version.
| 
