I have not seen Ashes of Time although I believe that the Redux is better.
I've seen the Redux, and from what I've read there's really not much of a difference, except there were extended bits. Very stylish stuff, and it's weird seeing the icons of the Three Kingdoms depicted as such. Certainly Leslie Cheung was strange - a little too much baggage associated with him as an actor to see him play a wandering, self-exiled killer.
I saw "The Magician" (Tong Leung) recently-ish and it was a really confusing film at the beginning until I realised that it was a bit of a spoof in the traditional style, or a spoof of the traditional style, or just plain hysterically funny - take your pick LOL. Once I realised that, I sat back and enjoyed it thoroughly. By the end I was nearly on the floor laughing.
Going on my watchlist! Forgot about this one. Tony Leung is pretty amazing.
If you can get Red Cliff - the original long two part release, not the cut-to-bits International release - it is one of the most satisfying movies I have seen in a long time. One of the one's you can watch over and over.
I've watched the first, but not the second film. I don't know why I'm waiting so long to watch the other half. Partly because the ending is not exactly a surprise (part of The Three Kingdoms, after all), but the other part is watching Takeshi Kaneshiro as my fav Three Kingdoms character, Zhu Ge Liang. Anecdote: I once worked with a lady who met HK actress Charlie Young during the course of her work. If you know your HK movies, Charlie regularly gets cast alongside Kaneshiro. Apparently Charlie remarked that Kaneshiro isn't the sharpest tool in the shed. This remark stayed with me, and the fact that I'm not a big fan of him, makes me wince at seeing him being cast as the smartest character in the entire Three Kingdoms canon.
Whew, that went on a little longer than I expected.
Actually as a general rule of thumb don't get the international release of any Chinese / Asian movie - they cut out all the good bits, and not to mention what they do with the dialogue as well. Read the subtitles - you will thank me!
Ok, disclosure. I'm a Chinese Malaysian, and I speak Cantonese, and an embarrassing smattering of Mandarin (can't read, though). So I usually don't have to resort to subtitles (unless it's Mandarin) for understanding, more of a supplementary tool.
I dislike dubbed HK films as a rule, and don't watch dubbed anything (Japanese, Korean, French, German, etc) if I can help it. We usually get the HK release where I am, but that's really a moot point, because, I, uh, get to watch them, uhm, under serendipitous circumstances.
