Ashes of Time

Ashes of Time Chinese pinyin Dngxi xid literally Eastern Heretic, Western Poison is a 1994 Hong Kong film written and directed by Wong Karwai, and loosely based on four characters from Jin Yongs novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes.

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 bountyhunters came and went as was narrated by Ouyang Feng himself as based on the Tung Shu predictions.In essence, he was a loner with little love, but the bounty hunters that worked for Ouyang Feng, like Blind Swordsman and another of his best fighters, Hong Qigong, discovered the intangible secret of true love while Ouyang retained his attitude towards his fighters and the precious lessons that they have taught. However, the thread that runs through the entire narrative has clearly the spirit of refusal in the sense that one should reject another before he gets to be rejected in the future. To illustrate, nearly every character in this story has resorted to being selfish and malignant in order to prevent being rejected by others, be it in love or in comradeship as their individual hardships have moulded their attitude turning them into heartless and cold individuals in order to survive in the uncompromising desert where the story is set. ........

Source: Wikipedia