"I've never done a costume film. I always think costume films are great fun. You can really be wild.
Though in fact it's really hard work. So I find an easy way out: I make everything contemporary, and
I sideline things like hierarchy and seniority. Actually costume films are very formalisitic. Different
social strata have different etiquette, conventions and ways of living. But it's rdiculous to sweat over
research on their lifestyles. Because it doesn't matter how you do it, in the end it's all a sham. Even if
you got things like sipping tea and eating rice down to their last details, so what? You still don't know
if they are real or not.

"I had wanted the film to be some kind of a journey. I wanted it to begin in Qinghai, the mouth of the
Yellow River [source, he must have meant?], and go all the way to Hukou. But that's too difficult.
We couldn't afford that. Besides, you don't ask actors like Leslie Cheung and Lin Chin Hsia to make
a road move. So I had to stay put in one place.

"Basically the film is about emotions. It's a love story about Dongxie, Xidu and a woman, spanning half a life time. Certain
emotions are eternal. When I got to the film's ending I finally realized what Ashes of Time is about, and its relationship with my
previous films. They are all about refusal and the fear of refusal. Everyone in Days of Being Wild has been refused. They
become afraid of being refused, so they refuse other people before other people have a chance to refuse them. It's the same in
Chungking Express. (....) (But) Ashes is most deadly. It sums up the three previous films. How do yo go on with your life after
you've been refused? (....) Lin Ching-Hsia becomes schizophrenic, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai resorts to the most destructive
method to solve his problems, Leslie Cheung hides in the desert and Tony Leung Kar-Fai drinks himself to amnesia. The only
exception is Hong Qi (Jacky Cheung Hok-Yau's character). He doesn't think being refused is any big deal. He just goes ahead
to do what he thinks is the right thing."