Ashes of Time

I managed to write another two thousand words of my NaNoWriMo story yesterday. Last night I watched the latest episode of True Blood, which was really good. I also watched the movie Ashes of Time Redux, directed by Wong Kar-Wai. The movie was first released in 1994, but the director released a re-edited (or "redux") version last year. The film is set in medieval China and concerns a cynical swordsman (played by Leslie Cheung) who sets himself up as a hired killer after his wife leaves him to marry his brother. He is hired by a man (Brigitte Lin) to kill his sister's boyfriend, who happens to be the swordsman's best friend, on the grounds that he deserted her. However the sister (Lin again) wants to hire him to kill her brother on the grounds that he is too possessive of her. He also ends up helping two other younger swordsmen in their seperate battles against the same group of bandits. It's a really beautiful looking film which, unusually for a martial arts movie, focusses mainly on emotion and philosophy rather than action (the fight scenes are depicted almost as fast-moving blurs of sound and colour). Apparently it was a huge flop on it's first relelase and was barely released.

Today my mouth is still quite sore, and I'm still needing painkillers. Also I am absolutely sick to death of eating soup (apparently I need a "soft diet" for a week after the procedure). I did manage to go out today though and I got the movies There Will be Blood and Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street on Blu-Ray DVD.