Despite revisions from the director, Wong Kar-Wai's oneiric wu xia epic remains as ravishingly impenetrable as ever. (The colors look infinitely more vibrant than in previously available prints, but the smoke-like tumult of the plot remains thankfully undiluted.) In an early scene, a swordsman (Tony Leung Ka Fai), mane and robes flowing for the tilted camera, slashes the air and triggers an earthquake; Wong heightens action tropes the way Sergio Leone found arias in western duels, though the genre's mandatory showdowns play second fiddle to the characters' melancholic languor. Asked to deliver a sword-fighting extravaganza, Wong perversely blurs, fractures and pixilates the choreography while having his cast of Hong Kong superstars (Leslie Cheung, Brigitte Lin, Maggie Cheung) lounge around a desert hut, soaking in the director's themes of memory, being and loving. No less than the dreamers of his later films, Wong's ancient warriors are obsessed with time and passion, and the rigidity of their iconic roles erodes with the transience of their emotions. Remembered more as the unwieldy production that gave birth to Chungking Express than for its own heady force, this is a reverie ripe for rediscovery.  Fernando F. Croce