If you thought that slapstick kung-fu comedy began with Kung Fu Hustle or Shaolin Soccer, or that gravity-defying, supernatural swordsmanship got is contemporary cinematic debut with Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, you would be off by (at least) the better part of a decade. Among the many Chinese and Hong Kong films of which western audiences have been deprived is Jeffrey Lau’s 1993 Eagle Shooting Heroes, a low-budget, low-brow romp shot concurrently with Wong Kar-Wai’s Ashes of Time.
Given the somber, placid, serious tone of Ashes, Lau and Wong’s decision to use the same cast to concurrently direct (and cross-produce) these films may have been motivated not by commercial gain as much as to allow to actors the relief of levity from the desolate (if not beautiful) physical and emotional world of Wong’s film (which was cinematically released as a Redux last year, thereby generating enough interest for it’s lighthearted cousin to be released on DVD.)
For what could have turned out to be an extended gag real, Eagle Shooting Heroes transcends its budget and is quite a bit of fun, especially for anyone who wants to see a handful of high-profile Asian film starts completely let their hair down. (And their lips and ears swell, in the case of Tony Leung.) The real trip of watching Heroes in the context of Ashes is reconciling that both films are based upon the same source, Louis Cha’s novel bearing the same translated name as this film.
Here are this morning’s Oscar-nominated films, alphabetically. The nominees for foreign language film and documentary feature are compiled at the end of the list. (Short format nominees are listed in a 
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