Ash Is Purest White

Name: Ash Is Purest White
Genre: Drama, Romance
Released: March 15, 2019
Duration: 136 min
Rating: 85
Cast: Casper Liang, Fan Liao, Jiali Ding, Jiamei Feng, Kang Kang

2019

METASCORE

Universal acclaim based on 36 Critic Reviews

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USER SCORE

Generally favorable reviews based on 36 Ratings

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7.2

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7.2	User Score Generally favorable reviews based on 36 Ratings

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Ash Is Purest White (US Trailer)

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Movie Details & Credits

Cohen Media Group | Release Date: March 15, 2019 | Not Rated

Starring: Casper Liang, Fan Liao, Jiali Ding, Jiamei Feng, Kang Kang, Tao Zhao, Xiaogang Feng, Xuan Li, Yi'nan Diao, Yibai Zhang, Zheng Xu, Zijian Dong

Summary: Qiao (Zhao Tao) is in love with Bin, a local mobster. During a fight between rival gangs, she fires a gun to protect him. Qiao gets five years in prison for this act of loyalty. Upon her release, she goes looking for Bin to pick up where they left off.

Director: Zhang Ke Jia

Genre(s): Drama, Romance

Rating: Not Rated

Runtime: 136 min

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Critic Reviews

100

Tara Brady

Nov 29, 2021

As ever, Zhao Tao puts in the best performance you’ll see this year. Read full review

100

RogerEbert.com Glenn Kenny

Mar 14, 2019

Like his prior film, 2015’s “Mountains May Depart,” this new picture from master Jia Zhangke is a three-part drama spanning decades. To this critic Ash is Purest White is a much more successful attempt at depicting a changing China through the lives of not-quite-tragic characters and their sufferings. Read full review

Anthony Lane

Mar 18, 2019

All that we treasure in Jia is there in Zhao’s scrutinizing gaze, at once pointed and guarded, and in the fierce patience with which she deliberates before taking action. Read full review

A.A. Dowd

May 14, 2018

It’s a surprisingly funny, even loopy film at times, with bursts of slapstick and screwball humor, plus a sporadic absurdism. Read full review

Empire Ian Freer

Apr 26, 2019

Jia’s grip slackens slightly at the end but, especially in its middle section, Ash Is Purest White is engrossing, surprising and affecting, held together by a towering performance from Tao – her gaze alone should carry a licence to kill. Read full review

Pat Padua

Mar 27, 2019

“Ash” may not hit the dizzying heights of “Sin” but, compared with “Mountain,” it’s a far more consistent and satisfying ride. Read full review

John Bleasdale

May 14, 2018

Ash Is Purest White is a fascinating chapter in Jia’s ongoing chronicle of ordinary lives affected by unprecedented change in China. Read full review

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User Reviews

JLuis_001

May 29, 2021

Ash is Purest White is one of the best films I've seen this year.
A film that deceives by its apparent simplicity, and yet rewards you for its structural richness.
But the details are appreciated only if you're willing to pay attention. If your thing is not films that have a slow butAsh is Purest White is one of the best films I've seen this year.
A film that deceives by its apparent simplicity, and yet rewards you for its structural richness.

But the details are appreciated only if you're willing to pay attention.
If your thing is not films that have a slow but captivating pace, stay away.
This is not about finding an answer to the plot but about absorbing it.

The story of Qiao played by a magnificent Zhao Tao is an impressive journey of loyalty, love, change, betrayal and loss, and is given an impressive representation by director Jia Zhangke.

Not to be missed.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

amheretojudge

Oct 2, 2019

You are looking for a reason, a past life, a missing blank and then you realise, "This is a love story".

Ash Is Purest White The writer and director Zhangke Jia is a, if I may, a sadistic person when it comes to portray love in cinema. And there's nothing wrong with that. You can see theYou are looking for a reason, a past life, a missing blank and then you realise, "This is a love story".

Ash Is Purest White

The writer and director Zhangke Jia is a, if I may, a sadistic person when it comes to portray love in cinema. And there's nothing wrong with that. You can see the result here. It is just, personally I feel sobered up when I start jumping on this train. Now, this is not just any "sober"-ness that he offers us. It is a post hangover, too many cups of coffee, sober. What it sums up too, is an experience. An experience of a lifetime? Sure, why not. For if the writing and direction of the film is pretty standard. What Jia has achieved in this passionate project of his, is something I haven't seen before.

And maybe, I will remember it years later, for its originality. Or just freshness, in my life. Over the two hours in our world, and more than 15 years in the character's world, Jia defines love. Now, there have been so many filmmakers, storytellers, philosophers and whatnots that had tried to conjure the essence of what love is. Where some has been so theoretical and meticulous and a bit math about their love, some has been awfully blunt in their grammar.

And maybe this one comes in later or maybe in both of them. Jia describes it disproportionately. The writers, before him, have gone through enormous lengths to justify it, balance it and share it as much as they could. And even if this one shares its share inadvertently, it is also never called upon. This leaves a hollow space in your head. You are numb for the rest of the day when you get in contact with this. Ash Is Purest White, it concludes, pretty early on, and by the last bell is rung, you'd wish for some, some filter in their voices.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

GinaK

Mar 25, 2019

If you don’t like “art house movies” (I mean early Ingmar Bergman films and not low-level porn), stay away from this movie. I rather liked it, as you can see by my numerical rating, but after the first third or so, which is about gangsters, you start on a long train ride through centralIf you don’t like “art house movies” (I mean early Ingmar Bergman films and not low-level porn), stay away from this movie. I rather liked it, as you can see by my numerical rating, but after the first third or so, which is about gangsters, you start on a long train ride through central China where the scenery is colorless and the company is not especially interesting. Someone seems to take a job studying UFOs and there is some successful acupuncture later on (maybe), but that’s about it for excitement. I once sent a cousin of mine to an early Bergman film, and she is still not speaking to me, so be warned.… Expand

0 of 1 users found this helpful01

DawdlingPoet

Apr 30, 2022

This is very much a bleak and sometimes quite gritty film. Its got a mostly urban setting and by the end its somewhat introspective. The main protagonist seems quite mysterious, which intrigued me a bit. I felt myself rooting for her at times. I did feel the film seemed a bit directionlessThis is very much a bleak and sometimes quite gritty film. Its got a mostly urban setting and by the end its somewhat introspective. The main protagonist seems quite mysterious, which intrigued me a bit. I felt myself rooting for her at times. I did feel the film seemed a bit directionless at times, plot wise, which didn't help.

As I say, there's a sobering side to what goes on, the principles and morals that are discussed. It's not a film that I found entirely memorable or would want to watch again but its ok. It had a bit of a feel of An Elephant Sitting Still, I thought. I'm not sure what else I could say but I'd only recommend it to people quite familiar with these sorts of films, who are prepared to give it a shot, if you know what I mean.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

Mauro_Lanari

May 19, 2021

(Mauro Lanari)
Contamination of genres and styles is not an intrinsic value if they do not mix. 17 years and 136 minutes to tell that, ultimately, space and time change nothing, at most they decant the decline already underway: the anthropological, Chinese, amorous, friendly, corporeal one.(Mauro Lanari)
Contamination of genres and styles is not an intrinsic value if they do not mix. 17 years and 136 minutes to tell that, ultimately, space and time change nothing, at most they decant the decline already underway: the anthropological, Chinese, amorous, friendly, corporeal one. An interminable choral river pompously immersed in the geographical solitude of boundless territories and in a hyper-dilated chronology inhabited exclusively by stories of losers: an epic attempt as unsuccessful as its characters, with symbolisms and stylizations that destroy in the bud the semblances of neorealism. Then, after the hundredth deserted wide shot, one loses count and gets bored.… Expand

0 of 0 users found this helpful00

hnestlyonthesly

Oct 7, 2019

This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. Ash is Purest White takes an excellent thirty minute drama and stretches it past the bounds of good taste and believability into an epic saga that tests the patience of polite indie theater goers. I am fairly sure that this is supposed to be a dark comedy, but the points when we would laugh in any other film sort of don’t work, because the tone is so unclear–thinking of scenes like the funeral tableau for the crime boss early on, with the ailing mother and the earnest and flamboyant ballroom dancers honoring their coach. The film careens into absurdity with the part in the desert toward the end.

The story does not tumble spontaneously like a rollicking epic so much as it grinds out its seismically slow plot with no apparent interest in story development. Crimes lead to jail time lead to weirdly edited water-bucket chores to a potentially excellent search and confrontation scene and sort of unravels again after the hotel room and a burning newspaper.

If it weren’t for the fact that Friend of Wife says that the director, Zhangke Jia, is married to the star Tao Zhao, I’d say that I don’t really understand how any of this came together at all, but vanity projects are unfortunately alive and well in this country too, for good and for ill.

I maintain that the trailer to this film is one of the slyest misdirections I have ever witnessed. The trailer and online summaries of the film abruptly cut off at around the 30 min mark of the actual movie, and at the time of viewing Friend of Wife had found that some of (few) lukewarm to negative reviews talk about the sudden shift in story at this point, the grueling six-week long run-time, and the lack of character arcs.

Ash flirts with the supernatural without much (any) preparation. There’s a weird amount of product placement from the egregious use of apps to the unncessary proliferation of flashy phones. The love story is a false choice between an emotional recluse and a conman. The only Christian figure in the whole story turns out to be a liar and a cheat. Probably not worth your time by this point unless you’ve been waiting for a Chinese sequel to Boyhood.… Expand

0 of 2 users found this helpful02

Dlrlm

Jul 19, 2019

Why do these movies get such great reviews? The ending sucked just like most films.

1 of 5 users found this helpful14

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26	#26 Best Movie of 2019
70	#70 Most Shared Movie of 2019