Trivia

This film had an exhausting effect on Wong Kar-Wai. While on hiatus during the editing process he wrote and shot Chungking Express (1994) to "clear his head".

In 2008, Wong Kar-Wai re-edited and re-scored the film, re-releasing it under the title "Ashes of Time Redux".

Apparently, Joey Wang, Veronica Yip, and Kenny Bee were originally also in the cast. Due to Wong Kar-Wai's shooting overrun of epic scale, producer Jeffrey Lau gathered everyone and shot The Eagle Shooting Heroes (1993), a nonsensical comedy version of the story and maintained many of Wong Kar-Wai's original casting decisions.

During this break, Wong Kar-Wai decided to have a complete overhaul of who plays who. By then, Joey Wang had to leave the production for her other filming obligations. Wong Kar-Wai wanted to delete all of Joey Wang's footage, but she was already listed as a cast member in the rushes screened to film investors, hence he retained an 8-second shot of Joey Wang's side profile in the Taiwanese print (this did not survive in the redux version).

Charlie Yeung later joined the production as a quasi-replacement for Joey Wang.

Kar Wai Wong is characterized by shooting without a fixed script. Before shooting, Tony Leung Ka Fai even only knew that the character was called Huang Yaoshi and did not know the specific part of the play.

Leslie Cheung encountered three accidents during his cooperation career with Kar Wai Wong, which led him to say that he did not agree with Kar Wai Wong. One of the accidents was stung by a scorpion while filming ashed of time.