Kar-wai Wong - Benjamin Hilton

Name:  Kar-wai Wong

Year Born: 1958

Country of Origin:  China

Background (education/upbringing):  Wong emigrated at 5 years old from his birth place of Shanghai to Hong Kong with his mother.  Wong graduated from Hong Kong Polytechnic College in graphic design in 1980; then joined a screenwriter's program where he would become a full time television screenwriter.

First Feature:  As Tears Go By (1988)

Most notable Films:  Days of Being Wild (1990), Happy Together (1997), In the Mood for Love (2000)
Major Influences: Huge fan of Ingmar Bergman, and Danny Boyle and says his non-linear style of story-telling is inspired by the late Manuel Puig's novel titled "The Buenos Aires Affair".

Genre’s Explored:  Wong's films all contain romance as the main genre.  Most of his films are a romantic drama, he is moving into action drama in his most recent film The Grandmasters.

Stylistic Tendencies:  Romance, drama

Typical Content:  Abstract, ambiguous endings, dimly-lit and/or color-filtered-lit rooms, off-screen conversations or with someone whose face cannot be seen.

Awards & accolades:  3 Best Director awards, 1st Chinese to win the Best director Award at Cannes Film Festival, was selected President of the Jury for the 2006 Cannes Film Festival, the director with the most films (6) among the Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures

Long-term collaborators:  Wong has tends to cast actors he's worked with before, the top two are Maggie Cheung (5 movies) and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai (7 movies)

Interesting facts/ etc:  Wong never attended a film school.  Wong also prefers o not use detailed scripts for his films.

Kar-Wai Wong was born in Shanghai, China on July 17, 1958.  At the young age of five he immigrated to Hong Kong with his mother, leaving the rest of his family behind.  He didn’t speak Cantonese, the local dialect of Hong Kong, until he was 13.  Wong graduated from Hong Kong Polytechnic College in graphic design in 1980; then joined a screenwriter's program where he would become a full time television screenwriter.

Wong’s movies tend to have a distinct artistic style to them that he developed during his apprenticeship with Alan Tang Kwong-Wing, a renowned Hong Kong actor turned producer.  Alan invested in Wong’s As Tears Go By.  Wong’s career took off when he directed Days of Being Wild, which was considered a flop even though it grossed $9.75 million dollars domestic (china).  Despite its “flop” label it set some of Wong’s trademarks that he has in all his films. 

Something of Wong’s that is not so much a trademark, as it’s something he just does, is how his movies connect to each other, like an informal sequel, or trilogy.  One of these is Chungking Express and Fallen Angels.  These were originally meant to be one movie, but Wong ended up separating the two.  Both movies use one of Wong’s signature film techniques with is time-lapse photography.  In Chungking Express, the chase sequences used are at a far lower frame rate making the images blurrier and giving the appearance that the chase is moving extremely fast. 

Another one of Wong’s signature techniques is his use of mirrors and off screen dialogue.  Fallen Angels utilizes mirrors to give the feeling of fantasy that is in the characters mind seeing the true emotions of the character.  In Fallen Angels “partner” is told to listen to a song by Leon.  As she listens to the break up song a mirror is placed so that the camera sees a perfect reflection of “partner” as she begins to cry.  The color palate that Wong uses magnifies the emotions of this scene.  In Wong’s movie In The Mood for Love, these techniques are heavily used to intensify emotions between the two main characters.  Scenes in In The Mood for Love are tinted with hues of red.

In both In The Mood for Love and Fallen Angels the story is divided between two main characters.  In most of Wong’s movies, like Fallen Angels, the two stories seem almost unconnected and separate until one moment in them where they share a connection together.  This is usually towards the end of the movie, which ends ambiguous and vague allowing the audience to create their own ending to the story.  A possible tribute to one of Wong’s inspirations Ingmar Bergman.

(IMDB Wong Kar-Wai http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0939182/)