Fun Facts:
Moved to Hong Kong in His Childhood
When Wong was still a child, the Cultural Revolution started up in mainland China. As a result, his parents chose to relocate to Hong Kong with him in tow. Wong’s two older siblings were meant to join them in their new home a little later, but by that time, the borders had closed, meaning that Wong was not able to see either one of his siblings until around a decade later.
Part of the Second Wave
The Hong Kong New Wave started up in the late 1980s, which was a time when film was becoming the chief source of entertainment in China because most Chinese households lacked a TV. There was no style shared by the film-makers counted as part of the movement, but since a lot of them had received western educations, a lot of them were influenced by elements of western film-making such as what were then new technologies. Wong is considered to be part of the Second Wave of these film-makers, which was when their films began receiving international interest.
Made Days of Being Wild
In the 1990s, Wong made the movie called Days of Being Wild, which starred popular actors of the Hong Kong film industry but was more a character piece than what might be called a blockbuster. Said movie was meant to be more of a personal project than something intended to capture commercial success, so it should come as no surprise to learn that it showed some of the common signs of Wong’s signature style. For example, it is set in the 1960s, which has a special place in Wong’s heart. Furthermore, it was more concerned with its mood than with its plot.
Made Ashes of Time
The Hong Kong film industry is famous for its wuxia movies, so it should come as no surprise to learn that it has made numerous versions of famous wuxia classics such as The Legend of the Condor Heroes. At one point, Wong agreed to make a movie based on said novel in an effort to secure further funding for his own projects. The result was the rather unusual Ashes of Time, which was technically a prequel that focused on one of the most hated villains from the source material. Said movie was not successful from a commercial perspective, but it did manage to get a fair amount of attention from the critics.
Approaches Filmmaking In a Rather Unusual Manner
On a final note, Wong is famous for his rather unusual approach to filmmaking. For example, he prefers to start production without a script because he finds filming from a pre-written script to be boring. Instead, the cast members are provided with no more than a rough outline of the plot so that they can develop some of their characters on their own, while Wong fleshes out the rest through a combination of improvisation and time-honed instinct. Furthermore, Wong is famous for disallowing rehearsals because he wants his cast members to seem more natural and spontaneous on the movie screen.
His Films
- The Grandmaster - the film took nearly 10 years to arrive, from initial conception to release in 2013, and the film, unfortunately, suffers from Wong’s trademark confused plotting and ad-hoc scriptwriting - Wong attempts to untether the martial arts genre from its conventions
- Days of Being Wild - despite being voted the greatest Hong Kong film ever made by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society in a 2010 poll, But the film is also home to some of Wong’s worst excesses – the pointless inclusion of Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s character in the closing credits is perhaps the most obvious example of all of Wong’s profligate filming.
- As Tears Go By - debut was a critical and commercial success that would enable him to go on to make the star-studded Days of Being Wild. The film is, for the most part, unashamedly mainstream. It being a triad movie – a genre revived by John Woo’s 1986 hit A Better Tomorrow – allows for a certain amount of action
- 2046 - Initially, 2046 disappointed upon release. It was neither a clear sequel to In the Mood for Love nor the all-out sci-fi feature pre-release materials indicated it would be (in typical Wong fashion, many of the futuristic elements, including a large set, were discarded and left on the cutting room floor)
- Fallen Angles - A companion piece to Chungking Express, Fallen Angels has always lived in the other’s shadow. Which is a shame because the later is one of Wong Kar-wai’s most ambitious films, ‘as ungeneric a noir as could be imagined’ in the words of film critic Amy Taubin. Certainly, there are surface similarities – overlapping dual storylines of romance.The slow-mo action is turned up to 11, the entire movie is bathed in neon (not till the final shot do we see natural daylight) and there’s barely any dialogue as voiceovers inform nearly everything. The work is Wong’s most deceptive piece of art. It appears all superficiality but the flashy visuals do their own heavy lifting and are subtly expressive of characters’ emotions.
