Wong Kar Wai
Early Life
Kar Wai Wong was born in Shanghai, China on July 17th 1956.
In the United States we know him as Wong Kar Wai
When he was only 5, he left Shanghai and traveled with his mother to Hong Kong.
Dropped out of art school and never attended a film school.
Spent almost a decade writing scripts before making a movie.
Made his first full length movie As Tears Go By in 1988 (Scott Tobias).
His first real hit was Days of Being Wild which is also considered to be the first of an informal trilogy that later includes In the Mood for Love and 2046.(Bryan Walsh)
(IMDb; Kar Wai Wong)
Filmography
1988 As Tears Go By: Wong Kar Wai's first film; a love story.
1990 Days of Being Wild: The movie that shot Wong Kar Wai into international popularity. This is the first movie in Wong's unofficial trilogy. The movie is about a man who finds out the he is adopted but can't find his mother because his adopted mother won't tell him. He develops a relationship with two very different women and doesn't have the emotional capability of choosing between the two which ultimately leads to heartbreak all around.
1994 Chungking Express: A movie about two seperate cops and the relationships they have with somewhat nefarious women. This film brought Wong Kar Wai into the American spotlight when director Quentin Tarantino watched it and became a major fan and promoter of Wong (Scott Tobias).
1994 Ashes of Time: A movie about a swordsman who goes to the desert to seek out men to fulfill his contract killings.
1995 Fallen Angels: A movie about a hitman and his attempt to deal with his less murderous emotions.
1997 Happy Together: "a luminous road movie examining the tumultuous relationship between gay lovers in Argentina." (Scott Tobias)
2000 In the Mood for Love: Considered the second movie in the unofficial trilogy(Bryan Walsh), In the Mood for Love is a movie about a man and woman who find out their spouses are cheating with each other and form a relationship around this awkward bond. The movie deals with struggling against society and against emotion.
2004 2046: Made at the same time as In the Mood for Love, 2046 is about a man seeking the woman he loves in another time and dealing with other relationships as he seeks to fill the space she left. This movie is considered to be the final movie in the unofficial trilogy (Bryan Walsh).
2007 My Blueberry Nights: Wong's only American production, My Blueberry Nights is about a disillusioned young woman who travels seeking love and the characters she meets along the way.
2012 The Grandmasters (in post production)
(IMDb; Kar Wai Wong)
Style
Wong is known for his signature art house films
Time: Wong tends to kind of mess with time in his movies. He rarely uses a traditional story format but instead prefers to move forward, backward, or in both directs within a film. His films are therefore typically not chronological.
Romance: Wong's unofficial trilogy (Bryan Walsh) focuses on the different relationship stages that his characters go through. He addresses many complicated relationships and the emotional issues that accompany them.
Being “stuck”: As Wong put it in an interview: "Most of my films deal with people who are stuck in certain routines and habits that don't make them happy. They want to change, but they need something to push them. I think it's mostly love that causes them to break their routines and move on. That's why we always want to repeat shots, to show the routines and the changes as they happen." (Scott Tobias)
Pre-Production: Wong typically doesn't believe in using pre-production as he believes that the raw material from a first take is what makes a movie. He likes his actors/actresses to become the character.
Editing: To Wong, editing is almost like making the movie again.
Actors/Actresses:Wong is known for his tendency to use the same actors and actresses repeatedly throughout his films. His main actor, Tony Leung has played in six of his films and is currently filming the seventh (IMDb; Tony Leung). His favorite actress Maggie Cheung has been in five of his films (IMDb; Maggie Cheung). The reason he does this is because "[n]ormally, filmmakers would just write a script and cast people to act as certain characters in the story. But in [his] way of doing things, [he has] the actors in my mind already, so [he's] trying to borrow something that's unique to them" (Scott Tobias).
Non-Traditional Filming method: "As a kid, [he] spent most of [his] time in cinemas" (Scott Tobias) and after working in TV and writing scripts he came to a point where he could make his own movies and "[he] understood that directors always wanted to change what was originally written, to improve on it. In [his] case, [he's] always thought in terms of images, so as these images occur to [him], [he has] to continue to revise the plan in order to accommodate them." (Scott Tobias)
Awards
Wong has been nominated for or won awards from 30 different institutions over the years for his films. Some of his awards include:
1991 Hong Kong Film Awards, Best Director (Days of Being Wild)
1995 Hong Kong Film Awards, Best Director (Chungking Express)
1997 Cannes Film Festival, Best Director (Happy Together)[4]
2000 European Film Awards, Screen International Award (In the Mood for Love)
2004 European Film Awards, Screen International Award (2046)
2001 César Award, Best Foreign Film (In the Mood for Love)
2001 German Film Awards, Best Foreign Film (In the Mood for Love)
1991 Golden Horse Film Festival, Golden Horse Award (Days of Being Wild)
Thoughts
As I studied Wong Kar Wai and looked at the trailers for his films, as well as watching In the Mood for Love and 2046, I came to gain a deep respect for him. When I had read interviews from other Chinese film directors, I had been disappointed to find them to be egotistical, just like the typical American director. They all seemed to think they were as special as everyone else thought they were. But as I read and watched interviews of Wong Kar Wai, I was honestly impressed by his humility and his true ingenuity in the film industry. His lack of formal training, I feel, benefited him greatly.
(IMDb; Kar Wai Wong)
References
Bryan Walsh, . ""We love what we can't have, and we can't have what we love"." Time Magazine World. Time, 2004. Web. 29 Feb 2012. <http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,702208-2,00.html>.
"Maggie Cheung." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 29 Feb. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0001041/>.
"Tony Leung Chiu Wai." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 29 Feb. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0504897/>.
Tobias, Scott. "Wong Kar-Wai." Wong Kar-Wai. Onion Inc., 28 Feb. 2001. Web. 29 Feb. 2012. <http://www.avclub.com/articles/wong-karwai,13700/>.
"Kar Wai Wong." IMDb. IMDb.com. Web. 29 Feb. 2012. <http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0939182/>.
--Keeley X. 02:55, 1 March 2012 (UTC)