50 years old, film director

Wong Kar-wai may be the hero of heroes in the heart of many film lovers, but the auteur who virtually defined art-house cinema in Hong Kong is quick to play down his acclaim. “I feel very honoured to be considered a hero. But I also understand one man’s angel could be someone else’s devil.”

While Wong’s “angels” are appreciated around the world for their refreshing takes on romantic relationships, the local reception to his films has been decidedly polarised, probably due to the very same reason. “I haven’t made a film that hasn’t received a mixed reception,” Wong observes. “I guess the way I see my own movies is quite different from the way my audience sees them. I seldom go back to watch my films, they are like good meals: I have learned when to stop and prefer to savour the aftertaste.”

On his consistent themes, Wong elaborates: “apart from the films which are reminiscent of a particular era in the past, like In the Mood for Love of the 1960s, my films are mostly about looking at what the future entails. Every [character] is at a point where he has to take one path among the many in front of him.”

Naming Bruce Lee as his Hong Kong hero, Wong says, “a few years ago, while I was shooting Happy Together in a train station outside of Buenos Aires, I found a newspaper stand which also sold posters and T-shirts. Among the faces of Schwarzenegger and Che Guevera, I noticed two Chinese faces: one Chairman Mao and the other Bruce Lee. I cannot call Chairman Mao a Hong Kong Hero, but I definitely think Bruce Lee is. In fact, it is not about Bruce Lee himself, but the spirit that he represents.”

Wong draws an analogy between the Hong Kong situation and a book by Raymond Carver, titled Where Water Comes Together with Other Water: “Hong Kong reminds me exactly of that title. In a way, all my films are [functioning] as my personal postcards of Hong Kong, either [casting] an angle [on the Hong Kong image] or recalling a Hong Kong of a certain time. My feelings for Hong Kong are clearly illustrated in my films.”

Born in Shanghai, Wong moved to Hong Kong at the age of five and credits the huge influence of our city in his works. “I have been living here for most of my lifetime. If it wasn’t for this city, my films wouldn’t be [as they are]. It is both my canvas and my inspiration; everything is linked to it. Even when we went to make Happy Together in Argentina and My Blueberry Nights in America, in a way they still have some connections to Hong Kong.”

Reflecting on the state of the local film industry, Wong acknowledges that “this is not the best of times. We’re still a very efficient city, and we have the experience and the best talent; but somehow the energy level is different. With the vastly enlarged canvas brought about by the growing Chinese market, I believe Hong Kong filmmakers need to be more ambitious with their strokes. Better to set the trend than to follow the rule.”

True to his own vision, Wong offers this when he is asked to evaluate himself as a director: “I am an architect who doesn’t work on a blueprint.” Having witnessed how Wong turned both a wuxia pian (Ashes of Time) and a futuristic sci-fi (2046) into emotionally gripping stories about jilted lovers, we can only agree with him on this point.

So after all, is there any way Wong’s latest project – a biopic titled Grandmaster about Bruce Lee’s mentor – will really be just a biopic? “For sure it won’t be a conventional one,” admits Wong. Edmund Lee