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Wong Kar-wai |
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Director / Screenwriter /
Producer |
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1958 - |
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Born in Shanghai, China |
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Key
Production Country: Hong Kong |
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Key Genres:
Romantic Drama, Drama, Romance |
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Key
Collaborators: Christopher
Doyle (Cinematographer), William Chang (Production
Designer/Editor), Tony Leung (Leading
Player), Maggie Cheung (Leading Player), Leslie Cheung (Leading Player), Jacky Cheung (Leading Character
Player), Carina Lau (Leading Character Player), Kit-Wai Kai (Editor), Frankie Chan (Composer), Brigitte Lin
(Leading Player) |
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Highly Recommended: In
the Mood for Love (2000)*^ |
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Recommended:
Days of Being Wild (1990),
Happy Together (1997)*, 2046 (2004)^ |
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Worth a Look: As
Tears Go By (1988), Ashes of Time (1994), Chungking Express (1994)* |
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Approach with Caution:
Fallen Angels (1995) |
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* Listed in TSPDT's
1,000 Greatest Films
section; ^
Listed in TSPDT's
21st Century's Most Acclaimed Films
section. |
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Links: [
Amazon
] [
IMDB ] [
TCMDB ] [
All-Movie
Guide ] [
Senses
of Cinema: Great Directors ] [
Senses
of Cinema Feature (2001) ] [
Wong Kar-wai.net ] [
Asia Studios Interview ]
[
Wikipedia ]
[
Kinema Article ]
[
Brisbane Times Article (2007) ] [
Scotsman Article (2008) ] [
indieWIRE
Article (2008)
] |
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Books:
[
Wong Kar-wai ] [
Wong Kar-wai: Auteur of Time ] [
Wong Kar-wai (Contemporary Film Directors) ] [
Wong Kar-wai ] [
Wong Kar-wai on Wong Kar-wai ]
[
Films and Dreams: Tarkovsky, Bergman, Sokurov, Kubrick, and Wong Kar-wai ] |
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"Wong’s avant-garde filmic
aesthetic is composed of elliptical storytelling through the use
of deeply drenched tones, slow motion, jump cuts and fragmented
images. Although the notion of auteur is not entirely
customary in Hong Kong where films are often shot quickly and
marketed via their accessibility as popular entertainment,
Wong’s status as auteur marks his position within Hong
Kong cinema’s industrial environment and signifies his complete
creative freedom and control of every facet of his films’
production." -
Elizabeth Wright (Senses of Cinema) |
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"While
a product of the fertile Hong Kong filmmaking community of the
'90s, writer/director Wong Kar-wai did not traffic in the
over-the-top action blowouts favored by the likes of
John Woo and
Tsui Hark. Instead, his films took their inspiration from
the seminal work of
Jean-Luc Godard
and the French New Wave, painting idiosyncratic and romantic
tales of the young and disenfranchised uniquely representative
of the myriad cultural influences which distinguish his native
land." -
Jason Ankeny, All-Movie Guide |
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"Few modern
directors display as much ambition and promise, and none is as
thrillingly alert to the enduring poignancy of the passing
moment or to the ever-fresh resonance of memory and unrequited
desire." -
Geoff
Andrew (The Director's Vision, 1999)
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"Usually I find that genre
conventions get in the way of dealing with certain areas of
character psychology, but one of my inspirations for 'Ashes [of
Time]' was 'The Searchers'--a film which suggests how you can
get inside an apparently opaque protagonist." -
Wong Kar-wai |
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Please
note that the rating given for this director (see top-right) is based
only on the films we have seen (listed above). Films by this director
that we haven't seen include My Blueberry Nights (2007). |
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"While
the distinction between 'mainstream' and 'alternative' films
had in fact always been rather blurred in Hong Kong, there
was a second 'New Wave' in the 1990s, typified by the more
experimental and idiosyncratic films of Wong Kar-Wai, aided
and abetted by his equally creative Australian camera
operator Chris Doyle (Ashes of Time, Chungking
Express (both 1994)). In an age of media saturation and
omnipresent video images, Wong's films questioned the very
nature of cinema as cinema, and were perhaps suitable signs
of the 'culture of disappearance' in pre-1997 Hong Kong."
-
Nathan Abrams, Ian Bell and Jan Udris,
Studying Film |
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●
Top 250 Directors |
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21st Century Top
50 |
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100 Essential Directors (Pop
Matters) |
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Ranked
14th on The Guardian's 2004 List of the World's 40 Best Directors |
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Ranked 10th on Film Comment's list of the 25 Best
Directors of the Decade (2000-2009) |
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●
501 Movie Directors: A
Comprehensive Guide to the Greatest Filmmakers |
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See Also |
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Michelangelo Antonioni |
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Olivier
Assayas |
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Lčos
Carax |
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Sofia Coppola |
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Christopher
Doyle (external link) |
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Mike Figgis |
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Jean-Luc
Godard |
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Todd Haynes |
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Krzysztof Kieslowski |
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Martin
Scorsese |
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Tran Anh
Hung |
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Zhang Yimou |
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Wong Kar-wai's Favourites |
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Aparajito (1956)
Satyajit Ray,
Breathless (1959)
Jean-Luc Godard,
The End of Summer (1961)
Yasujiro Ozu,
Pather Panchali (1955)
Satyajit Ray,
Spring in a Small Town (1948) Fei Mu, Vertigo (1958)
Alfred Hitchcock,
The World of Apu (1959)
Satyajit Ray.
Source: Newsweek (2008) |
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