The Chinese-language film industry in the last two decades of the 20th century has contributed many outstanding works and directors to the world of cinema, and Wong Kar-wai is undoubtedly one of the most noteworthy film authors. His six works so far have successfully constructed a unique "Wong Kar-wai style" film aesthetics with his extremely stylized visual images, postmodern expressions and keen grasp of the spiritual temperament of urban people.
Wong Kar-wai was born in Shanghai in 1958 and moved to Hong Kong with his family when he was five years old. When he was studying graphic design at the Hong Kong School of Arts and Crafts in his early years, he became crazy about photography. In particular, the works of masters such as Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Richard Avedon had a profound impact on him. After graduating from school in 1980, he entered the TV production training class run by Hong Kong TVB to study script writing and film and television production, and later worked as a production assistant and screenwriter in a series of TVB TV series. In 1982, Wong Kar-wai left TVB and officially entered the film industry. He first worked as a film screenwriter for nearly five years. In 1987, Wong Kar-wai wrote the script for the "Gangster Trilogy" series of films for Hong Kong new wave film leader Tam Jiaming. As a result, Tan Jiaming only used the last one to make "The Final Victory", and the first one became In 1988, he wrote the script for "Carmen," Wong Kar-wai's first directorial work. From "Days of Being Wild" in 1991 to "Fallen Angel" in 1995, the continuous emergence of outstanding works has completed the establishment and consolidation of Wong Kar-wai's own artistic style. In 1997, Wong Kar-wai finally won the Best Director Award at the Cannes Film Festival for "Happy Together" and received recognition from the international film community.
The uniqueness of Wong Kar-wai's films lies first in his profound understanding of the city and era he lives in, and he has found an appropriate way to express his life in such a special external environment. experience. He is the artist who has the most keen insight into the current situation of Hong Kong: Chungking Mansions, which is crowded with people and colorful, the dark blue sky divided by the high-rise buildings in Mong Kok, the apartment windows near Kai Tak Airport where planes can be seen taking off and landing, and of course the roadside Stalls, convenience stores and dark bars, Wong Kar-wai relied on these iconic elements to combine Hong Kong at the end of the century. The most obvious examples are "Chungking Express" and "Fallen Angel" (of course you can also combine "Ashes of Time" The lonely and indifferent desert in "Poison" can be regarded as an allegorical modern city, and the feeling of being far away and rootless in a foreign land in "Happy Together" is also a metaphor for the colonial city of Hong Kong in another foreign time and space. reflection). Wong Kar-wai is an image expressor with a strong "urban sensibility". The inorganicity and symbolism of modern cities make his works often have content hidden in form and style. In other words, the style itself is sometimes his. content. In the past works of representatives of Hong Kong New Wave directors such as Ann Hui and Tam Jiaming, you can easily touch the "realism of life" that supports the style, but you can't see this in Wong Kar-wai's films.
Wong Kar-wai's video world is a highly abstract reality, which is first reflected in his unique view of time revealed in his narrative. Scenes in Wong Kar-wai's films often present a state of suspension in the past and future of linear time, although he constantly uses details to emphasize the concept of time, such as the famous opening in "Days of Being Wild" and "Chungking Express" There are repeated narrations of dates and "Ashes of Time" often point out solar terms at the beginning of events, but the stories he tells have no special time background. They may happen every day in the corner of the city. They just come from Specimens extracted from urban life. If you watch "Chungking Express" carefully, you will find that some details of the two stories are actually intertwined with each other. Wong Kar-wai uses this hide-and-seek game to create a time-sensitive effect, which not only dissolves the The linear time concept of traditional narrative highlights the contingency and disorder of contemporary urban life, thus forming an existential spiritual implication.
The "abstract reality" of Wong Kar-wai's films is also reflected in his accidental and fragmentary narrative structure and his collage borrowing of popular codes.
If you are moved after reading Wong Kar-Wai's works, it is not caused by the impression of the overall world, but because the atmosphere evoked by the details, fragments, and murmuring subjective monologues can make you have a deep understanding of the ***. . The atmosphere exists in the fragments, or is mixed in the blank space between fragments. This is very similar to the abandonment of grand narratives and the preference for detailed impressions in postmodern aesthetics. In Wong Kar-wai's films, you can find a large number of pop culture symbols, such as pop music, trademarks, cartoon toys, etc., including the characters he likes to use very much, such as policemen, killers, and punks, which are actually a subculture on the edge of the city. Symbols, this kind of consumption code provided by the city, become like a mirror through Wong Kar-wai's collage, reflecting the transformation of modern society from concrete real images into symbolic sensibility. This also makes his films extremely sensitive, fresh and thought-provoking.
Of course, when talking about Wong Kar-Wai's films, what you immediately think of are the dazzling and shaky shots shot with handheld cameras, irregular compositions and the use of gorgeous but cold tones. This trademark imagery is largely due to his long-time collaborators, art director Zhang Shuping and cinematographer Du Kefeng. Today, you can see this Wong Kar-Wai style image in many Hong Kong independent art films and even some commercial films, but most of them are only simple copies and lack inherent creativity.
Wong Kar-wai’s movies have a cool and dazzling sense of form, but they are actually full of emotions: like the irony of fast food love in "Chungking Express" and the delicate and entangled emotions in "Happy Together" The scene where Takeshi Kaneshiro makes ice cream for his father in "Fallen Angel" is both unforgettable. A consistent theme in his works is: the desire between people for some kind of talk and communication, and the helplessness of the impossibility of individual communication that is far stronger than this desire. There is no one in the Chinese film industry who is better at expressing this theme so delicately and vividly than Wong Kar-Wai.
Wong Kar-wai's film world is still developing. It is said that his two new films "In the Mood for Love" and "2046" will have a major stylistic breakthrough, so it is still difficult to draw conclusions about his achievements today. It's too early. The famous British magazine "Sound and Picture" selected Wong Kar-wai as the most important film innovator in the 1990s. In front of his name were André Bazin in the 1950s and Andy Warhol in the 1970s. The magazine said in its evaluation of him: "Wong Kar-wai may not be all the future movies, but he has definitely pointed out a direction for future movies."
Chronology of the director's works:
"Carmen" (1987)
"Days of Being Wild" (1993)
"Ashes of Time" (1994)
"Chungking Express" (1995)
"Fallen Angels" (1996)
"Happy Together" (1997)
"In the Mood for Love" (2000)
"2046" (2004)
"Hand of Love" (2004)
"Blueberry Nights" (2007)