Wong Kar-wai

Contemporary Film Directors

by Peter Brunette

Called the leading heir to the great directors of post-WWII Europe and lavished with awards, Wong Kar-wai has redefined perceptions of Hong Kong's film industry. Wong's visual brilliance and emphasis on atmosphere over action have set him apart from peers while earning him an admiring international audience.  In the Mood for Love  regularly appears on lists of the twenty-first century's greatest films while critics and filmgoers recognize works like  Chungking Express  and  Happy Together  as modern classics.  Peter Brunette describes the ways in which Wong's supremely haunting visual films create a new form of cinema by telling a story with stunning, suggestive visual images and audio tracks rather than character, dialogue, and plot. As he shows, Wong's early background in genre film offers fascinating insights on his more studied later works. He also delves into Wong's perennial themes of time, love, and loss and examines the political implications of his films, especially concerning the handover of former British colony Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.

Genres: Film, Nonfiction, Art, China

176 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2005

Reviews

[Julia]

the struggle to write krzysztof kieślowski correctly

[Septyawan Akbar · Rating 5 out of 5]

"The long ancient corridors, like the old streets seen earlier, contrast silently but intensely with the specificity and nowness of his secret, his pain. We realize suddenly that what he is going through, and has gone through, must be seen sub specie aeternitatis. There is always a larger world—here represented, in current political terms, by the specificity of the newsreel of de Gaulle’s visit and in longer historical terms by the ancientness of the temple—that dwarfs the problems of any given person. Individuals have always suffered, and they always will, and this is a secret that all of us know and could, ourselves, tell the hole in the wall." - page 100

My first movie critics book, that i ever read, and its begin with my most favourite directors of all time, Wong Kar Wai. I accrosed upon his movie, after my hearthbreaking unrequited love, at the twillight of my college life, as i slowly begin to move on. And his movie; filled with most sensual, beautiful, and luscious color, and theme of all time--become the catharsis emotional zenith for my experience. With endearing, and most attractive actor and actress, with 20 and more magnificent Cheongsam that wear by Magie Chung, and slick hair, sharply dress suit that been wear by Tony Leung, it was the most perfect.

I never know that story of loss and imposible love, and deep yearning can filled with so much haunting beauty, and life-changing movie/art experience. At the end of the movie, during the Angkor Watt scene that made me simply cried, as violin playing the heartbreaking melody. The writing simply a reminder of my cherised art experience. It was great reading journey. 5 stars without a doubt.

[iva · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is definitely a good work to read if you are interested in wong kar-wai's films. makes you notice some things that aren't as obvious while watching a certain film (as wong's films are multilayered to the point it becomes genius) and makes you appreciate a film far more than you could do by just watching it.

very helpful for my film analysis i had to do for my class.

[Steven · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book took about 8 pages for me to get into it, but I appreciated the amount of space spent on Fallen Angels & the technical explanation of camera angels. I have a lot of friends in film, but my vocabulary isn't quite up to par so I felt that this book really helped me view the movies from a another vantage point.

[Christopher · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book on filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai appeared in 2005. That means it came too early to discuss films like My Blueberry Nights and The Grandmaster (and the author had been able to see even 2046 just once). Still, the Hong Kong auteur’s reputation rests on the films he had made up to 2005, so this ends up being a useful survey of his output. Never too in-depth because it amounts to little more than one hundred pages, but there is still a lot of trivia that I didn’t know before. Brunette also attempts to defend Fallen Angels as more than a pastiche or retread of earlier plots, and my appreciation of that film has grown.

As an appendix, the book contains two interviews with Wong Kar-Wai that are among the more informative that I have read.

[Laisrian · Rating 3 out of 5]

This brief but still illuminating little study on WKW walks you through his pre-2005 filmography while providing a summation of what critics/academics have had to say. On the whole, while discussion was never especially surprising - and understandably given its brevity - there were a few bits here and there that managed to change my perspective. For instance, I would never have connected Chungking Express and WKW's omnipresent fantasies of flight to the 1997 handover of Hong Kong. I also did not know about the critical reaction to Fallen Angels, though, Brunette provides a defence of by drawing attention to its intentional superficiality. All the better as I've always loved that film.

I did not read any of the interviews included here but I ought to do.

[Levin Low · Rating 5 out of 5]

i watch wkw so much that when a shot is mentioned, it appears in my mind’s eye. # hyperfixation

He remembers those vanished years.
As though looking through a dusty window pane,
the past is something he could see but not touch.
And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct.

“The romantic poets, after all, were able to find an ambivalent solace in the deliciousness of lovelorn suffering and melancholia….” I think that Wong, too, revels in the gloriously hopeless exploration of all the moods of (unrequited) love.

[Matt Carton · Rating 4 out of 5]

The world of Wong Kar-wai, circa 2005 (The Hand/Eros had not yet been released). Some excellent criticism here. And Burnette seems to be the only one of the only critics who appreciated Fallen Angels at the time, too. I’d love for a second edition of this.

[Noodles · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gives an amazing understanding of Wong Kar-wai's filmography. Much to think about.

[evi · Rating 3 out of 5]

3,5

[Rómulo · Rating 5 out of 5]

He seleccionado este libro sólo con la excusa de hablar del cineasta chino Wong Kar-wai. Cada fotograma de este director es una obra de arte. Aclaro que hablo de sus últimas películas: deseando amar, 2046 y my blueberry nights, tres historias románticas aderezadas con sinuosos boleros y tangos. Si quieren que les diga la verdad no sé de que van los diálogos, las imágenes son tan cautivadoras, hechizantes, absorbentes, que todos mis sentidos, cuando me sitúo frente a la pantalla, se concentran en el de la vista. Por supuesto las volveré a ver, una y mil veces, y ya les contaré lo que dicen los personajes (aunque quizás no haya mucho, en los discursos de amor ya se sabe...)

[Patrick McCoy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Peter Burnette's book on Wong Kar-wai is a good general study of the career of Wong up to his film 2046 (the book was published in 2005). However, it doesn't feel as comprehensive as Stepehen Teo's study and could be seen a s a companion to that book. However, the most enlightening part of Burnette's study for me was the two long interviews (one from the 1995 Toronto Film Festival and the other from 2001 Cannes Film Festival). Actually, this might be a better book for the nonspecialist interested in the films of Wong Kar-wai since it comes as as less academic and more for the "general" reader.

[Grant · Rating 3 out of 5]

Another book on WKW. Lacking the visual flair and panache of Teo's book, but still some great information throughout.

[Mahdi · Rating 4 out of 5]

good for its time

[Nick Nguyen · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars

[Sean · Rating 2 out of 5]

A whole book about Wong Kar-wai by a guy who doesn't like and knows nothing about Hong Kong cinema. Everything good about Wong is sourced in a European or American Certified Auteur, everything bad a reflection of local genre cinema (except the blue and red lighting scheme of As Tears Go By, which Brunette imputes to Wong's genius when in fact every Hong Kong film of the late 80s is heavily colored by blue and red neon). Except the politics, because all good Hong Kong films are good insofar as they are about the Handover. Made me imagine an anthology: Tell Me A Story About Colonialism Only: Western Critics On Eastern Cinema.