Wong Kar Why?

Wong Kar Who?

Wong Kar-wai is a Chinese film maker whose films encapsulate the whole ‘overrated Asian art house film’ thing that I for one have a bit of trouble with. He makes critically acclaimed films that make you doubt yourself for not recognising that they are works of cinematic genius and majesty.

At first viewing I’ve not been too impressed with the films of Wong Kar-wai, but the more I find out about them the more I appreciate them. Like a true auteur he doesn’t make films using anything as conventional as a script. He has an idea and a cast and a camera and away he goes.

His career hasn’t been able to completely escape the Hong Kong movie staples; films about gangsters hit men, as well as a kung fu film, but almost all HK directors earn their stripes with genre pieces. Wong has built his career making films about love and loss, time and regret. Some viewers may regret the time they spent watching his films due to their slow pace and lack of structure, but like all ‘alternative’ film, the story isn’t important.

As well as Chunking Express, I recently watched Days of Being Wild (1990), a love story (in the loosest sense) set in 60’s Hong Kong, starring some of China’s best know actors (to Western audiences at least).

True to the dream like nature of his films Wong Kar-wai has claimed (or admitted) that 60s Hong Kong wasn’t really like the way it is depicted in his film. The details of the setting, like the story, come a distant second to the mood. The plot is simply explained; Yuddy, played by Leslie Chung is a bit of a player. He seduces Maggie Chung’s character, dumps her, and seduces Carina Lau’s character, eventually dumping her too. The reason he’s such a cad is because he was adopted and his foster mother (who was once a call girl, now a sugar mommy) has never told him who his real mother is. This may well be the deepest back-story any character in a Wong Kar-wai film has ever had.

The story hangs on the fact that the two female lead fall madly in love with Leslie, who is supposed to be some kind of James Dean type (Days Of Being Wild’s Chinese title translates literally as ‘The Story of Rebellious Youth’ which was the title given to Rebel Without a Cause when it was released in Hong Kong). The problem with this is that while Leslie may be some kind of heart throb in HK, he’s not as good as other Chinese actors of his generation, notably Andy Lau who plays the supporting male role, and The Worlds Finest Actor Tony Leung. Tony appears in the final scene of the movie in what was supposed to be the prelude to a planned sequel that never transpired.

Maggie and Carina fall madly for Leslie, setting up the trademark meditation on loss that is the essence of most of Wong’s films. The girls do well, Maggie Chung is, I think, a slightly overrated actress given she almost always plays the down-trodden or otherwise withdrawn victim/girlfriend, but the reason she does it over and over is because she’s so good at it. She certainly looks the part.

But Leslie just doesn’t have the charisma or presence to play the lead in a film that is so free flowing and sparse. Films without much by way of plot or dialogue live or die by the quality of the actors.

Wong Kar-wai is one of those filmmakers who works with the same cast over and over. Do the actors work with him because of the freedom he gives them, or the kudos from working with an acclaimed director? Most Hong Kong actors are so hard working that they are probably keen to make the occasional international-festival-circuit-shoe-in to offset all the films they appear in that will never be released outside China or even Hong Kong. Ever since this film, Wong’s status is such that he can assume that each of his films will receive a high profile Cannes debut if he wants it to.

Wong would be the first to admit (I hope) that the critical and artistic success of his films is equally due to his long time collaborator; Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle. Making a film with the great director can be very difficult, as Doyle himself chronicles in his diary of filming Happy Together. Scripts, screenplays, shooting schedules and storyboards don’t exist in the world of Wong Kar-wai. The vaguer the plot, the more demanding the cinematographer’s job becomes, and Doyle has more than earned his status by effectively creating the trademark Wong Kar-wai ‘look’ for him.

Of course, a film is made in the editing suite, and this is where a director will really earn his reputation, but the style of shooting that Wong uses means that sometimes he just doesn’t have the footage to create the sequence he wants. This seems to be the case at the end of DOBW. Some may perceive his quick, disjointed cutting during pivotal moments as edgy in a French New Wave kind of way, but I can’t believe something so choppy was completely intentional.

Wong is quoted in the DVD liner notes as saying “What is essential is that I want my audience to leave the cinema having enjoyed the film, and that means the whole world to me.”

I’m sure almost all directors would express the same sentiment, but coming from Wong Kar-wai it sounds a bit deluded. He is clearly more concerned with achieving his vision and creating thoughtful beauty. Hong Kong directors who want to please the audience make violent gangster flicks and comedies full of local humour; that other famous Wong, the prolific Wong Jing is a typical example. Incidentally, Wong Jing is quoted as saying “Only rubbish people would call my movies rubbish”. You tell ‘em Jing.

I’ve only seen two of his films, and I have my reservations about both, but Wong Kar-wai’s movies are clearly like no one else’s, so if I’m happy to dedicate so much time to the work of that other auteur Steven Seagal, I should really focus as much of my attention at the other end of the cinematic spectrum.