Wong Kar-wai Read online

  Wong Kar-wai: Interviews

  Conversations with Filmmakers Series

  Gerald Peary, General Editor

  Wong Kar-wai

  INTERVIEWS

  Edited by Silver Wai-ming Lee and Micky Lee

  University Press of Mississippi / Jackson

  www.upress.state.ms.us

  The University Press of Mississippi is a member of the Association of American University Presses.

  Copyright © 2017 by University Press of Mississippi

  All rights reserved

  Manufactured in the United States of America

  First printing 2017

  ∞

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Wong, Kar-wai, 1958–author. | Lee, Silver Wai-ming editor. | Lee, Micky editor.

  Title: Wong Kar-Wai : interviews / edited by Silver Wai-ming Lee and Micky Lee.

  Description: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 2017. | Series: Conversations with filmmakers series | Includes bibliographical references, filmography and index. |

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017010478 (print) | LCCN 2017027866 (ebook) | ISBN 9781496812858 (epub single) | ISBN 9781496812865 (epub institutional) | ISBN 9781496812872 ( pdf single) | ISBN 9781496812889 (pdf institutional) | ISBN 9781496812841 (cloth : alk. paper)

  Subjects: LCSH: Wong, Kar-wai, 1958–—Interviews. | Motion picture producers and directors—China—Hong Kong—Interviews.

  Classification: LCC PN1998.3.W65 (ebook) | LCC PN1998.3.W65 A5 2017 (print) | DDC 791.4302/33092—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017010478

  British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data available

  Contents

  Introduction

  Filmography

  Chronology

  Wong Kar-wai on As Tears Go By

  Lok Ching /1988

  Wong Kar-wai Takes Charge

  Cheuk Chi /1988

  The Days of Being Wild: Eight-day Location Shooting in the Philippines

  Angel /1989

  All about Days of Being Wild: A Dialogue with Wong Kar-wai

  Jimmy Ngai /1990

  The This and That of Wong Kar-wai

  Yeung Wai-lan and Lau Chi-kwan / 1994

  Working like a Jam Session

  Michel Ciment / 1994

  The Northern Beggar and Southern Emperor in a Pleasant Forest: Dialogue with Wong Kar-wai

  Lin Yao-teh / 1994

  A Coin of Wong Kar-wai

  Gary / 1995

  The Film Supermarket of Wong Kar-wai

  Gary Mak / 1995

  Open Communication: Wong Kar-wai

  Yik Ming / 1997

  Each Film Has Its Own Ounce of Luck

  Michel Ciment and Hubert Niogret / 1997

  Interview with Wong Kar-wai: In the Mood for Love

  Michel Ciment and Hubert Niogret / 2000

  Muse of Music: Interview with Wong Kar-wai

  Tony Lan Tsu-wei / 2000

  2046

  Mark Salisbury / 2004

  All Memories Are Traces of Tears: Wong Kar-wai on Literature and Aesthetics (Parts 1 & 2)

  Tony Lan Tsu-wei / 2004

  Because of Norah Jones: My Blueberry Nights: Exclusive Interview with Wong Kar-wai

  Hong Kong Film / 2007

  The American Way

  Tony Rayns / 2008

  Exclusive Interview: Wong Kar-wai (Ashes of Time Redux)

  Damon Houx / 2008

  The Grandmaster or the Grand Barber? Multiple Choice Questions for Wong Kar-wai

  Li Hongyu / 2013

  The Grandmaster, Director Wong Kar Wai

  David Poland / 2013

  Interview: Wong Kar-wai

  Jake Mulligan / 2013

  Wong Kar-wai: The Grandmaster Should Have Been a Trilogy

  An Ying / 2015

  Additional Resources

  Index

  Introduction

  This volume collects twenty-two interviews of Wong Kar-wai conducted over nearly three decades. The contents and the order in which the interviews appear reflect a divide between what Wong’s films mean to Hong Kong and international critics. The first four interviews are on Wong’s first two films: As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild.1 The fourth film Chungking Express that made Wong’s name known to an international audience is mentioned in the fifth interview. The last four interviews are all on The Grandmaster—the two American critics see it as a kung fu film while the Chinese critics see it as a period film about the Republic of China.

  The first interview in this volume “Wong Kar-wai on As Tears Go By” was published in 1988 in the now defunct Hong Kong magazine City Entertainment (in Chinese Film Biweekly). In the interview, Wong talks about his first directed feature film, As Tears Go By, which not only received praises among Hong Kong critics, but also performed fairly well in the domestic box office. But it was Wong’s second film, Days of Being Wild, that made him—for better or for worse—a household name in Hong Kong. The critics were pleased that Hong Kong cinema had a director who went against the commercial tide, but the mainstream press was keen on reporting on the lengthy production time and the extraordinary budget in gossip sections. More than two decades after the release of Days of Being Wild, Wong’s films have been exhibited in the most prestigious film festivals and have received international accolades. However, Hong Kong mainstream media still complain about Wong’s films being incomprehensible and taking too much time and money to make. For example, the critics still have not concluded whether Wong’s latest film The Grandmaster is a frivolous “showing off” or a rich cinematic text.

  Similarly, Wong’s films receive polarized feedback from the audience. On one hand, Wong has a lot of devoted and enthusiastic fans who collect film memorabilia, discuss his films online, quote from his films, and create fan arts. On the other hand, Wong’s films are rarely blockbusters, his latest The Grandmaster being an exception. Hong Kong locals use “Wong Kar-wai” in daily life as a derogatory term when describing something abstract and artistic.

  Unlike the local audience who had already formed an opinion of Wong quite early on in his career, most of the international audience first learned of Wong Kar-wai’s work through his fourth feature film Chungking Express. International film festivals such as Cannes, Berlin, and Toronto offer critics and fans outside Asia a first glimpse at Wong’s latest work. Film festivals generate buzz that excites Wong’s fans around the world. They also prove his films are greatly admired among critics and judges. For example, Wong received the prestigious Best Director Award for Happy Together at Cannes, making him the first Chinese director to earn this award. In addition, Wong’s films are frequent subjects of scholarly debate not only in the Chinese language, but also in English, French, Italian, German, and so on.

  The text provided by critics on Wong Kar-wai is as rich as Wong’s films. The collected interviews not only provide scholars, critics, and fans with materials for further criticism and interpretation, but they are texts themselves that reveal what Wong thinks and what critics think of Wong and his films. Framing the interviews as both resources and discourses about Wong, this introduction aims to do three things: first, situate Wong Kar-wai in the two new waves of Hong Kong cinema; second, summarize Wong’s explanations of the development process of various films; and third, summarize how Wong sees his artistic influence and regular collaborators.

  Over the span of more than two decades, Wong maintains a consistent auteur persona in the interviews. He is able to explain the creation process of every film and suggest how he worked with the cinematographers, art directors, editors, and actors. Unlike most Hong Kong directors who made films scripted by others and produced by major studios in the 1980s, his w
ork is said to have a signature style reflected from story-telling, aesthetics, and acting. Wong’s vision and artistic control of his films stems from his emerging from the Second Wave of new Hong Kong cinema.

  When Hong Kong New Wave emerged in the late 1970s and early 1980s, it was more an accidental outcome than an intended movement. These directors include Ann Hui, Tsui Hark, Patrick Tam, Allen Fong Yuk-ping, Alex Cheung Kwok-ming, and Yim Ho. They neither made any joint declaration nor regularly cooperated with each other. Nonetheless, their background is very similar: most of them returned to Hong Kong after studying films in the UK and the US. Before making films, some of these directors worked for public television channel Radio Television Hong Kong; others worked for commercial television station TVB.

  New Wave directors produced genre films with experimental elements. They produced refreshing and exciting TV dramas and genre films because they were aware that television shows and films could be art, political statements, as well as mass entertainment. These directors renewed and transformed conventional genres by introducing new techniques they learned from the West. For example, Tsui Hark introduced elements of Hollywood sci-fi and horror to the wuxia genre. New Wave directors believed filmmaking is not only about storytelling, but film scoring and art direction are also key components. They explored lesser-known social issues and the Hong Kong identity. With on-location shooting, the cityscape has become an important part of New Wave films. For example, Ann Hui’s The Secret (1979) shows Chinese-styled apartment buildings in an old district Sai Wan.

  At the same time, New Wave directors were aware that the Hong Kong film industry privileges commercial production, and they would be hard-pressed to change the status quo. Rather than challenge the market and the studio system, they sought a new space for their work to survive. Cheuk Pak-tong, a New Wave scholar, calls these directors “reformists not revolutionists.”2 Meanwhile, the emergence of independent film production companies encouraged more young people to enter the industry, but those newcomers did not want to serve the big studios. They also wanted to become auteurs by creating signature works.

  The Second Wave emerged in the mid-1980s. Directors such as Stanley Kwan, Clara Law, Mabel Cheung, and Wong Kar-wai are seen as the successors of the first New Wave because some came from a television background and some had worked as screenwriters or assistants for New Wave directors. The Second Wave is even more experimental in storytelling, film aesthetics, and techniques. As a result, some of the Hong Kong audience feel the Second Wave is strictly art house cinema. Interestingly, whenever Wong Kar-wai is asked about being an art house director, he denies being one and says his films are actually very commercial.

  Wong never calls himself a Second Wave director or an art house director in the interviews, but it is hard not to connect the dots between Wong Kar-wai and the two new waves. First, Wong began his production training at local television station TVB after dropping out of college as a graphic design student, and he was a scriptwriter who wrote a wide range of film genres from comedy to drama to gangster movies. Second, he collaborated with many New Wave filmmakers as a scriptwriter and an editor. For example, he wrote the script for Final Victory for Patrick Tam, who in turn would later edit Wong’s film Days of Being Wild. Third, Wong worked with actresses who starred in New Wave films, most notably Maggie Cheung and Brigitte Lin, who have appeared in Song of the Exile (Ann Hui, 1990), Farewell China (Clara Law 1990), Love Massacre (Patrick Tam 1981), and Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain (Tsui Hark 1983). Fourth, Wong worked with art directors and producers who first made their mark in New Wave. Wong’s art director, William Chang, was the art director for Love Massacre, Nomad (Patrick Tam 1982) and Homecoming (Yim Ho 1984). Jeff Lau, Wong’s good friend and Jet Tone Films partner, produced The Imp (Dennis Yu 1981) and Nomad. Fifth, Tony Rayns, a British critic who specializes in East Asian cinema and introduced many New Wave films to the West, is a fan of Wong and provides many English subtitles for his films. Lastly, Wong believes he makes genre films. He compares In the Mood for Love to a Hitchcock suspense and labels The Grandmaster an epic.

  In many ways, Wong Kar-wai has moved beyond the Second Wave—he continues to make films, while maintaining his style and vision. Unlike Patrick Tam, who has retired from the film industry, Wong continues to focus on making films; and unlike Tsui Hark, who has become a major film producer and a mainstream director, Wong produces few films and is not considered to be part of the mainstream. However, he is also more business savvy than he appears to be. In the interviews, he emphasizes the importance of selling distribution rights abroad, and he understands how to set up his own company and acquire funding from international investors, as well as keep production costs within budget, despite what most people believe.

  Seventeen of the twenty-two interviews collected here were originally published in Chinese or French. In addition, the earliest interviews mostly come from the Hong Kong publication, City Entertainment, and are not available online. These particular interviews provide resources to readers who have no access to Hong Kong archives. Since Chungking Express was the film that introduced Wong to the world beyond Hong Kong and Asia, the editors looked for interviews in Hong Kong publications that focus on Wong’s first three films: As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, and Ashes of Time. From Chungking Express onwards, the editors looked for interviews appearing in publications for film scholars and serious fans in the UK, the US, and France.

  Wong Kar-wai speaks Cantonese, Mandarin Chinese, and English. It can be assumed that he used Cantonese for interviews appeared in Hong Kong publications, Mandarin Chinese for Taiwanese and mainland Chinese publications, and English for the rest. (For the interviews appeared in French, the interview was conducted in English and translated). Wong moved to Hong Kong from Shanghai when he was five and he did not speak Cantonese, but his Cantonese became fluent soon. It is unknown if he grew up speaking Mandarin Chinese because it was not the dominant language among Shanghainese until the communist party took over China. But he is fluent with his Mandarin Chinese during interviews. His English is also fluent but he is not as expressive with it as he is with Cantonese. He is able to express himself well in English but does not use idioms, slangs, or colloquial expressions. In each of the interviews, Wong is quite open to sharing his thoughts. He is more inclined to share personal anecdotes and his view of history with the Greater Chinese media. Local media, however, is keen on detailing what it views as Wong’s excessive overspending, lengthy filmmaking process, harsh demands on actors, and shooting without a script. In truth, these excesses are common in Hong Kong, US, and European independent filmmakings. For example, during the heyday of Hong Kong films from the 1960s to the 1980s, most scripts were written quickly and the directors did not adhere to the scripts; however, directors usually made films much faster than Wong, often in a matter of a month if not a week. Wong’s involvement in every step of the film development process is not unheard of in US and European independent filmmaking, but it is not a common practice in Hong Kong.

  “Does Wong Kar-wai have a script or not?” is a common question from critics and fans. On the making of Chungking Express, Wong tells Michel Ciment in his 1995 interview the film was made during a two-month sabbatical while he was waiting for some postproduction equipment to arrive for Ashes of Time: “Since I had nothing to do, I followed my instincts and decided to direct Chungking Express.” Wong further states, “When I started to film, I hadn’t yet written [the screenplay] completely.” Interestingly, the improvisational style is what caught the attention of fans who like its energy and Faye Wong’s authentic performance. As for Happy Together, Wong tells Ciment and Niogret in 1997 that he only had a two-page synopsis before arriving in Argentina. He wrote the script on set just before filming started. He added it was a lot of fun to let Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Leslie Cheung improvise during the sex scenes because the improvisation highlighted the different personalities of the two actors. While Leslie Chueng wanted to test boundaries, Tony Leung was very
concerned about gay sex.

  Unfortunately, the “no-script” method did not work for the English-speaking film, My Blueberry Nights. In his interview with Hong Kong Film in 2007, Wong revealed novelist Lawrence Block was asked to co-write a screenplay before filming. Although there was a complete script before shooting, Wong reserved the right to change it. During shooting, he told the actors they were allowed to make changes, and he sought feedback from local crew members. In 2008, Wong told Tony Rayns he encouraged this “trying out approach” because “we’ve seen so many films about Chinese people made by foreigners which look very weird to us, and I didn’t want to repeat that mistake!”

  Wong insists his films are driven by characters, not plot. However, the characters in Wong’s films are often a reflection of the actors themselves. Faye Wong is said to be as elusive in real life as her character in Chungking Express, Tony Leung Chiu-wai is as pensive as Lai Yiu-fai in Happy Together, and Norah Jones is as straightforward as the character in My Blueberry Nights. Wong spends a lot of time communicating with the actors about the characters. In his interviews with Angel in1990 and Ciment in 1995, Wong explained the earliest stage of shooting takes a long time because he does not give the actors a screenplay to rehearse. Instead he prefers to communicate with them and let them know the mentalities of the characters. For example, Zhang Ziyi was not familiar with how dancehall girls were portrayed in old Hong Kong movies, so Wong spent quite a bit of time talking with Zhang and asked her to rehearse in the dresses that women wore in that era. During the process of experimenting, shooting, and re-shooting, Wong looks for a common rhythm between the actors, and once that is established shooting becomes much smoother. In explaining why he does not want the actors to rehearse, he said, “it is not like I need to find a model to wear a piece of already-made clothing; that is not true [for me]. Usually I see a person; then I think of what clothing this person should wear” (Hong Kong Film 2007, 23). Wong’s relationship with actors brings out their best performances, as evidenced by the numerous acting nominations and awards given by the Hong Kong Film Awards and the Hong Kong Film Critics Society that respectively represent the industry and the critics. The long list of winners can be found in the filmography in this volume.