HONG KONG AUTEUR

Wong Kar-wai, a Hong Kong film auteur, has an exceptional style in that he creates highly individual art films in a very commercial market. His working style is so freshly innovative that in Ashes of Time every actor received their own scripts a few hours before each day¡¯s filming. In Fallen Angels, for example, Takeshi Kaneshiro had to massage a pig¡¯s carcass without knowing why whilst playing this difficult role (Hansen, 2000, p.44). Likewise, Guan Shuyi spent several arduous months in Buenos Aires playing the leading actress in Happy Together, but unfortunately this talented leading actress existed only in Wong¡¯s mind ¨C every scene of hers were subsequently cut, and she does not appear even for one second in the final version of the film. Despite that, there are still many Hong Kong superstars lining up to play even limited roles in Wong¡¯s films, partly because playing in his films often leads to the opportunity to be nominated for awards. Following his second film, Days of Being Wild (1991), all of his later films, Ashes of Time (1994), Chung

As the driving force of the second new wave, Wong inherits the innovative spirit of the first new wave meanwhile developing many new dynamic film-making skills. In terms of his working style, the ways to catch image differ, however, the principle of fine images never changes. More and more fine pictures are presented again and again in screen and audiences are often surprised by the ¡®happy together¡¯ in which there are changing shooting skills and unchanging delicate beauty simultaneously.

king Express (1994), Fallen Angels (1995), Happy Together (1997), and In the Mood for Love (2000) were collectively appreciated by critics at film festivals in Hong Kong, Taiwan, even Europe, and have won numerous awards and brought fame to the Hong Kong film industry, although the majority of them actually failed at the box office and did not even recover the initial investment. His works are regarded by some film critics as having links with realism, postmodernism, stream of consciousness or constructivism and at the same time are collected and admired by enthusiastic fans. Professional filmmakers¡¯ may say that his films are full of some very strange and innovative skills, such as MTV camera style and continuously shaking images. Truly representing the pinnacle of Hong Kong film, recently his most famous film ¨C Days of Being Wild, together with nine other very famous Chinese films such as Xiao Cheng Zhi Chun and Yellow Earth, were chosen among the Ten Best Films in Chinese history by the Hong Kong Film Critique Committee (Zhong, nd.). Few Hong Kong film directors have achieved such high acclaim as he does. In this case, Wong has created his own special brand of Chinese art film.

However, it seems that the reasons for loving Wong Kar-wai and his works are as many as those for hating him. Although his films do not appeal to a large number of audiences, Wong Kar-wai does have quite a few loyal fans, even including some professional critics. Some people like Wong¡¯s style of character films; some people are interested in his kaleidoscopic film skills; and others focus more on the rootless and cool leading characters. What¡¯s more, there might be some audiences who cannot understand his films but are just attracted by his numerous brilliant awards and want to show their sophisticated tastes similar to the experts. In any case, the videos of each of Wong¡¯s films are popular among his fans and their interests in Wong Kar-wai never decrease as time goes by.

Although Wong has depicted so many refusals and much desperation in his works, his characters do not completely give up hope in life. On the contrary, they enjoy the limited time that they are alive and the small space in which they stay together, just as Wong said, ¡°all the characters in my work are optimistic.¡± (Shao, nd.) As a result, in Happy Together, Lai Yin-Fai and Ho Po-Wing dance tango charmingly when Ho is injured, and Lai regards it as his happiest memory although a very short one; in Fallen Angels, He Zhiwu does not care about the hurt at all while rubbing others¡¯ shoulders ¨C he just wants to stay happy.

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