South China Morning Post Article

[Pungyo]

I hope this link works for all of you... This is an article about Wong Kar-Wai and it mentions Tony who will be starring in "The Grand Master."

http://totallyhk.scmp.com/thkarts/people/ZZZEVWBSX8E.html

If the link doesn't take you to the article... Sandy, Info, maybe you can instruct me as to how I can copy the article to a new posting... is it a simple matter of copy and paste?

-K

[Pungyo]

Sunday, May 22, 2005

Private eyes
________________________________________
By Vivienne Chow and David Watkins



THE MASTER OF light and shade he may be - but he's the master of shades, too. Wong Kar-wai never steps into the public arena without his prescription sunglasses, refusing to take them off even when indoors. With his eyes hidden from view, it's sometimes impossible to tell where he's looking, what he's thinking or whether he's finished answering a question after one of his customary pauses.

Many rumours have circulated about why Wong hides his eyes. Some say he suffers from a rare disorder and is ultra-sensitive to light - although the sensual, luminous colours of his films would suggest otherwise. Others says it's vanity - an attempt to look like the chain-smoking characters who populate his movies. Or maybe he simply dislikes being interviewed.
The truth is more down to earth, derived out of a basic need for privacy: they're his disguise. "I have no problem with the press - I give interviews all the time. Sunglasses are like a uniform for me," says Wong, smoking his umpteenth cigarette. "I don't have a name card, so I have glasses. Without these sunglasses, people don't recognise me. That way I can have more privacy with my family when I don't wear them. Some people do things in opposite ways."

Although his films are filled with tragic types suffocated by romantic longing, Wong in person is cheerful, to the point of being playful. And although he imposes a dimmed view of the world on his eyes when facing reporters - as he does on the day he's at Taikoo's UA Cinema, promoting his part in Eros, a directorial menage a trois with Steven Soderberg and Michelangelo Antonioni about erotic love - it's what his eyes see through the camera that the world is clamouring for.

Since his 1989 debut, As Tears Go By, Wong has become one of the world's most distinctive and sought-after directors. The success of Days of Being Wild, Ashes of Time, Chungking Express and Happy Together (the last of which won him the best director prize at Cannes in 1997) has led to him being dubbed "the most imitated filmmaker in Hong Kong". But his influence extends beyond the region, with familiar Wong tropes popping up in the works of directors as diverse as Spike Jonze, Cameron Crowe and Sam Raimi.

The long-awaited 2046 was released last year to a mixed reception in Asia, but was greeted as a masterpiece elsewhere. When you can deliver an unfinished version of your film to the Cannes Film Festival and still leave critics claiming you're worthy of a prize, you must be doing something right.

"A master," wrote The Guardian. "Basically god, as far as I'm concerned," said Academy Award-winner Nicole Kidman, who has signed up to star in his next film, following in the footsteps of Wong's former leading ladies Faye Wong, Zhang Ziyi, Carina Lau and Gong Li. Filming of the US$25 million international co-production, The Lady from Shanghai, commences in October, in Shanghai and New York. After that will come Wong's long-awaited project on Bruce Lee's mentor, Yip Man: The Grand Master, which will star Tony Leung Chiu-wai.

Not bad for a man who grew up without a TV in a cramped, shared apartment, studied graphic design at the then Hong Kong Polytechnic (now the Hong Kong Polytechnic University) and then in 1980 took a TVB screenwriters course. Wong was born in Shanghai in 1958, but moved to Hong Kong at the age of five.

His early incarnation writing scripts for soap operas and soft porn films paid off handsomely: The Hand, Wong's contribution to Eros, stands head and shoulders above Soderberg and Antonioni's efforts. Chang Chen's apprentice tailor, another of Wong's emotionally restrained characters, has his inexperience manipulated by Gong Li's courtesan - literally - in one single bold gesture. Shot during a Sars-related pause during the making of 2046, it takes place in the same dilapidated apartment block that houses Leung in that film.

Although Wong's involvement in the project boils down to his admiration for the ailing Antonioni - whom he refers to as the maestro and as "one of the most important directors, who I learned a lot from and wanted to help" - Wong is enjoying his own status.

His maverick directorial style - an intuitive process of improvisation, shooting without a script and asking actors to base their characters on the feelings evoked by rock songs - feeds a myth that is fast becoming as potent as that surrounding Antonioni. Yet the media attention can bring unwanted baggage.

"During your career there are a lot of labels that are given to you. Someone might say you're a terrible director, a director who doesn't have a script, who is always over budget, who takes five years to make a film," he says, jokingly referring to the tortuous, Sars-plagued, five-year shoot of 2046. "Or they say, 'He's a screen master' or 'He's a lousy director'. But you don't live for people, you live for yourself. You learn many lessons, and what's important is to find your audience instead of assuming there is one."

Although finding his audience is a priority, he's flirted with losing actors unfamiliar with his methods. Today, those who work for Wong know what to expect and readily volunteer, as is the case with Kidman. One of the more memorable examples of when this arrangement didn't work, was the involvement of leading Japanese actor Takuya Kimura in 2046. His difficulties adjusting to Wong's experimental process when filming began in Bangkok in 1999 were brought to the fore when he was asked to improvise alongside a cow, a pig and an elephant. Kimura returned to Japan and dismissed the production as chaos.

Maggie Cheung Man-yuk is another who nearly buckled under the countless recalls from her home in Paris to Shanghai after the shoot. A New York Times reporter found himself on the 2046 set with the rest of the crew, waiting for the director to show up one morning. Wong eventually appeared, clambering out of a mini van clutching hastily scribbled notes - the script for that morning.

"The problem is that I hate writing," says Wong. "It's a very lonely process, boring and painful. Yet the way you structure a film to tell a story is like literature - it's like a novel in terms of certain narratives. I still remember when shooting 2046, the easiest shot for me was when Tony Leung couldn't go on writing. I really felt that."

Although actors say their frustrations evaporate the minute they see the finished product, the tensions that Wong's process creates undoubtedly contribute to the energy in his films. "It's related to the way you work," he says, lighting another cigarette. "If the actors or the cast know exactly what the characters or the story is about, they have a certain design or preparation which might not fit into your plan. So you have to create a mystery for them. A suspense."

Letting go of the film, says Wong, is the hardest part - illustrated by his last-minute scramble to Cannes and tinkering with 2046 afterwards. "Sometimes it takes a few years to work on a film and you keep repeating and repeating. But once I let go, I let go. It's like a friend: you have to accept that he has great parts and not so great parts, that this is part of his character."

Although Wong seems to laugh off criticism easily, it's the praise that gets to him. "The only thing I feel uneasy and uncomfortable about is when people compare your previous film and your latest film. You're always competing with yourself. People always have preconceptions. I was told that the audience was so quiet, too serious, during the first screening of Eros in Hong Kong.

"I wonder what would happen if I made a film under a different name - it would be a totally different film experience for the audience, as they wouldn't carry the impression that this is Wong Kar-wai's film."
He seems genuinely surprised at the audience reaction, despite the fact that the comic moments in his segment are also excruciatingly uncomfortable. "It's a very fine line between humour and discomfort. My only advice to the audience is to not take it too seriously. When Soderberg's film was first shown in Toronto, people thought it was hilarious. When you show it in Asia, people are very serious about the whole thing. I think that first scene in The Hand can be quite comic, with her telling him to take off his pants."

Qualifying his recent criticisms of Hong Kong audiences not having the patience or passion of their Korean counterparts, Wong questions whether pride is the core issue to the local industry's malaise. "Perhaps it's because of this collective view that Hong Kong cinema is dying, that it has, in itself, become something that people aren't keen on or proud of any more. But I do think things are going to change."

If anything, The Hand is an example of what seems to be a watershed period for Chinese cinema. It demonstrates a local film industry that, far from watering itself down for the mainland, is increasingly prepared to instigate change. Of all his achievements, to be in the vanguard in this process must rank highly. All eyes are looking to China.

"Five years ago, when we released In the Mood for Love in China it was classed as an international film. It couldn't be seen as a co-production with China because it was about affairs. Yet last year, when we co-produced 2046 with a Shanghai studio, there were no cuts, so things have improved.

"When you look at films such as Eros and other Chinese productions, they're turning the whole scene around. Chinese finance, Hong Kong stars and technicians are creating films not only for the Chinese market - they have become more ambitious, looking at the rest of Asia and the world." Wong says. "Hong Kong filmmakers today concerned with the Chinese markets have to structure their stories in a certain way - but when you look at the censorship department in China it's becoming more liberal.
"The traditions of Hong Kong filmmakers are more Hollywood, in making films for entertainment. On the mainland, films used to be just propaganda, but now it's more about serious matters. They're very concerned about the message. In 10 years' time the line between Hong Kong filmmakers and Chinese filmmakers will be very thin."

Eros is screening now.

[summertime]

I was at the first screening of Eros in Toronto, and it's true that the audience was laughing during the Soderbergh segment.

I was really looking forward to the Antonioni segment, and was a little disappointed.

I thought the WKW segement was the strongest of the three.


summertime