Speaking of Wong Kar-wai and his films, the first word that comes to mind is "literature and art", from the storyboard to the script, to the lines and soundtrack, which are the favorites of literary and artistic youth. Although his films do not have wonderful stories, they can portray the fragments of life into the ultimate beauty, fiercely grasp the hearts of the audience, and make people involuntarily fall into it.
Aside from the movie, wong Kar-wai's most impressive thing is probably the pair of sunglasses that almost grow on his face. But what is less known is that he is ridiculed by everyone as the "Sunglasses King", what kind of story is hidden behind him.
Born in Shanghai in 1958, Wong Kar-wai moved to Hong Kong with his parents at the age of 5.
And this move completely changed the trajectory of his life.
Wong Kar-wai's mother was a huge movie fan and went to see a movie almost every day when she had time. When she first arrived in Hong Kong, she didn't know Cantonese, she didn't have any friends, and her husband often went out, so she could only take little Wong Kar-wai in and out of the theater.
Domestic, Japanese, European and American... In addition to the horror theme, mother and son are all involved in it.
Due to the language barrier, the most watched is still a beautiful domestic film.
"Liang Shanbo and Zhu Yingtai", released that year, is not only the most popular film of the year, but also the collective memory of many Hong Kong directors.
Over time, Wong Kar-wai became interested in movies. Through the film, he sees different worlds and experiences a variety of emotions.
Wong Kar-wai didn't learn to speak Cantonese until he was 13 years old, so in his long and lonely childhood, movies became Wong Kar-wai's best companion.
At that time, Wong Kar-wai's mother, although she was in Hong Kong, still maintained the habits of Shanghainese. Whether it's going to the movies or going grocery shopping, you have to dress up decently. Even if the living environment is not rich, the family's attitude towards life is exquisite and serious.
Exquisite life and wonderful movies subtly affect Wong Kar-wai. For him, the 60s of his childhood became the most beautiful era. Even if he grows up, refinement and perfection are still his tireless pursuits, just like Maggie Cheung in the movie "Fancy Years", even if he goes out to eat noodles, he will put on exquisite makeup and wear a neat cheongsam.
In 1982, Wong Kar-wai was admitted to the wireless choreography training class, taking the first step into the film and television circle.
In 1982, Wong Kar-wai began to write a script;
In 1987, he co-wrote the screenplay "The Last Victory" with Tam Ka Ming, which was nominated for the Best Screenplay Award at the 7th Hong Kong Film Awards.
It is also for this reason that Wong Kar-wai's talent is appreciated by Deng Guangrong.
Thus, there was 1988's "Carmen of Mong Kok".
Since then, Wong Kar-wai's directing career has officially begun.
I have to say that Wong Kar-wai has a characteristic from the beginning of his work as a screenwriter - he is extremely fond of procrastination.
A script was written for a long time, and by the time he handed it in, the film had reached a sequel.
Because of procrastination, Wong Kar-wai was often fired.
According to Wong Kar-wai, his "slowness" comes from being too demanding, basically overthrowing himself the day before him every day.
But at that time, in order to make quick money, Hong Kong films could complete a script in two days and complete a film in less than a month.
Wong Kar-wai's "slowness" was too inconsistent with the fast pace of filmmaking at that time!
This situation continued until 1987, when Wong Kar-wai joined Deng Guangrong's Film and Television Company, and finally adapted to the fast-paced way of working and wrote a lot of fast-food works.
For example, "Fierce Ghost Messenger Hall" is what he and his partner Liu Zhenwei thought about overnight.
The box office effect was also good, so that a sequel was later made - "Fierce Ghost Academy".
But Wong Kar-wai didn't want to live like this again, he remembered the classic movies he had seen before, and he thought of his favorite movie actors.
At that time, the actor's smile was carefully crafted. But 20 years later, Wong Kar-wai, who has passed the age of establishment, is getting farther and farther away from the movie he dreamed of in his childhood.
After writing the gangster film "Dragon and Tiger Fight", Seeing that the box office reached more than 15 million Hong Kong dollars, Deng Guangrong was very satisfied with it.
Wong Kar-wai simply hit the iron while it was hot, persuaded him to invest in himself, turned out the script that was disdainfully thrown into the trash can by investors a few years ago, found Andy Lau who was hidden by TVB, Maggie Cheung, who was known as "Vase" at the time, and others, and put "Carmen in Mong Kok" on the big screen.
As a result, it is a lot of money.
Word-of-mouth and box office flew together, winning nine Academy Award nominations.
In an instant, not only did Deng Guangrong have more confidence in him, but the entire film and television circle was saying "this director has a future".
In 1989, Wong Kar-wai told Deng Guangrong a wonderful gangster story, hoping to make it into an episode.
Deng Guangrong directly invested 40 million Hong Kong dollars this time, inviting the red Zhang Guorong, Leung Chaowei, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Liu Jialing and Maggie Cheung.
This movie is known as "Ah Fei Zheng Biography".
Although today, this is an unquestionable masterpiece, but at that time, this film was dismal at the box office, and even indirectly led to the bankruptcy of the company, which made Deng Guangrong angry enough.
One of the reasons is that Wong Kar-wai endured a long time of "procrastination" to re-emerge.
In fact, wong Kar-wai was not fully prepared at the beginning of filming, and even the script was written while shooting.
Originally a commercial film with a gangster theme, but because Wong Kar-wai was too refined, the amount of film used seriously exceeded the standard!
The story of a legless bird alone costs all the money;
Andy Lau shot a line more than 20 times;
Jacky Cheung made a bowed gesture 10 times;
Liang Chaowei only has two and a half minutes of footage and eats pears 27 times, so much so that he begins to wonder if he will be able to act.
After going home and crying for many days, I was depressed for 2 weeks before I found the courage to return to the set...
After the filming of the last episode, it happened to meet Wang Jing's "Gambler", which grossed 40 million Hong Kong dollars, which is more than 4 times that of "Ah Fei Zheng Biography".
The general environmental trend, "Ah Fei Zheng Biography" and other literary and artistic films are difficult to adapt to the film market, coupled with the various rumors about Wong Kar-wai during the filming period, so that the entire Hong Kong film circle is extremely disdainful of Wong Kar-wai's procrastinating shooting method.
Since then, Wong Kar-wai has been crowned the "poison of the box office".
It was also from this time that people found that Wong Kar-wai's sunglasses appeared more and more frequently.
Could it be that "The Legend of Ah Fei" put too much pressure on Wong Kar-wai?
Only to let the shy nature of him, forced to use sunglasses to cover up his heart, unwilling to face the public?
Although "The Legend of Ah Fei" ended in a box office fiasco, Wong Kar-wai did not believe this set.
In order not to cause too much trouble to others, and in order to be able to continue shooting his favorite films, Wong Kar-wai decided to set up his own company.
Of course, he also has to prove to the world that in the box office-high film market, Wong Kar-wai's films have a way to go!
At a time when wong Kar-wai was almost "banned" throughout the film, fortunately there was such a person who stood firmly by his side.
He is the director of "Gamble Saint" and "Journey to the West 2", Liu Zhenwei.
In 1984, the two first met, and Wong Kar-wai's broad knowledge left a deep impression on Liu Zhenwei.
Three years later, an opportunity allowed the two to start a multi-year cooperation.
In 1987, Liu Zhenwei joined Deng Guangrong's company and became a partner with Wong Kar-wai.
In 1990, after the box office fiasco of "Ah Fei Zheng Biography", Deng Guangrong and Wong Kar-wai terminated their cooperation, leaving only Liu Zhenwei.
With his assistance, Wong Kar-wai set up his own film company.
At that time, martial arts films were very popular in the Hong Kong film circle. Therefore, the two decided to take this martial arts style and shoot two films first.
The first investment, Liu Zhenwei quickly got it done.
Unexpectedly, Wong Kar-wai's "procrastination" re-attacked.
The film that was originally planned to be finished in three months, just one month after filming, Wong Kar-wai was going to scrap the script and start again.
Investors have issued an ultimatum to catch up with the Chinese New Year no matter what method they use.
No way, Liu Zhenwei and Wong Kar-wai held an emergency meeting overnight.
In the end, Liu Zhenwei took the original team to edit a new movie to shoot.
Wong Kar-wai followed his own ideas and then pondered the original script.
In the end, Liu Zhenwei's "East becomes West" took only one month to shoot, and it sold well at the box office.
Adapted from Jin Yong's novel "The Legend of the Archery Hero", it is also the first martial arts film directed by Wong Kar-wai and supervised by Liu Zhenwei, "East Evil and West Poison", which took two years to be released, and the box office was unbearable.
However, the film won the Hong Kong Film Critics Association Award for Best Picture, and Cheung Kwok Wing also won the best actor for it.
In the same year, another small-budget film by Wong Kar-wai, "Chongqing Forest", was also released.
When he was a child, wong Kar Wai's family lived in Tsim Sha Tsui, close to Chungking Mansions, and his parents told him not to go there.
After all, the Chungking Mansions of that era had long been infamous. Located in the heart of Hong Kong, it is one of the most mixed places in Hong Kong.
As he grew older, Wong Kar-wai's curiosity about this mysterious place grew stronger.
As a result, this place that he did not have the opportunity to explore as a child faded the dark, dilapidated, and dangerous cloak in his movies, and became a strange romance in the shot.
Speaking of Wong Kar-wai's sunglasses, the story begins with his youth.
One day, wong Kar-wai, who was out of love, went to a bar to get drunk, and he said: From now on, the first woman to come in, I will pursue her.
Soon after, a woman actually walked in, wearing sunglasses even in the middle of the night.
Wong Kar-wai said to his friend: A woman still wears sunglasses so late, there are only three reasons. The first, it shows that she is blind; the second, it shows that she is playing cool; the third, because she is out of love, she does not want others to see that she has cried.
A friend asked him, which kind of person do you think she belongs to?
"It must be a lost love!" In fact, it is normal to lose love, so why cry like this?"
After the woman heard it, she said: I see, the person who has lost love should be you.
The woman in the sunglasses was Chen Yijin, who later became Wong Kar-wai's wife.
And the scene of déjà vu also appeared in "Chongqing Forest" many years later.
On the ideal path, Wong Kar-wai still has to endure extraordinary pressure. In addition to the economic aspect, there are also ridicule from all sides, including his old rival Wang Jing.
In 1977, as soon as Wang Jing's "Hardcover Difficult Brothers" was released, many viewers laughed.
Because the protagonist of this film, director Wang Jingwei, obviously has the shadow of Wong Kar-wai.
From 1990 to the present, while Wong Kar-wai is struggling to pursue art and endure pressure from all walks of life, Wang Jing has produced nearly 100 movies such as "Gambler", "Trickster Expert", "Truant Weilong 3" and so on, almost every one of which is fully loaded.
In Hong Kong films, people often compare the two. One specializes in commercial films and one specializes in art films.
Wang Jing and Wong Kar Wai represent the two extremes of business and art.
In the eyes of many people, they should be incompatible, but this is not the case.
Wang Jing once told such a story: Once, he and Wong Kar-wai sat together drinking tea and chatting, and a young man was very surprised to see that the two were so harmonious. Immediately asked, how do you two sit and drink tea? Isn't it time to fight?
Yes, although Wang Jing made a movie in order to spit on Wong Kar-wai, in this film, he also expressed his love and admiration for Wong Kar-wai in his own way.
The little boy wearing suspender pants and plaid shirt plays Wang Jing himself.
He said to Wang Jingwei, who was wearing sunglasses: I have seen three of your films, and I think your films are very stylish and innovative.
He also said that when he grew up, he also wanted to be a director, hoping that Wang Jingwei could help himself.
Wang Jing in reality also once said: Wong Kar-wai's courage is very admirable, he insists on taking his own path, taking that very difficult road. If I had been asked to go, I probably wouldn't have as much courage.
Over the years, Wong Kar-wai has still adhered to his unique style, continuing the speed of shooting one film for several years, creating, and his works are still few.
In 2014, Wong Kar-wai's film "A Generation of Grandmasters" won the Best Director Award at the Beijing International Film Festival.
At the same time, "Generation Grandmaster" has become the highest-grossing domestic film since 2006.
Today, Wong Kar-wai's films are not only well received by film critics, but also recognized at the box office, and have gained a large number of loyal fans, adding a bright and unique color to domestic films.
At this time, Wong Kar-wai was like a mentor and a master. The disturbances of the outside world have long since ceased, replaced by a solemn respect for the surrounding masters.
And people also found that Wong Kar-wai's sunglasses were also worn from the beginning occasionally to often, until now they can no longer be taken off.
What is the reason for this?
In 2013, Wong Kar-wai approached Bowles and asked him to write an autobiography of himself.
In order to understand Wong Kar-wai, Bowles often chatted with him and talked about the problem of sunglasses, and Wong Kar-wai said this: Sunglasses can give me time to think, bring me a sense of security, and let me not have to look at the outside world naked.
At this point, the secret behind Wong Kar Wai's sunglasses has finally been revealed.
Just like this line of Lin Qingxia in "Chongqing Forest": I don't know when to start, I have become a very careful person, every time I wear a raincoat, I will wear sunglasses. You never know when it's going to rain and when it's going to be sun.
Perhaps it just shows Wong Kar-wai's dedication to sunglasses.
For Wong Kar-wai, sunglasses are like masks, and when you put them on, Wong Kar-wai becomes director Wong Kar-wai.
Sunglasses can give him a sense of security and courage, can help him erase the shyness in his personality, can make him willfully shoot the world of his dreams, and make him not afraid to live in this world that may be out of place for himself.
Wong Kar-wai is like a persistent big boy, bent on telling the exquisite life he experienced in his childhood to the public.
Someone once asked Wong Kar-wai to give an example of the most perfect moment in his life, and Wong Kar-wai's answer sounded very simple, he said: See a child's face, one day you wake up in the morning, you are surrounded by a person you like sleeping, one day you are walking on the road, smelling the smell of other people's food in their homes.
We have reason to believe that the reason why Wong Kar-wai has been able to persist for many years and swim against the current is not only because of the sense of security that a pair of sunglasses gives him, but perhaps the more definite answer is precisely because of his love of life.
After work, Wong Kar-wai would take off his sunglasses and go shopping with his wife for tea. At that time, he was an ordinary husband, an ordinary father.
Wong Kar-wai said: The purpose of writing the autobiography is to dedicate it to his son, and he hopes that his son will know what his father has been doing for more than 30 years.
I don't think it matters much whether you become a master, or what a film critic says. I made movies to bring the joy, sadness, and loss of my childhood to the audience.