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Wong Kar-Wai: Auteur of Time
This study of Hong Kong cult director Wong Kar-wai provides an overview of his career and in-depth analysis of his seven feature films to date. Teo probes Wong's cinematic and literary influences - from Martin Scorsese to Haruki Murakami - yet shows how Wong transcends them all.
191 pages, Paperback
First published March 8, 2005
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About the author
Stephen Teo
21 books6 followersStephen Teo is currently associate professor at the Wee Kim Wee School of Communication and Information, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore.
He has done significant research work in the field of the Hong Kong cinema, and his research areas include other Asian cinemas, revolving around subjects of genre theory, film history, auteur studies, cultural studies, national cinema, and investigations into the literary and visual aspects of film theory.
He has done significant research work in the field of the Hong Kong cinema, and his research areas include other Asian cinemas, revolving around subjects of genre theory, film history, auteur studies, cultural studies, national cinema, and investigations into the literary and visual aspects of film theory.
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Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews
December 17, 2019
"Wong develops the theme of chimerical relationships with the same evanescence displayed in Marukami's short story. People's lives just touch but never interpenetrate (maybe they do not even touch, but they just brush past, mere possibilities, foregone opportunities to connect, impermanence."
"...time as the speed express, the dynamo of movement, time passing, time continuing, time never coming to an end. Time as material and tangible because Wong objectifies time: cans of pineapples, a piece of soap, an old wet rag, a shirt, a stuffed toy, and a toy aeroplane.
"...time as the speed express, the dynamo of movement, time passing, time continuing, time never coming to an end. Time as material and tangible because Wong objectifies time: cans of pineapples, a piece of soap, an old wet rag, a shirt, a stuffed toy, and a toy aeroplane.
September 26, 2013
Imprimis: this book covers Wong's work up until 2046 including his commercial shorts; however, Teo was not able to view Wong's "The Hand" in the Eros release - a very important film in Wong's oeuvre in my opinion. Of course My Blueberry Nights is also not included since it came after this book. The format is simple with an introductory chapter, one chapter per film and an ending chapter which covers his commercial shorts and concludes his thoughts about the summation of Wong Kar-wai's cinema.
This is a nice monograph on Wong's work. Where Stephen Teo (author of Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions) is strongest and most sublime in this book is associating particular literary influences on Wong's oeuvre. Teo's sums this up in the conclusion of the book where he states: "...Wong paradoxically shows a love of literature that seems far greater than his love of cinema. Literature feeds Wong's faculty of image-making. He is inspired by writers such as Puig and Cortaza, Osamu Dazai and Liu Yichang to express non-linear, illogical narratives, using the word in this own distinctive manner to combine thought and image, and heighten our senses of perception."
Teo does a nice job in explaining some of the cinematic influences on Wong and other movie associations with Wong and his contemporaries. The pre and post handover anxiety and malaise theories and metaphors are covered nicely per film. But like all artists it is important to read a variety of sources on an auteur to understand more about him. I have read David Bordwell's Planet Hong Kong which has a chapter on "avant pop" cinema in HK which most of that chapter is about Wong and it also contains an essay dedicated to Chungking Express. However, there are several more books dedicated to Wong which I will delve into later such as Wong Kar-wai (Contemporary Film Directors) by Peter Brunette and books from The New Hong Kong Cinema Series that deal with specific films.
Where I do have some issues is the overuse of generic terms such as "post-modern" which completely loses context as the years pass. He also perpetuates the theory of Wong as a box-office disaster and suffering artist fighting his way against the HK production companies and disinterested masses with such statements as "...his films are box-office poison in Hong Kong...", "Hong Kong itself has proved resistant to his films, as judged on the whole by their consistently poor domestic box-office earnings", and "It represents Wong's faculty for survival even after the box-office fiasco of Days of Being Wild." This is just not true and I tend to agree with Tony Rayns who has stated on the Criterion commentary for Chungking Express that Wong is not a major flop, just only marginally successful in Hong Kong. If you look at the local box office for Wong's films you find most ranging from 7 to 9 HK million dollars (not counting the 11 HK million for As Tears Go By). While he hasn't had the success of a Wong Jing or Johnnie To's most successful films he also has not had the financial flops that To has had (PTU made about 3 HK million). In an interesting coincidence Stephen Teo would later pen Director in Action: Johnnie To and the Hong Kong Action Film which I feel is a must buy for fans of To.
However, there is so much information that is worth reading and returning to that I believe this as a must purchase for fans of Wong and/or scholars interested in his cinema. Teo sometimes overdoes Wong's position as underdog and he goes into fanboy territory with such statements as "...simply by committing himself in a way that his contemporaries cannot match." and has an annoying habit of using obscure comparisons that sometimes seem a bit forced and a bit Dennis Milleresque like "...kind that incorporates a Menippean discourse..." but his enthusiasm for the subject makes up for these faults.
This is a nice monograph on Wong's work. Where Stephen Teo (author of Hong Kong Cinema: The Extra Dimensions) is strongest and most sublime in this book is associating particular literary influences on Wong's oeuvre. Teo's sums this up in the conclusion of the book where he states: "...Wong paradoxically shows a love of literature that seems far greater than his love of cinema. Literature feeds Wong's faculty of image-making. He is inspired by writers such as Puig and Cortaza, Osamu Dazai and Liu Yichang to express non-linear, illogical narratives, using the word in this own distinctive manner to combine thought and image, and heighten our senses of perception."
Teo does a nice job in explaining some of the cinematic influences on Wong and other movie associations with Wong and his contemporaries. The pre and post handover anxiety and malaise theories and metaphors are covered nicely per film. But like all artists it is important to read a variety of sources on an auteur to understand more about him. I have read David Bordwell's Planet Hong Kong which has a chapter on "avant pop" cinema in HK which most of that chapter is about Wong and it also contains an essay dedicated to Chungking Express. However, there are several more books dedicated to Wong which I will delve into later such as Wong Kar-wai (Contemporary Film Directors) by Peter Brunette and books from The New Hong Kong Cinema Series that deal with specific films.
Where I do have some issues is the overuse of generic terms such as "post-modern" which completely loses context as the years pass. He also perpetuates the theory of Wong as a box-office disaster and suffering artist fighting his way against the HK production companies and disinterested masses with such statements as "...his films are box-office poison in Hong Kong...", "Hong Kong itself has proved resistant to his films, as judged on the whole by their consistently poor domestic box-office earnings", and "It represents Wong's faculty for survival even after the box-office fiasco of Days of Being Wild." This is just not true and I tend to agree with Tony Rayns who has stated on the Criterion commentary for Chungking Express that Wong is not a major flop, just only marginally successful in Hong Kong. If you look at the local box office for Wong's films you find most ranging from 7 to 9 HK million dollars (not counting the 11 HK million for As Tears Go By). While he hasn't had the success of a Wong Jing or Johnnie To's most successful films he also has not had the financial flops that To has had (PTU made about 3 HK million). In an interesting coincidence Stephen Teo would later pen Director in Action: Johnnie To and the Hong Kong Action Film which I feel is a must buy for fans of To.
However, there is so much information that is worth reading and returning to that I believe this as a must purchase for fans of Wong and/or scholars interested in his cinema. Teo sometimes overdoes Wong's position as underdog and he goes into fanboy territory with such statements as "...simply by committing himself in a way that his contemporaries cannot match." and has an annoying habit of using obscure comparisons that sometimes seem a bit forced and a bit Dennis Milleresque like "...kind that incorporates a Menippean discourse..." but his enthusiasm for the subject makes up for these faults.
Read
December 24, 2025days of being wild
'life is not long,even a minute can last a lifetime. the ticking of clocks is sometimes the only soundtrack we hear, evoking the melancholy of everyday
existence.
‘the minute before three o'clock on 16 april, 1960, yuddy and lai-chen have made a compact to be friends for one minute.
'because of you, i'll always remember this one minute,'
final scene,
tony leung chiu-wai sitting on his bed in a garret manicuring his fingernails, then getting up to put on his jacket, retrieving a large wad of cash from the table and putting it into his breast pocket, along with a pack of cards that he slips into his vest pocket, folding the handkerchief, and finally combing his hair before switching off the light and going out.
the scene is unrelated to all that has happened before and it seems that all the characters were really preparing the stage for tony leung to appear. they were like a prologue.
in the mood for love
being 'all about suspense',
they’re always role playin but also playing their roles
‘on the one hand, we were playing a husband and a wife, and on the other hand, we were playing a paramour and his mistress. In the beginning, we didn't know that our partners were having an affair, our identities were a husband and wife married to others. 'then we developed a relationship and we became a lover and his mistress. which were the roles of our partners! We were playing two roles at the same time. this makes it different from all our previous roles.'
wong here re-creates the past as a time when people believed in love.
“concept of time as lost opportunity for realising love and happiness, but yet time persisting as an everlasting source of nostalgic memory, of vicarious happiness: time is never tired, the long needle hopelessly chasing after the short needle, and happiness is a wanderer, pacing back and forth behind the equals sign of an equation." it is time rather than any human agency of change that makes change perceptible and emotional.
the music is repeating all the time, and the way we see certain spaces, like the office, the clock, the corridors, it's always the same. We try to show the changes through minor things, like the clothes of maggie ... details in the food, because for the shanghainese community, it's very precise food at certain seasons.
actually, the food is telling you that it is may, it is june, or that it is july…
'i didn't think you'd come to.’ which maggie replies, 'we won't be like them. see you tomorrow.
she walks down the corridor, as the camera pulls back to emphasise the red curtains. she then stops, in a kind of mock-freeze, a stylistic device to signal the entry of the waltz, from yumeji's theme' and the transition to the next sequence - a montage of scenes showing maggie and tony happy together inside room 2046, the only time we see them in a state of near bliss. but happiness is a wanderer, pacing back and forth behind the equals sign of an equation. the final equation is obviously not that of maggie and tony, and, vicariously, neither is it that of maggie and us. the heart changes, reality overcomes us, we are betrayed. but the worse of it is that we know it through our imagination, and we are not spared the actual sensation of change.
2046
2046 'is a place where one can recover lost memories because nothing ever changes'.
borrowed time; a pre-97 condition that produced a certain syndrome of fear and insecurity causing citizens to drift and wander - time as a trope of restlessness.
you treat people like time-fillers?
-can't say that. sometimes, i lend my time to others.
what about tonight? are you borrowing my time or am i borrowing yours?
-either way. the first half of the night, i borrow yours, the second half,
you borrow mine.
‘love is a matter of timing, it won't do if it's too soon or too late.'
‘2046' establishes 2046 as the place where amorous characters go in order to recover their lost memories, while in '2047 chow mo-wan imagines himself as the japanese tak, who travels back from 2046 on the mystery train and falls in love with the android - the sci-fi segment that opens the film, thus giving a fore flash of the film-within-a- film structure.
as tears go by
‘it's very difficult to describe why a man likes a woman, and the deep feelings between two brothers, and so on. they are all very subtle. but i wanted to put forward the proposition that time is the biggest factor. the relationship between people is like opening a calendar. you leave your trace on each day. emotions come without your being aware of them. i don't know why i want to help you, but i've done it. (my emphasis)"
'my film doesn't have a story, the plot is entirely developed from the characters. i feel that the story isn't important, the characters are important.’
chungking express
just people feeling with so many different ways
tony leung pours out his feelings to a bar of soap, fay wong steals into tony's apartment and moves things around and that's how she satisfies her feelings, takeshi kaneshiro faces a can of pineapples. they project their emotions onto other things.
'chungking' is space, and 'express' is time. chungking express is a homogenising metaphor that brings together mutually incompatible concepts. space in the film is an internal world symbolised by the claustrophobic setting of chungking mansion, while time is an external near-abstract world represented by clocks but actualised by the expiry dates on food cans and mock boarding passes drawn on serviettes.
wong's space is not timeless, but rather it vibrates with a certain philosophical and psychological essence of time, time that passes and continues, and on another level, it refers to time that is associated with consciousness and memory.
a dynamic repetition in asymmetrical space emphasised by the recurring rhythm of faye wiping and cleaning, different spaces in different times.
articulations of space and time, simultaneously bringing into play symbolic meanings and idiosyncratic nuances concerning chance encounters and the vicissitudes of human relationships.
all things move and run, change rapidly, and this universal dynamism is what the artist should strive to represent. space no longer exists, or only as an atmosphere within which bodies move and interpenetrate.
love is ephemeral, time as the speed express, the dynamo of movement, time passing, time continuing, time never coming to an end. wong objectifies time: cans of pineapples, a piece of soap, an old wet rag, a shirt, a stuffed toy, a toy aeroplane. like proust's petites madeleines, these objects are time-carriers transporting the protagonist to a remembrance of things past.
happy together
'happy together is a full stop, the end of a certain period of life,' wong says. at the time, his statement might not have seemed quite as poignant as it does now. since happy together, wong has gone back to the past (in the mood for love) and forward to the future (2046).
it does appear that after 1 july 1997, time has ended.
'life is not long,even a minute can last a lifetime. the ticking of clocks is sometimes the only soundtrack we hear, evoking the melancholy of everyday
existence.
‘the minute before three o'clock on 16 april, 1960, yuddy and lai-chen have made a compact to be friends for one minute.
'because of you, i'll always remember this one minute,'
final scene,
tony leung chiu-wai sitting on his bed in a garret manicuring his fingernails, then getting up to put on his jacket, retrieving a large wad of cash from the table and putting it into his breast pocket, along with a pack of cards that he slips into his vest pocket, folding the handkerchief, and finally combing his hair before switching off the light and going out.
the scene is unrelated to all that has happened before and it seems that all the characters were really preparing the stage for tony leung to appear. they were like a prologue.
in the mood for love
being 'all about suspense',
they’re always role playin but also playing their roles
‘on the one hand, we were playing a husband and a wife, and on the other hand, we were playing a paramour and his mistress. In the beginning, we didn't know that our partners were having an affair, our identities were a husband and wife married to others. 'then we developed a relationship and we became a lover and his mistress. which were the roles of our partners! We were playing two roles at the same time. this makes it different from all our previous roles.'
wong here re-creates the past as a time when people believed in love.
“concept of time as lost opportunity for realising love and happiness, but yet time persisting as an everlasting source of nostalgic memory, of vicarious happiness: time is never tired, the long needle hopelessly chasing after the short needle, and happiness is a wanderer, pacing back and forth behind the equals sign of an equation." it is time rather than any human agency of change that makes change perceptible and emotional.
the music is repeating all the time, and the way we see certain spaces, like the office, the clock, the corridors, it's always the same. We try to show the changes through minor things, like the clothes of maggie ... details in the food, because for the shanghainese community, it's very precise food at certain seasons.
actually, the food is telling you that it is may, it is june, or that it is july…
'i didn't think you'd come to.’ which maggie replies, 'we won't be like them. see you tomorrow.
she walks down the corridor, as the camera pulls back to emphasise the red curtains. she then stops, in a kind of mock-freeze, a stylistic device to signal the entry of the waltz, from yumeji's theme' and the transition to the next sequence - a montage of scenes showing maggie and tony happy together inside room 2046, the only time we see them in a state of near bliss. but happiness is a wanderer, pacing back and forth behind the equals sign of an equation. the final equation is obviously not that of maggie and tony, and, vicariously, neither is it that of maggie and us. the heart changes, reality overcomes us, we are betrayed. but the worse of it is that we know it through our imagination, and we are not spared the actual sensation of change.
2046
2046 'is a place where one can recover lost memories because nothing ever changes'.
borrowed time; a pre-97 condition that produced a certain syndrome of fear and insecurity causing citizens to drift and wander - time as a trope of restlessness.
you treat people like time-fillers?
-can't say that. sometimes, i lend my time to others.
what about tonight? are you borrowing my time or am i borrowing yours?
-either way. the first half of the night, i borrow yours, the second half,
you borrow mine.
‘love is a matter of timing, it won't do if it's too soon or too late.'
‘2046' establishes 2046 as the place where amorous characters go in order to recover their lost memories, while in '2047 chow mo-wan imagines himself as the japanese tak, who travels back from 2046 on the mystery train and falls in love with the android - the sci-fi segment that opens the film, thus giving a fore flash of the film-within-a- film structure.
as tears go by
‘it's very difficult to describe why a man likes a woman, and the deep feelings between two brothers, and so on. they are all very subtle. but i wanted to put forward the proposition that time is the biggest factor. the relationship between people is like opening a calendar. you leave your trace on each day. emotions come without your being aware of them. i don't know why i want to help you, but i've done it. (my emphasis)"
'my film doesn't have a story, the plot is entirely developed from the characters. i feel that the story isn't important, the characters are important.’
chungking express
just people feeling with so many different ways
tony leung pours out his feelings to a bar of soap, fay wong steals into tony's apartment and moves things around and that's how she satisfies her feelings, takeshi kaneshiro faces a can of pineapples. they project their emotions onto other things.
'chungking' is space, and 'express' is time. chungking express is a homogenising metaphor that brings together mutually incompatible concepts. space in the film is an internal world symbolised by the claustrophobic setting of chungking mansion, while time is an external near-abstract world represented by clocks but actualised by the expiry dates on food cans and mock boarding passes drawn on serviettes.
wong's space is not timeless, but rather it vibrates with a certain philosophical and psychological essence of time, time that passes and continues, and on another level, it refers to time that is associated with consciousness and memory.
a dynamic repetition in asymmetrical space emphasised by the recurring rhythm of faye wiping and cleaning, different spaces in different times.
articulations of space and time, simultaneously bringing into play symbolic meanings and idiosyncratic nuances concerning chance encounters and the vicissitudes of human relationships.
all things move and run, change rapidly, and this universal dynamism is what the artist should strive to represent. space no longer exists, or only as an atmosphere within which bodies move and interpenetrate.
love is ephemeral, time as the speed express, the dynamo of movement, time passing, time continuing, time never coming to an end. wong objectifies time: cans of pineapples, a piece of soap, an old wet rag, a shirt, a stuffed toy, a toy aeroplane. like proust's petites madeleines, these objects are time-carriers transporting the protagonist to a remembrance of things past.
happy together
'happy together is a full stop, the end of a certain period of life,' wong says. at the time, his statement might not have seemed quite as poignant as it does now. since happy together, wong has gone back to the past (in the mood for love) and forward to the future (2046).
it does appear that after 1 july 1997, time has ended.
March 31, 2023
Its fun to read about films while talking about films with no visual correlation at hand I mean not every director what be fun but the ones you like are fun and therefore this book is pretty fun and at times illuminating if academic and stifled by that.
March 23, 2017
There are instances in which this study is simply too speculative. But overall is a good short intro to WKW's body of work.
June 4, 2022
i really like this guy
October 11, 2011
Since I started reading Stephen Teo's book Wong Kar-Wai I've been writing posts about the films of Wong as they were informed by the specific chapter from Teo's book. I found it to be an excellent resource and reference for analyzing the films and it will figure greatly in my next academic paper that will discuss the Japanese culture influences in his films. I also found his discussions on the themes and motifs of the films useful and enlightening. If I had any complaints they might have to do with the fact that sometimes it comes across as too academic with references to French theorists and in that he sometimes makes a stretch in comparing the films to surrealists paintings and what not. This is the second book I've read from the World Directors series, the first was Takeshi Kitano, and have found both both very informative and useful in understanding the oeuvre of the director in question.
April 29, 2012
Good job!
I think the book analyses the author more than the work, which is great. As I read it I understood more about the ideas and books that had influenced Wong's work, specially the Latin American authors he admires and constantly reads. Instead of forcing you into his own perception of the films, Teo provides you with the information and background necessary for you to comprehend some part of Wong's complexity of thought, but respects your freedom of interpretation and analysis. Recommended if you are a fan of Kar-Wai.
I think the book analyses the author more than the work, which is great. As I read it I understood more about the ideas and books that had influenced Wong's work, specially the Latin American authors he admires and constantly reads. Instead of forcing you into his own perception of the films, Teo provides you with the information and background necessary for you to comprehend some part of Wong's complexity of thought, but respects your freedom of interpretation and analysis. Recommended if you are a fan of Kar-Wai.
July 25, 2007
Although I disagree with some of the finer interpretations Teo has especially in regards to the preserved nievete in In The Mood For Love, overall his insights and sheer passion/intellect for Wong Kar-wai and film-making/narraitve is definitely impressive and honestly I've fallen deeper in love with both In Mood For Love and 2046 after reading Teo!
August 11, 2011
Recommended if you're more than a casual fan of WKW's films. The analysis of the literary references to Puig and Cortazar in his films was a nice surprise. The writing style gets academic at times (the author loves to quote Deleuze), but it's not a deal breaker. Lots of interesting insights about themes, working methods, critical reception, and cinematography.
October 7, 2011
This is the first critic I found who drew the connections between Wong Kar-Wai's films and literature, mostly Manuel Puig's novels. Each chapter basically covers a film, and in chronological order.
This is good enough that I revisit it from time to time, but it does fail to deliver any real revelations (unless, of course, you've never read any literature).
This is good enough that I revisit it from time to time, but it does fail to deliver any real revelations (unless, of course, you've never read any literature).
Read
July 17, 2013It's been fascinating to read a study of Wong Kar-wai's literary and visual art influences after trying to do so much myself with Brendon Chung's games, to which the themes and techniques trickle down in some form or another. Wong Kar-wai is the only director I've engaged with whose works as a collection have constituted a powerful intertext.
May 25, 2016
Teo provides a fascinating insight into how Wong Kar-Wai works as an auteur. There's lots of information on the sorts of literary sources that Wong uses as inspiration, which, prior to reading, I had no idea about! Filmic analyses are presented per chapter, which makes for a clear and coherent narrative.
April 6, 2008
Teo Stephen mixes Foucault, Deleuze and other philosopher with Chinese Cinema history and Hollywood references. A pleasure.
April 22, 2008
A nice overview of Wong Kar-Wai's films through 2046. A nice amount of visual annotations and frame grabs from many of the films to illustrate points that Teo's making.
Displaying 1 - 15 of 15 reviews