Kathmandu hosted its inaugural “China Film Day” on January 9 at Chhaya Center (QFX Cinema), aiming to strengthen Nepal-China cultural ties. Organized by the China Film Administration, the Chinese Embassy, and the Nepal Film and Cultural Academy (NFCA), the event showcased acclaimed Chinese films such as Her Story and Midsummer’s Voice. This initiative by the Chinese Embassy is commendable. We look forward to more such programs in the future, particularly a marathon of Wong Kar-wai’s films in Kathmandu. Wong Kar-wai’s films, known for their lush visuals and evocative storytelling, have been celebrated in various international retrospectives.
Wong Kar-Wai’s films are not just stories; they are echoes of something deeper, something unsaid, lurking between moments. He doesn’t make films to be watched. He makes them to be felt, to be inhaled like the smoke of a marijuana, lingering long after the embers have died. He is a cartographer of the heart, mapping the spaces where time trembles, where love falters, and where memory is the only thing that remains intact. In his cinema, every glance is an unspoken prayer, every step an unsteady dance on the cusp of something that might have been. His characters are not so much people as they are lost fragments of a dream, drifting between realities they cannot control, yearning for something they cannot name.
Wong Kar-Wai’s films drift like forgotten lullabies, stitched together with silences and shadows, the way memories sometimes are. His characters don’t walk through their stories—they float, untethered, like kites without strings, aching for something they’ll never quite hold. In his world, time crumples in on itself, folding pasts into futures, weaving longing into loss, until it’s hard to tell one from the other. And it is here, in the quiet spaces between words, between glances, between breaths, that his stories settle—half-told, half-heard, like secrets murmured into the dark. They don’t leave when the credits roll; they linger, soft and persistent, like the faint smell of rain on dry earth. In the mosaic of Hong Kong New Wave Cinema, Wong Kar-Wai stands as its pulse—forever shaping the rhythm of a city caught between its past and an uncertain future. For Wong, the loneliness of urban life is not merely a backdrop but a character unto itself: ever-present, ever-consuming. And yet, in the chaos of the metropolis, there exists an undeniable beauty—a kind of fragile poetry, found in the unspoken, the unsaid, in the tender spaces between one glance and the next.
Hong Kong New Wave’s icon
Wong Kar-Wai’s journey begins in the winding, humming alleys of post-war Shanghai. Born in 1958, Wong was a child displaced, uprooted at the age of five when his family fled to Hong Kong—a city alive with the promise of reinvention, yet haunted by the ghosts of colonial histories. Here, in the streets echoing with languages that do not belong to anyone, a city at the cusp of political change, Wong’s identity was shaped by a delicate collision of Eastern and Western worlds—the one he left behind and the one he sought to make his own. His early years unfolded in this liminal space, where identities were not fixed but folded and creased like old garments, waiting to be reshaped. Hong Kong, where every face told an untold story, became fertile ground for Wong’s future as a filmmaker—a space where time, like memory, could be both a river and a wall.
The Hong Kong New Wave Cinema (1980s-1990s) era was a revolutionary period in the city’s cinema, characterized by a bold departure from traditional commercial filmmaking. Directors of this movement pushed boundaries in both content and form, addressing complex social issues and experimenting with cinematic aesthetics. As Hong Kong’s film industry grappled with the growing dominance of Hollywood, these filmmakers sought to forge a distinct identity, one rooted in the region’s cultural and political shifts. While John Woo, Tsui Hark, and Ann Hui reshaped Hong Kong cinema with bold, global storytelling, Wong Kar-Wai took a different path. His films embraced silences and shadows, focusing not on spectacle, but on the quiet beauty of longing and the spaces between words. For Wong, Hong Kong is both a muse and a prison. Its ceaseless movement mirrors the restless hearts of his protagonists, while its anonymity swallows their yearning.
In this vibrant cosmopolitan cultural landscape, Wong Kar-Wai emerged as a defining voice of the Hong Kong New Wave, combining the movement’s spirit of rebellion with his own introspective sensibility. His films, such as “Chungking Express” and “Fallen Angel,” transformed the portrayal of time, memory, and emotion in cinema. Wong’s non-linear storytelling, lush cinematography, and exploration of fleeting human connections were groundbreaking, with many of his characters embodying the fallen angel archetype—lost souls trapped in emotional turmoil or existential crisis. This theme of longing and isolation permeates his work, making the search for meaning all the more poignant. Through this emotional exploration, Wong transcended genre conventions and created films that not only shaped Hong Kong cinema but also resonated globally, influencing filmmakers with their raw emotional depth and visual poetry.
Beginning of a quiet revolution
As “Tears Go By (1998)” marks Wong Kar-Wai’s introduction to the world, yet it is not the film that heralds his true arrival. Amid the gritty streets of Hong Kong, among petty criminals and disillusioned lovers, one can already sense the stirrings of something greater. The film is raw, unpolished, its portrayal of survival brutal and violent. But in the midst of this harshness, there is a tenderness, a fleeting vulnerability. Wah, the protagonist, is a man with a broken heart, seeking meaning in a world that offers none. His story, fragmented like the world around him, is the first tentative gesture toward Wong’s exploration of longing—the longing of those who search for something to hold onto, even when nothing seems to remain.
It is a film that hints at something prophetic, as though it whispers of a brilliance yet to be fully realized. But here, in its early moments, it is not a masterpiece—it is the soft unfolding of something delicate. The heart, like a labyrinth, beckons us into its most secret corners, where love flickers faintly, a candle that never quite burns bright enough to consume. And yet, in that quiet yearning, there is something infinitely more powerful than any blaze—a tenderness that lingers, refuses to be extinguished.
Quiet shattering of lives
In “Days of Being Wild (1990),” Wong Kar-Wai pulls us deeper into the wilderness of human emotion. The film, slow and elusive in its narrative, is not concerned with plot or resolution. It is an exploration of escape’s futility, of loss’s inevitability. Yuddy, the young man at the heart of the film, is adrift—not just in his search for his father, but in a deeper search for himself. He is a man who moves through the world as if it owes him something, but ultimately, it is the world that will leave him empty, a vessel that cannot be repaired.
What “Days of Being Wild” does is both delicate and devastating—it unveils the quiet, relentless unraveling of lives that were never meant to be whole. Wong Kar-Wai does not simply show us his characters’ emotional scars; he invites us to touch them, to feel the sharpness of wounds that never heal. The film shimmers in the haze of memory, where everything is both distant and present, like the taste of something bittersweet that lingers on the tongue long after it is gone.
Fractured romance of a city
“Chungking Express (1994)” is a film woven from fragments of time, a dream half-remembered. It is a meditation on the fragility of time, the beauty of the transient. Set in the neon-lit streets of Hong Kong, Wong Kar-Wai tells two stories of lost love, of desire unfulfilled, of longing turned into something fleeting. And yet, within these fragments, there is hope. The characters may seem adrift, their hearts broken by fate’s randomness, but there is a sense that in their brokenness, they are also whole—that even in their cracks, there is room for growth.
In “Chungking Express,” Wong Kar-Wai finds poetry in the mundane. His characters drift through the city, their lives intersecting and colliding, but never fully merging. The film captures the sadness of life as it is, imperfect and contradictory, but it also offers the quiet joy of recognition—of seeing ourselves reflected in the brokenness of others.
The unsung masterpiece
In “Fallen Angel (1995),” Wong Kar-Wai’s evolving voice begins to take shape. Although this early film is lesser known, it quietly hints at the poetic vision that would later define his career. Set against the neon-lit streets of Hong Kong, it tells the story of Lai, a disillusioned hitman, adrift in his own search for meaning in a world that offers none. The film, harsh and raw, is imbued with a profound sense of isolation, a yearning for connection that remains elusive. This is not a conventional love story, but an exploration of the way desire and loneliness shape lives, of how we drift in search of something—or someone—that might give our existence meaning.
“Fallen Angels” stands as one of Wong Kar-wai’s most visually inventive films, marked by its striking neon color palette, precise camera movements by Christopher Doyle, and expert use of wide-angle lenses. The film excels in atmospheric storytelling, showcasing a rich, immersive aesthetic. Christopher Doyle, a frequent collaborator, further cements his reputation with this work, earning his third Best Cinematographer award at the Hong Kong Film Awards for his exceptional contribution to the film.
Cinematic reflection of time and desire
Wong Kar-Wai’s films invite us into a world where time itself becomes a character—moments are as fragile as the memories that follow them. His cinema does not seek conclusions or resolutions; it is a meditation on the fleeting nature of life, on how everything we hold dear slips through our fingers, and the quiet sorrow that accompanies that realization. In Wong Kar-Wai’s universe, time is both an enemy and a lover—something we cannot control, but must learn to embrace, to mourn.
Quentin Tarantino, with the raw edge of Pulp Fiction and the frenetic rhythm of his words, has called Wong Kar-Wai “one of the most interesting filmmakers in the world,” as if to enshrine him within a temple built of fractured moments and poetic vision. There is, in Wong’s cinema, a mood that swells and fades like a forgotten song, and Tarantino sees this mastery in the way Wong captures the fleeting beauty of emotion—through the lens, through color, through a gaze that holds the stillness of time itself. He praises the way Wong bends love, memory, and time into shapes that defy linearity, just as his own films defy expectations with their nonlinear stories.
Wong Kar-Wai is a cartographer of the heart, mapping the spaces where time trembles, where love falters, and where memory is the only thing that remains intact.
Wong Kar-Wai’s genius lies in transcending conventional filmmaking, creating a world where color, depth, and non-traditional storytelling collide to form an unmistakable signature. With a keen use of vibrant palettes that evoke emotion, Wong, alongside cinematographer Christopher Doyle, crafts a cinematic language where every shade and lens choice is intentional. His daring approach to narrative, like the bold shifts in Chungking Express and the striking wide-angle shots in Fallen Angels, pushes boundaries, making his films feel like fragmented dreams that defy traditional structure yet resonate deeply. Wong Kar-Wai doesn’t just make films; he creates immersive, atmospheric experiences, where time bends, love dissolves, and memory lingers. In doing so, he etches an indelible mark on the fabric of cinema, forever altering how we perceive the fleeting moments that define our lives.
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