Alex Turner ©2010

Representations of Hong Kong in the

Films of Wong Kar-wai

Alex Turner

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Alex Turner ©2010

Abstract

The intention of this study is to argue the position that there is a distinct boundary

between Hong Kong and the fictional manifestations of it that Wong Kar-wai has chosen

to create and to examine the various ways in which the city has been represented over the

course of Wong’s career.

The dissertation will explore the city through the chapters of places, people and time. The

first chapter will argue that the city is often portrayed as a character itself, consistently

defining its inhabitants and driving the narrative forward. In addition, the chapter will

argue that the creative portrayal of the spaces of Hong Kong is intended to emphasise the

symbolically unstable nature of the city. The second chapter will argue that Wong’s

characters are inflicted by this instability and that the fictional city’s inhabitants have

become manifestations of a postmodern desire to cling to a fragmenting sense of history

and identity. Chapter three will discuss the idea that time as a theme is a binding link

between Wong’s films, arguing that he consistently uses the city of Hong Kong to

explore the nature of time and memory.

The dissertation will then conclude that the city of Hong Kong, as a continuously and

rapidly evolving space, has been adopted by Wong Kar-wai to explore the nature of

memory in a postmodern world, thus representing the city itself as a postmodern space

that is forever physically and symbolically changing, leaving its inhabitants in a perpetual

state of nostalgia and isolation.

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Table of Contents

Introduction... 3

Places – The Historical (chapter one, part one)... 8

Places – The Fictional (chapter one, part two)... 14

People (chapter two)... 23

Time (chapter three)... 33

Conclusion... 43

Appendix... 46

Bibliography... 50

Filmography... 54

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Introduction

‘I think the films we have been trying to make try to give you a sense of space, a sense

of… why this story happens is it because it happens here’

- Christopher Doyle (The Culture Show 2005)

The aim of this dissertation is to examine the various ways in which filmmaker Wong

Kar-wai has repeatedly used the city of Hong Kong as a key feature in his films

throughout his directing career. Through a close reading of his films, this dissertation will

extract an understanding of the city as it is portrayed by Wong, concluding in an

explanation as to why, in the career of a supposed auteur filmmaker who is considered

seminally post-modern, Hong Kong remains a notable constant throughout the majority

of his work.

In order to do this, the dissertation will look at three aspects of Wong Kar-wai’s work

and, by extension, of the fictional city of Hong Kong: places, people and time. Each

theme will mark a new chapter and will be discussed through the filters of key film

theorists and authors, as well as through three of Wong’s films: Fallen Angels (1995), In

the Mood for Love (2000) and 2046 (2004). By examining the relationship between these

three elements and the ubiquitous space of the city, the essay will create an understanding

of how the city manifests itself within the fictional space of the narrative, as well as to

why Wong chooses to evoke these specific versions of Hong Kong.

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The first chapter will provide a brief history of the city of Hong Kong and its massive

physical and economic transformation throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. The

evolution of this space is key to an understanding of Wong’s own translation of it onto

film and the first section will explore this relationship. The chapter will then analyse the

formal aspects of Fallen Angels, discussing how space is explored and presented within

the frame. Additionally, it will consider the use of space in Wong’s films in the context of

a postmodern aesthetic.

Chapter two will focus on the characters which inhabit the films of Wong Kar-wai and

their relationship with the fictional Hong Kong. A brief discussion of the director’s

literary influences, such as authors Manuel Puig and Haruki Murakami, will be presented

in an attempt to understand Wong’s persistent use of subjective voiceover and

fragmented narrative. Through an analysis of key scenes in 2046, this chapter will

explore the idea that each character functions as a manifestation of a postmodern

condition which is created, or inflicted, by the city itself.

The final chapter will explore the argument that time is a binding theme of Wong’s work,

with the city of Hong Kong being a prime space for an exploration of the nature of time

and memory in a postmodern world. By exploring the use of mise-en-scène and

cinematography in In the Mood for Love, this chapter will attempt to both extract and

understand the various motifs surrounding time that appear in many of Wong’s films and

are essential to his status as an auteur, as well as to an understanding of the ways in

which Wong represents Hong Kong in his films.

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However, before the main discussion begins, it may also be useful to explore the

director’s own, biographical history with the city. Wong Kar-wai was born in Shanghai in

1956 and immigrated to Hong Kong at the age of five. As a young boy growing up in the

1960s, he would often visit local cinemas with his mother (Kaufman 2001). During this

time, the people of Hong Kong had little in the way of film and television that was

marketed directly toward them and it was not until the latter end of the decade that TVB

in Kowloon would become the first broadcasting station in the history of the city to

perform this duty (Cheuk 2008: 32).

Consequently, Wong watched a variety of international films in local cinemas, where the

concept of genre seemed to take second place to production location. As he explains in an

interview with Anthony Kaufman:

In Hong Kong in the ‘60s, going to the cinema was a big thing. We have

cinemas for Hollywood films, local productions, European cinema, but there

was no [label of] art film at that time. Even Fellini was treated as a

commercial film. [...] And we didn’t know which is an art film, which is a

commercial film; we just liked to watch the cinema. (2001: ‘Influences’).

It seems, then, that cinemagoers of 1960s Hong Kong were exposed to an eclecticism

that, perhaps, afforded them a slightly different experience of film compared to much of

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the Occident or even their mainland neighbours who, even today, pass only twenty

foreign films each year for cinematic viewing (Dead Man’s Chest 2006).

By the time the Wong had left university in the late 1970s, the local TV station had begun

training young, unqualified hopefuls in directing and production design. As he explains in

an interview with critic Peter Brunette, ‘[...] most of the talent in the Hong Kong film

industry came from TV. And you got paid 750 dollars a month’ (2005: 114). After

several years of screenwriting, Wong was given the opportunity to direct his first feature

film, As Tears Go By (1988). This first film was, perhaps, his most faithful genre piece to

date, though he was already beginning to experiment. As Wong explains, Hong Kong had

already produced ‘more than two hundred gangster films. [...] I said to myself, [...]

MTV’s popular, I’ll borrow the form of MTV to make a gangster film and see what

happens.’ This, then, was to be the beginning of the director’s hallmark aesthetic, which

many critics compare to that of the fast-paced, highly saturated form of the music video.

After his directing debut, Wong Kar-wai departed from genre films almost completely,

but his actors, themes and filming locations remained very much the same. Between the

late 1980s and 2005 Wong Kar-wai shot and based his films almost exclusively in Hong

Kong. Throughout this period in his career the city was represented as a place of duality

and opposition, of local and global, private and public, and as a host or catalyst for many

things, including nostalgia, alienation and timelessness. In each film, the city of Hong

Kong itself becomes an essential character, narrative force or, at the very least, seems to

be strongly tied to some of the motifs that have afforded Wong Kar-wai auteur status.

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The coming chapters of this essay are dedicated to exploring both how Hong Kong is

represented to us through Wong’s directing vision and why this city is such an essential

element of his films.

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Places – The Historical

‘There is a response to the energy of this space. The people in this part of town are on the

edge of the so-called Western farang [...] and yet, down the street, it’s very, very, very

local.’

- Christopher Doyle (The Culture Show 2005)

The intention of this chapter is to discuss the various ways in which areas of Hong Kong

are presented and how the overall space is explored, both formally and thematically, in

Wong’s films. In order to do this, the chapter will be divided into two sections, exploring

the historical and fictional Hong Kong respectively. This first section will discuss a brief

history of the city, tracing the economic and cultural changes over the past two centuries

and is intended to create a portrait of the city as it is seen today, introducing the physical,

architectural and overall tactile form of a historical Hong Kong. This section is intended

not only to provide an introduction to the chapter, but also to function as an overview of

the city which is relevant to the entire essay. As the intention of this essay is to explore

the various representations of Hong Kong in Wong’s films, the discussion of physical

space and its on-screen portrayal will be prioritized over the subsequent chapters, as the

city itself is the most essential element of Wong’s work, influencing almost every other

aspect of his films.

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The second section will explore what shall be referred to as the fictional Hong Kong, as

composed by the director, and will look at various locations within the city, specifically

those used in the film Fallen Angels, attempting to draw out the similarities and

differences between the abovementioned real and fictional spaces. By a textual analysis

of key scenes in the film, it will explore Wong’s use and depiction of specific physical

spaces. Finally, this chapter will then use the aforementioned analysis to argue that such

locations of the city not only act as characters themselves within the film, but often

function to drive the narrative. It will also discuss the idea that Wong’s city is not only a

primarily fictional space but also a postmodern one, and that it harbours an aesthetic of

subjectivity which creates a world where nothing is empirical, objective, or definite.

In order to give a comprehensive analysis of Wong’s use of and relationship with the

space of Hong Kong, it is important to first introduce a brief description of space itself,

or, more specifically, of the meaning of space in everyday city life. In his book The

Production of Space, sociologist and philosopher Henri Lefebvre gave a detailed

description of how social space is constructed in the form of the spatial triad. This triad

consists of three interdependent concepts: spatial practice, representations of space and

representational spaces. Firstly, spatial practice embodies, as Lefebrve notes:

…a close association, within perceived space, between daily reality (daily

routine) and urban reality (the routes and networks which link up the places

set aside for work, ‘private’ life and leisure). (1974: 38)

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In effect, spatial practice refers to daily routine and urban reality; Lefebrve uses the daily

life of a tenant in a government-subsidised housing project as an example of this (1974:

38). Representations of space in Lefebvre’s triad refers to the intangible space linking

thought and action. It bridges the gap between conceptualised space and its production, is

manifested in the form of delineations such as maps and models and is populated by

urban planners, scientists, social engineers or, as Lefebvre notes, ‘all [who] identify what

is lived and what is perceived with what is conceived’ (1974: 38).

Thirdly, representational space is what Lefebvre explains to be a ‘passively experienced

space which the imagination seeks to change and appropriate’, overlaying physical space

and ‘making symbolic use of its objects’ (1974: 39). It is this final part of the triad that

seems most relevant to Wong’s work and also, perhaps, many other films produced in

Hong Kong. As author Esther Yau notes, Hong Kong filmmakers – especially those of the

New Wave - often ‘proffer a space-time in which Hong Kong exists in many versions’,

effectively transforming the city into ‘an unstable symbolic construct’ (2001: 12). More

specifically, in the films of Wong Kar-wai, there appears to be a consistent appropriation

of the physical space of Hong Kong which is linked strongly to the representational space

overlaying it. It is this relationship which will be explored as the chapter progresses.

The geographical and economic landscape of Hong Kong has altered dramatically since

the turn of the 20th century. The Treaty of Nanjing, signed 29 August 1842, saw the island

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ceded to the British Queen, but it was not until the post-war population boom in 1949 that

the city began to take a form more comparable to today’s Hong Kong. After the rise of

communism in the mainland, immigrants began flooding through the city’s borders, their

low-cost labour aiding a boost in the economy as industrial businesses began to swiftly

rise. By the 1950s, many high rise buildings were erected in order to deal with the

growing population, culminating in the construction of such Kowloon residential

buildings as Chungking Mansions and Mirador Mansions by the end of the decade (the

former would later serve as a shooting location for Wong’s films Chungking Express and

Fallen Angels). Such spaces often rise up to over fifteen floors (in the case of Chungking,

it is seventeen) and support a residential population of up to five thousand (Fitzpatrick

2007).

By the 1960s, what had begun as a small military outpost and trading port was now a

sprawling, high rise metropolis. The population of the city has more than doubled in the

subsequent forty years and stands, today, at just under seven million (World Bank Group:

Total Population). With the rapid economic growth of the city, living conditions have

improved dramatically over the past five decades but, in a city with a population density

of nearly 6,500 people per square kilometre (Bureau of Public Affairs: Hong Kong

(12/09)), it could be argued that space is viewed as something of a commodity.

However, many attempts have been made to use this space as efficiently as possible.

Within the hilly terrain of Hong Kong Island, for example, the opening of the Central-

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Mid-Levels escalator in 1994 allowed the transportation of civilians up to 800 metres

between the residential mid-level areas and central Hong Kong, becoming the longest

outdoor escalator system in the world (Boland n.d.). Underground space development in

the form of bars, shops and restaurants has become an essential part of urban expansion,

both on the Hong Kong and Kowloon side. As more expats, businessmen, families,

teachers and travellers continue to take up holidays and homes in the city, residential

buildings such as the aforementioned Chungking Mansions on the Kowloon side have,

today, become multi-cultural melting pots, housing up to 120 different nationalities in its

many hostels and hotels each year (Fitzpatrick 2007). Such buildings being titled

residential serve only as a reminder of their original purpose, as many of the rooms

within them now serve a variety of different functions, including internet cafes,

import/export businesses and even small accounting firms (see appendix, images 2 and

3).

These aforementioned areas are amongst many of the locations explored in the director’s

1995 film, Fallen Angels, which follows the lives of three interlinking characters: a mute

thief, a killer and his working partner. As they make their way through the streets, bars

and markets of Hong Kong’s nightlife, they experience the euphoric thrills of lust, the

fanatical melancholy of unrequited love, the unrestrained optimism of having hit rock

bottom and the ecstatic catharsis of momentarily breaking through an emotional,

existential and physical oppression.

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As noted by Peter Brunette, Fallen Angels owes a great deal to Wong’s previous film,

Chungking Express, as it explores many of the same motifs, locations and characters

(Brunette 2005: 59). In fact, the film originated from a third story that Wong had written

for Chungking Express, but which was cut for reasons of length (Teo 2005: 83). Like

Chungking, Fallen Angels focuses on the themes of isolation, alienation and love in the

city and, also like Chungking, it was conceived as a diptych where the characters from

each separate story experience fleeting encounters with each other but are otherwise

narratively unrelated. However, one of the prime differences, it could be argued, is that

Fallen Angels is much more an exploration of physical than emotional space. As Wong

himself comments, ‘sometimes the main character is not the actors or the actresses, it’s

the background’ (Brunette 2005: 119). It is this emphasis on the importance of space and

its creative representation which is central to the formation of a fictional Hong Kong.

These themes will be discussed in the next section and are intended to establish a

direction of influence that will be relevant throughout the rest of the essay.

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Places – The Fictional

If, as quoted above, Wong sees the background of an actor’s space as a character, how is

this background presented to us in Fallen Angels? Firstly, it could be argued that the use

of unusually short focal lengths makes for an interesting portrayal of space. For the

majority of this film, cinematographer Chris Doyle chose to use an exceptionally wide

6.8mm lens (Brunette, 2005: 61). The effect of such a wide lens is an unavoidably large

amount of distortion, as well as an extreme sense of depth to the image. Formally, as

Wong puts it, the use of such a lens gives the audience ‘a feeling of seeing the characters

from a distance even though you’re very close to them’ (Rayns 1995: 14).

This effect is perhaps best illustrated in the opening shot of the movie, which sees Wong

Chi-ming (the killer) and his agent sit together for the first time in their working

relationship. Here, it seems that their time together is coming to an end, as the first line

spoken is the agent’s question, ‘are we still partners?’ The camera holds a two-shot of the

agent and the killer, static but handheld (see appendix, image 4). The scene is barren,

desaturated, noisy and highly contrasted. As the edge of the frame shakes with the

handheld camera, we feel an affinity with the agent’s own shaking hand as she struggles

to lift a cigarette to her lips. The killer remains silent, motionless. The frame is canted,

not only to suggest a moment of tension or unsettlement, but also, it seems, to use every

available area of space that surrounds these two characters.

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Though the shot is wide and the characters are clearly inside a room, the only

recognisable object is an overexposed picture frame; at this moment, nothing else exists

for these characters or for us as viewers. With the agent’s face appearing so large on the

screen and so close to the lens we feel pushed into the space and yet, between Wong Chi-

Ming and his agent, there seems to be an infinite depth separating them. Through the use

of such an extremely wide focal length this scene manages to evoke both a sense of

distance and closeness, a shot which has become something of a trademark for the

director (Brunette 2005: 62). Here, then, it is not the use of light, colour, soundtrack or

performance which is the most striking element of the sequence, but simply the

placement of the camera in relation to its subject and environment.

However, despite its attempt to create a kind of tactile or haptic connection between

image and viewer, this opening sequence arguably takes place in something of an abstract

space which in no way can be linked to that of Hong Kong. It is, in fact, the lack of any

signifier of the city in this scene which serves to retrospectively punctuate its narrative

importance for the viewer as it reappears later in the film, but this will be addressed in the

next chapter. Here, at least, we have discovered that Wong’s ability to simultaneously

create a sense of intimacy and remoteness is a key factor in his representation of space

and that this effect is reproduced on many occasions, especially throughout Fallen

Angels.

In addition, this trademark shot is not simply something associated with a certain

character or mood, nor does it seem to serve any particular narrative function; it appears

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when He Zhiwu, the mute thief, is introduced breaking into the storefronts to illegally sell

their products, it shows the long stretch of the killer’s Kwun Tong apartment as the agent

is cleaning it up, it is used when the killer bumps into an old school friend on the bus and

in the end sequence which momentarily brings the thief and the agent together, as well as

at countless other times.

However, bar the opening sequence, each instance of the shot does appear to create a

dialogue between character and environment. For example, the aforementioned sequence

which sees the agent entering and cleaning Wong Chi-ming’s apartment includes a shot

of such striking depth that it positions the viewer on the edge of two very distinctive

worlds (see appendix, image 5). On the left hand side of the frame we see Wong Chi-

ming’s environment, as a handheld camera looks through the broken window in a

voyeuristic manner reminiscent of the cinematography found in Chungking Express. On

the right of the frame we see the city, long roads distorted by the wide angle lens,

stretching out into the distance. Although it is clear that, physically, the apartment

occupies the space of the city, a border appears to have been created between the killer,

his agent, and the world outside. Here, it appears that Wong is quite clearly using this

trademark technique to invoke a sense of alienation which suggests not a single

sprawling, unified space, but a fragmented one where everything is further away than it

looks and everyone – even the viewer - keeps their distance.

The use of a single lens mounted on a handheld camera is, however, not enough to create

an interesting portrait of the city. Other elements of Fallen Angels, such as the editing,

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contribute to create an overall sense of a claustrophobic, fragmented space. Movement in

the city, for example, is often presented as the traversal of a labyrinthine space, confusing

and fast-paced. As we see the killer’s agent passing through the underground on her way

to his apartment, what could be filmed in two or three shots is cut into seven. She moves

through the space with a hasty resolve, only ever looking straight ahead and yet, despite

her quick, deliberate pace, we are never certain exactly in which direction she is going, or

in which direction she came from.

From a variety of angles, the subject jumps around unpredictably in the frame and the

shot is never held for more than three seconds. In one shot, she is moving from left to

right in the frame, in the next she is moving in the opposite direction (see appendix,

image 6). The effect is of both fragmentation and disorientation; we are unable to

distinguish how long these tunnels are, nor how long the agent has been travelling

through them. Consequently, the space is a potentially endless one, populated only with

blocked off maintenance doors and large, concrete pillars, where everything looks alike

under the yellow-green fluorescent lighting.

Interestingly, there is also a distinct lack of people in the subway, an effect which

enhances the already tangible sense of isolation created through the distinct echo of her

clicking heels and the wide angle lens spreading open an already large space. Such an

empty area where one would usually expect to find a multitude of people implies a large

degree of patience, co-ordination and editing. Here, what could be traditionally presented

as a simple transitional sequence has, arguably, been cut together in a manner which

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reflects the agent’s response to the city throughout the film as a whole: she is forever

determinedly wandering toward an unachievable end through a confined space, isolated

from its other inhabitants and unable to find the right path.

In reality, Hong Kong’s Mass Transit Railway system is somewhat different to the space

that appears in Fallen Angels, and an analysis of this difference may be key to an

understanding of the overall distinctions between the historical Hong Kong and the

fictional version that Wong adopts in his films. The aforementioned lack of patrons, for

example, is perhaps the most peculiar sight; as an estimated 3.74 million people pass

through the MTR on a daily basis (Patronage Figures 2009b), it is reasonable to assume

that removing nearly everyone other than the subject in the frame was a deliberate

decision.

In addition to this, the image appears to have gone through a process of colour grading,

altering the colour temperature of the lighting. The fluorescent lights of the Hong Kong

MTR appear, in reality, to be of a considerably warmer colour temperature than in the

aforementioned sequence (Webel 2007, appendix image 7). Furthermore, the heavily

vignetted, noisy and highly saturated nature of the image is a result of a creative control

of the space in both principle photography and post production. Combined, these effects

serve to enhance the isolation of the subject that has already been established through the

choices of camera placement, soundtrack and editing.

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Creating this sense of isolation or separation seems to be one of the most persistent of

Wong’s goals; it appears consistently in Fallen Angels and may give a clue to the

director’s primary use of the space of Hong Kong. Throughout the film, it seems that the

spaces in which these characters appear are not simply empty, but are traditionally

expected to be full. Images are saturated with signs of a high population: we see

motorways, trains, escalators, residential buildings and the clothes hanging between

them, as well as scores upon scores of bright neon advertisements fixed onto high rise

buildings and shop windows. Despite these signs, however, we rarely see any people at

all. It as if, for people like Wong Chi-Ming, He Zhiwu and the agent, very little exists

outside the physical and emotional space which they occupy. Consequently, it is not only

a sense of isolation but also one of detachment which the film evokes in its portrayal of

Hong Kong. Here, we can see that there is some correlation between character and

environment; as each of the cast wander, detached, isolated and optimistic through the

underbelly of Hong Kong, the spaces, sounds, light and colour of the city seem to reflect

their emotional states.

However, if there is a thematic link between character and environment in the film, in

which direction does it move? Either the characters’ emotional states are projected into

the external space of the city, or the city itself acts as a catalyst in the moulding of their

character. It is here that we can begin to understand the primary use of space in Wong’s

films, as well as the key differences between the fictional and historical Hong Kong.

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If Lefebvre sees representational space as an intangible space of the imagination - of

ideologies, theories and visions - superimposed upon physical space, it could be argued

that Wong Kar-wai operates within this realm, projecting his creative vision upon a

historical Hong Kong. For example, Fallen Angels presents a city that resembles Hong

Kong only at its most basic or physical level; we can identify the city through its

structures and locations – the football stadium, the residential buildings, the Cross-

Harbour tunnel that He Zhiwu passes through several times – but these locations are

presented to us with a noisy saturation, distorted and seen from obscure angles.

The similarities between the historical and fictional Hong Kong seem to end with the

physical, for everything else is a projection of Wong’s imagination upon the space; all of

the aforementioned formal elements are created or manipulated by the director’s vision.

The lights and colours that we see, the sounds that we hear and the performances that are

given are all elements of a filmic experience that does not exist in urban reality. As

Stephen Teo notes, in Fallen Angels, the city has been transformed into a ‘carnivalesque

cosmogony, a homology between the body, the dream, linguistic structure and structures

of desire. [...] Hong Kong is one big metaphor.’ (Teo 2005: 93). If, then, Wong uses this

space to project his own creative vision upon, it seems that the characters are constructs

of the city which, in turn, is a construct of the film itself.

By extension, it becomes clear that Wong utilizes the space of Hong Kong not in an

attempt to capture a putatively realistic portrait of the city, but to craft an expressive one

of his own that subtlety creates, defines and dictates the actions of the characters in a

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surprisingly fatalistic manner. This is most evident in Fallen Angels, where characters are

predominantly passive; they do not actively seek each other’s company but, instead, are

pushed together by the claustrophobic nature of the city as they happen to cross each

other’s paths in local spaces, such as markets or department stores, for brief moments that

only serve to emphasise the lack of physical or emotional connection between them (such

as the relationship between He Zhiwu and Charlie or the killer and his agent). In effect, it

is the spaces within the city itself that often serve to weave together the individual stories

of these characters which, in turn, influence the narrative.

As Wong has noted on several occasions, Hong Kong is in a perpetual state of

transformation (Brunette 2005: 118) and this is reflected in his portrayal of space;

Doyle’s kinetic camerawork is forever attempting to reframe, to form a new relationship

between the characters and the space they occupy. The camera is perpetually tilting from

left to right, moving closer, backing away or booming up and down during

conventionally static shots and characters are consistently boxed in between

claustrophobic hallways which radiate exaggerated incandescent oranges and greens and

alter their saturation according to the mood of the scene. Comparable to Orwellian

cinematography in its subjective approach, it is as though the audience is rarely told how

to view the space but, instead, given the opportunity to explore it. It is this portrayal of

the city that attributes to an overall postmodern aesthetic which is forever exploring the

space from a subjective viewpoint that perpetually changes, creating new relationships or

discarding old ones.

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Ultimately, if there is one key theme with which Wong approaches the representation of

places in his films, it may well be instability. This sense of instability is reflected in all

aspects of Fallen Angels, from the constant reframing of a handheld camera, the fast-

paced editing and oxymoronic cinematography to the characters own volatile natures as

we see them rapidly shift between moments of ecstasy, anger, sorrow and amnesia.

Arguably, it is even reflected in Wong’s own penchant to shoot without a script (Brunette

2005: 127). In Wong’s films, Hong Kong has indeed become, as quoted above, an

unstable symbolic construct, ever-changing (both symbolically and physically) and

consistent only in its instability.

It seems reasonable to assume that the nature of such a space must reflect on its

inhabitants - indeed, such a notion has already been raised in this chapter – but how do

the characters found in Wong’s films respond to a lifestyle where the empirical, the

objective and the definite are rapidly eroding? It is this question which will be addressed

in the next chapter.

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People

‘The formal elements are only the uniform, or the clothes. […] What we are interested in,

I think, is the people and Hong Kong.’

- Wong Kar-wai

If Wong’s key theme in his portrayal of Hong Kong is that of a physical and

metaphysical space in a perpetual state of flux, then the people who inhabit this city often

seem to be victims of this world, inflicted with a pathological instability which is a

symptom of their environment. But in a world which is, perhaps paradoxically, defined

by its subjective nature, where nothing lasts forever and every aspect of daily urban

reality is thrown into question and confusion, how exactly do Wong’s characters live

their lives?

To answer this question the chapter will firstly introduce Wong’s literary influences,

commenting on the associations between the works of authors such as Manuel Puig and

Haruki Murakami and the characters found in Wong’s films. The aim of this section is to

emphasise not only a relationship between themes and styles explored, but also to reveal

Wong’s own literary approach to filmmaking – an effect which often crucially enhances

the subjective nature of his films, highlighting individual moments and character above

overarching narrative. Secondly, this section will take the idea of passive characters that

are defined by environment (as established in the previous chapter) and, through an

analysis of Wong’s 2004 film 2046, explore the ways in which characters are affected by

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the instability of the city they inhabit. Thirdly, this chapter will use the aforementioned

analysis to argue that, as a result of Wong’s vision of the city, characters have become

manifestations of a postmodern condition which transforms its victims into vehicles of

nostalgia, hyperreality, pastiche and intertextuality, seeing them as lovelorn, nostalgic

amnesiacs, wandering the streets of Hong Kong without ambitions or objectives, living

only in the present or fetishizing moments of their past. Ultimately, this chapter will seek

to establish the idea that the characters which inhabit Wong’s Hong Kong function less as

believable, relatable individuals and more as artistic expressions of a certain way of life

and as manifestations of the postmodern desire to cling onto a rapidly collapsing and

fragmented history.

Of the author Manuel Puig’s work, particularly Heartbreak Tango (1969), Wong

comments on its fragmented nature, noting that ‘the structure was just chopped down and

constructed with different orders. But it works at the end. So I’m trying to do this kind of

thing’ (Brunette 2005: 115). Discussing Puig’s influence on his second film Days of

Being Wild (1990), Wong describes the structure as having four movements:

The first was very Bressonian with lots of close-ups. The second had the

look of a B movie. The third was filmed in deep focus. The fourth looked

more like the second, with lots of mobility. The story moved equally from

one character to the other, which made the different movements more

visible. (Ciment 1995: 42)

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Like Heartbreak Tango, it seems that Days of Being Wild subverts the conventional three

act structure in favour of a deeper understanding of characters that existed in a specific,

albeit profilmic, time and place.

Continuing the custom of literary influences, Wong’s main inspiration for Chungking

Express was a short story by author Haruki Murakami (Teo 2005: 50) but, as with Days

of Being Wild, there was little comparison between influential source material and

Wong’s films in terms of actual plot content. By this time in his career, in fact, it seemed

that Wong had acquired a proclivity for taking themes, styles and narrative structures

from predominantly literary sources, transposing them onto film through the filters of his

frequently re-used cast and production crew.

The works of Murakami consistently focus on the nature of alienation in contemporary

society. In nearly all of his novels, the main character will relay a story to the reader

through a first person narrative which often includes the loss of a loved one, the mundane

nature of urban reality and the projection of fantasy upon it, as well as a deeply rooted

internal conflict which spans the length of the story and which may or not be resolved by

its end. As this chapter will go on to explore, many of Murakami’s themes are present in

Wong’s films, although, in practice, they are not literal adaptations of the source material

but, instead, parallel the source’s content in themes of isolation, alienation, love and loss,

subjectified through the first-person narratives of an ensemble cast. Ultimately, the

connection between author and filmmaker here appears to be the focus on life in a

postmodern world.

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Arguably, a filmic exploration of such a life requires a specific focus on character which

sometimes, as Wong has admitted (cited above), sacrifices conventional narrative thread

for a deeper understanding of the human psyche - a trait shared with Murakami. Perhaps

the best example of this is found in 2046, Wong’s last film set in Hong Kong. The plot of

2046 follows the character Chow Mo-wan – previously seen in In the Mood for Love -

over a period of two decades as he attempts to gamble, flirt, sleep and write himself out

of the pain of losing a loved one. Along the way, he is joined by a supporting cast of

characters from some of Wong’s previous films, including In the Mood for Love and

Days of Being Wild, who often appear to trigger, within Chow’s character, a longing for

the past. Consequently, it is possible to see 2046 as something of an end of era film, or a

culmination of Wong’s work to date which revels in its intertextuality. However, for the

purpose of this chapter, the most important element of 2046 is its relentless obsession

with nostalgia and memory and how these themes are channelled through the main

character.

The film opens with a computer-generated cityscape of a sprawling metropolis (see

appendix, image 8). Its colours are even more intensely saturated than one has come to

expect from a Wong Kar-wai film and the architecture, peppered with Chinese, Japanese

and European structures, resembles an already hybridised Hong Kong pushed to the very

limit. The line ‘in the year 2046 every railway network spreads the globe’ is spoken over

these images and we are presented with a short sequence following a Japanese character,

Tak, on a train leaving 2046. Instantly, the question is raised as to whether these numbers

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refer to a time, a place, or perhaps both. Tak explains that people travel to 2046 in order

to recapture lost memories, but nobody has ever returned. After discovering, through

voiceover, that Tak has lost a loved one and refuses to elaborate, we are taken back into

1960s Singapore, where Chow attempts to convince a woman sharing the same name as

his lost love to return with him to Hong Kong. He fails, returning alone, and struggles to

make a living as a writer amidst the 1966 Kowloon riots. As the film progresses, we

discover that Tak is actually a character in one of Chow’s novels and is intended to be

autobiographical in nature.

Arguably, these few opening scenes reveal a wealth of information on the relationship

between the historical and fictional Hong Kong, as well as on Wong’s literary influences,

funnelled through the crafting of Chow. For example, the choice to open with a CGI

cityscape resembling Hong Kong instantly evokes a sense of the hyperreal, of a space

where the hierarchy of the authentic and the ersatz has been eroded (if not reversed) and

where fantasy and reality have effectively collided. As author James Udden has noted,

these opening shots could be read as:

[...]a hyperurban landscape [which] denies the viewer any fixed sense of

place. Adding to this spatial disorientation is an unidentified voiceover, not in

Cantonese, nor even in Mandarin, but in Japanese, informing us that in 2046

every railway network spans the globe and nothing changes. By all

appearances, then, this is a transnational, postmodern landscape where every

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place has become indistinguishable from every other place. Local history has

ceased to exist. (Udden 2006: 67)

Given the representation of the city in Fallen Angels as an unstable symbolic construct it

seems pertinent that, here, we are presented with a world that appears as a fictional Hong

Kong in overdrive; it is as though this is the final evolutionary step of the space that

Wong has been aiming to evoke throughout his directing career. In 2046’s future, the

meaning and representation of Hong Kong as a space has become so polysemic that the

empirical and objective have utterly disappeared and all that is left are memories. By

extension, Chow Mo-wan seems to be the final evolutionary step of the characters that

inhabit the fictional Hong Kong; once we realise that this futuristic space is actually a

construct of the character’s imagination it is possible to see Chow himself as a vehicle of

postmodernity.

However, it is only after this dialogue between a past and future Hong Kong has been

established that we are introduced to Tak’s (and Chow’s) story, where we learn that both

characters have suffered a loss and that this loss is a catalyst for many of their actions,

primarily their unwavering focus on the past. Here, there is a connection with the works

of Murakami in the themes of loss and nostalgia; the characters of both Wong and

Murakami are consistently inflicted with the loss of a loved one and, through the use of

first person narration, the audience is invited to share in their reflective, self-centred

musings which often descend into absurdity and a blurring between the lines of fantasy

and reality. In addition, the structure of 2046 – which employs a dual narrative as we

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follow what are effectively two interconnected layers of Chow’s psyche – is highly

reminiscent of Murakami’s Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (1993).

As postmodern theorist Jameson notes, this sense of finding an often false comfort in the

past is both indicative of a collapse of history and a hallmark element of the postmodern

condition (Friedberg 1993: 168), but this will be discussed in more detail in the next

chapter. Here, at least, it is demonstrated throughout the film that, to Wong’s characters,

not only is past considerably more important than future, but that their fixation with it

inevitably leads to a warped sense of history and, by extension, to the collapse of history

as an objective metanarrative.

This fixation manifests itself perhaps most strongly in the use of voiceover. The narration

is consistently retrospective as Chow will often evoke several versions or moments of

history in a single sequence. For example, in a scene toward the end of the film, we return

to Singapore to discover that the woman he was asking to leave during the opening of the

film is named Su Li-zhen. After discovering her name is the same as his lost love, he

references, in voiceover, Wong’s previous film In the Mood for Love (‘A few years ago, I

fell in love with another man’s wife’) and begins to fall for the woman purely – from

what the audience can discern – because of her name. If we presume the voiceover to

exist, temporally, ahead of all events in the film, then here we are presented with a

confusing state of affairs: the present Chow is discussing a moment in his past which

triggered a nostalgic recollection that projected his past emotions into his present during a

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sequence which, itself, is a flashback. It seems as though Chow – and the film itself – is

relentlessly reaching for moments of the past.

As we are presented with flashbacks of ITMFL’s events, we can see that 2046’s Hong

Kong is aesthetically distinct; indeed, it is a different version of the city altogether, where

the muted browns and vibrant reds of ITMFL have been replaced with a high contrast

image that mirrors the fictional world of Chow’s futuristic story (see appendix, images 9

and 10). Here, then, the history of the city has become fragmented into versions which

serve as a source of inspiration for Chow’s creative nostalgia. Through his voiceover, we

are forced to see the world through his eyes and, by extension, the existence of his

voiceover is the only thing which we can be certain of. Consequently, both Chow and the

audience are placed in a perpetual present which is forever looking back to the past: it is

feasible that Chow could be sitting alone in a room, sometime after the recalled events,

relating this entire story to us as the film conjures up images which represent areas of his

memory.

However, the quality of the voiceover itself appears, more than anything, apathetic.

Chow’s matter-of-fact tone and perfunctory vocabulary evoke an emotional stonewall,

suggesting a man who has opted to trade his feelings for the safety of never having to be

hurt again. Instead, he internalises his emotions, or at least conceals them from the

outside world and, with his venture into dramatic writing, projects his own, emotionally-

battered self onto the character of Tak. It is only through this character that Chow begins

to express his feelings.

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This internalising of emotion by a main character is something which appears in a variety

of Wong’s films and, as with 2046, the characters choose to express their feelings in

strange ways, if at all. Here, Chow visualises himself as a Japanese man in the future. In

Chungking Express, Tony Leung’s character begins talking to flannels, soap and teddy

bears in his apartment, urging them to cheer up. In Fallen Angels, the agent seduces a

jukebox which was once used by the object of her desire. These, it seems, are the actions

of characters that are unable to cross the barrier between fantasy and reality and are,

therefore, unable to function in the space outside their own minds. Rather than actively

seeking a solution to their problem, redemption for their actions or closure from their

past, they retreat into their own psychological spaces, shutting away the antagonistic

world outside and addressing the audience from the vantage point of hindsight.

It is this desire to retreat, internalise and otherwise hide from the increasingly confusing,

fast-paced and ever-changing lifestyle that the city has constructed for its inhabitants

which defines many of Wong’s characters. It is as if the city itself is an inescapable force,

forever watching and forming these characters as they attempt to cope with an urban

reality which is forcing them into isolation and seclusion. It is only in brief moments of

escape that these characters are able to express themselves, as in the opening shot of

Fallen Angels which sees the agent and the killer – deeply connected through their work

and feelings for each other – meet for the first time in complete isolation, or in Chow’s

fictional time odyssey.

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Ultimately, if these characters are, in fact, manifestations of a postmodern condition

inflicted by the space of Wong’s hyperreal Hong Kong, then a pattern begins to form

throughout the director’s work. From the creation of an unstable city where a sense of

local history and identity is rapidly disappearing, to the study of characters that retreat

from urban reality into the fantasy of their own minds and hopelessly grasp at moments

of a past perverted by nostalgia, Wong’s exploration of time as a theme appears

consistent. Time, it seems, is a primary theme of the director’s films which binds together

all characters and narratives. In Wong’s films, Hong Kong’s identity and history is

consistently changing over time, leaving its inhabitants in a reclusive state of longing. It

is this theme which will be explored in the next chapter.

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Time

‘Things change very fast in Hong Kong. The locations of my first two films have

disappeared already. [...] The lifestyle of Hong Kong in certain periods... I’m trying to

preserve it on film.’

– Wong Kar-wai (Brunette 2005: 118)

To suggest that the space and characters of the city are connected by an overarching

metanarrative of time seems like a truism but, in the films of Wong Kar-wai, the concept

of time appears as a crucial component, taking on myriad forms and meanings. Memory

could be said to act as the mediator between us and time; it is how we understand that

time has passed, or predict that time will ostensibly continue on into the future. In

Wong’s Hong Kong, time is manifested in a non-linear fashion; crowds bustle through

streets at high speeds whilst characters take an eternity to lift a cup of coffee and take a

single sip. Minutes and seconds are fetishized, characters eroticise possessions that once

belonged to their unrequited love and the tempo of life constantly jumps between

violently adrenaline-fuelled and nostalgically languorous; here, time does not simply

pass, it is felt.

The intention of this final chapter is to explore the argument that time as a theme is a

primary element of Wong’s filmic pursuits which not only binds together characters and

spaces, but also the various fictional versions of Hong Kong which Wong evokes in his

films. In order to achieve this, the chapter will be divided into three sections. Firstly, it

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will consider the connection between postmodernity and time as a metanarrative.

Secondly, it will apply this understanding to an analysis of the film In the Mood For Love

(2000) in order to extract a connection between the fragmented, subjective nature of

Wong’s films, the city of Hong Kong and the nature of time and memory in a postmodern

world. Finally, the chapter will use this analysis to argue that Wong, as a director, writer

and supposed auteur, acts as a distorting filter between the historical Hong Kong and its

fictional counterpart, envisioning the city as a place of perpetual change and instability

where he, like his characters, is forever grasping onto an increasingly elusive sense of

history and identity.

In his book on Wong Kar-wai, Stephen Teo discusses the notion that the director, along

with many other Hong Kong filmmakers of his generation, shares ‘a concern for Hong

Kong as a geographical and historical entity’ (2005: 6). Citing an interview with Wong’s

old collaborator and friend, Patrick Tam, he goes on to say the director’s Hong Kong

heritage is:

[...] a heritage always in danger of disappearing due to Hong Kong’s special

position as a post-modern city perched between East and West, where its space

becomes ‘difficult to represent in terms of traditional realism’, because history

goes through ‘strange loops’. (2005: 6)

Here, it seems, a connection can be established between Hong Kong, postmodernity, the

nature of time and Wong’s films. But what is the relevance of this in the context of

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Wong’s representations of Hong Kong and how can postmodernity be defined within this

context? As a temporal concept, Anne Friedberg notes:

Post implies historical sequence, a moment of rupture when the post succeeds

the past. But, as historiographers remind us, history is not only a discourse but

a product of discourses. (Friedberg 1993: 161; her emphasis)

Of course, it seems logical to assume that postmodernity would succeed modernity as a

moment in history, but even this is thrown into question as Lyotard describes

postmodernity as modernity ‘in the nascent state’ (1984: 79). In addition, the discussion

of postmodernity in theoretical discourse has led to myriad interpretations and definitions

including:

[...]the end of Enlightenment [or] the site of the Enlightenment’s

completion, […] radical pluralism, multiculturalism, centralized

marginality [and] a culture of decentered subjectivity.’ (Friedberg 1993:

167)

As for the place of memory and time as a metanarrative in postmodernity, they, too, seem

to be affected by a pervasive subjectification. Lyotard marks postmodernity as an end of

the grand narratives, such as ‘salvation, emancipation, the dialectic [and] scientific

knowledge’ (Berger 1999: 36). Huyssen extends this dialogue to include a sudden

obsession with the past and a fear of forgetting, as well as the media (cinema included) as

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primary carriers of memories which, as often as not, are perverted or fabricated (Huyssen

2000: 24-25).

This postmodern fear of forgetting seems to manifest itself cinematically in what theorist

Frederick Jameson refers to as the nostalgia film. As Friedberg notes, this nostalgia is an

‘indication of a key aesthetic symptom, a cinematic version of postmodern style’

(Friedberg 1993: 168). She goes on to discuss the nature of this postmodern style and it is

perhaps worth quoting this paragraph in full:

Although Jameson doesn’t perform an exact taxonomy, his descriptions divide

the “nostalgia film” into: 1) films that are about the past and set in the past

(Chinatown, American Graffiti); 2) films that “reinvent” the past (Star Wars,

Raiders of the Lost Ark); and 3) films that are set in the present but invoke the

past (Body Heat [...], Miami Vice, Moonlighting, Batman). The “nostalgia

film” is described in stylistic terms – cases where a film’s narrative and its art

direction confuse its sense of temporality. Films such as Chinatown and The

Confirmist take place in “some eternal Thirties; beyond historical time”.

(Friedberg 1993: 168)

If, then, both the end of enlightenment and the replacement of time as a metanarrative

with a warped, global memory maintained by the media are key elements in the definition

of postmodernity, there appears to be a connection between the nature of Wong’s Hong

Kong and postmodernity itself: both appear to deal with erosion of the objective and the

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empirical. Just as Hong Kong has become a city of rapidly changing identities and

multiculturalism, of the disappearance of the local and the boom of globalisation, the

ambiguity of postmodernity itself appears to embody the very thing it seeks to define.

Both share a common trait of polysemy and Wong’s city, with its constantly changing

spaces, unconventional camera movements and subjective first-person narratives, reflects

this throughout his entire filmic career. However, perhaps the most fitting of Wong’s

films for a discussion of the role of nostalgia and memory is In the Mood for Love (2000).

Set in Hong Kong in 1962, In the Mood follows the story of Chow Mo-wan and Su Li-

zhen as they move into neighbouring apartments. After a time, they begin to suspect their

spouses of extra-marital affairs and form a brief friendship as they attempt to re-enact the

moment in which the first move was made.

Aesthetically, one of the primary differences between In the Mood and the director’s

previous films is that of camera movement. Discussing the film at Cannes in 2001, Wong

notes a deliberate change in tempo:

We build the whole rhythm of the film so Chris Doyle knows how to dance with

the camera. Because otherwise he would just do it like Chungking Express. I

told him that this was not Chungking Express, you have to be very quiet. You

have to be very stable. (Brunette 2005: 130)

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The affect of this new style – which involves the banishing of the handheld camera in

place of tripods, tracks and jibs – is that of alienation. In terms of cinematography, it

appears highly reminiscent of Resnais’ Last Year in Marienbad (1961) or of the opening

sequences of Hiroshima mon amour (1959), films which, interestingly, both deal with the

subjective nature of memory, confusing the audience with similar techniques of

alienation and narrative confusion. Combined with a more neutral colour palette which

sees Doyle’s traditionally over-saturated representation of Hong Kong space considerably

toned down, a lack of subjective first person narration and an editing style which appears

to balance character and narrative equally, In the Mood creates a nostalgic recollection of

a period in Hong Kong which seems – in comparison to Wong’s previous films –

significantly more grounded in reality.

However, as with 2046, there is still a pervasive sense of creative control with the use of

intertitles. The film opens with a reference to what can only be assumed is an important

moment in the relationship of the two main characters.

It is a restless moment. She has kept her head lowered to give him a chance to

come closer, but he could not for lack of courage. She turns and walks away.

Unlike much of Wong’s use of voiceover, these intertitles are written predominantly in

the present-tense and appear to chapter certain moments in the story of Chow Mo-wan

and Su Li-zhen, an effect which places the viewer more directly in the moment and, at

first glance, contradicts the alienation techniques found in the cinematography. However,

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their main function appears to be a highlighting of the warped nature of personal memory

and it is this which associates the intertitles with the other formal elements of the film.

For example, the final title we see, after Chow Mo-wan visits Angkor Wat sometime after

the main events of the film, reads:

He remembers those vanished years as though looking through a dusty window

pane. The past is something he could see, but not touch. And everything he sees

is blurred and indistinct.

With this intertitle, an important connection is established between the events of the

film and the nature of time and memory in postmodernity. Peter Brunette interprets

this title as ‘tell[ing] us all we need to know and retrospectively explain[ing] the

film’s technique’ (2005: 100). However, whereas Brunette attributes the longing, the

frustration and the unfulfilled desire primarily to the realms of adult love and

existential longing (2005: 100), it could be argued that the film – given its

painstaking recreation and presentation of 1960s Hong Kong - transcends this theme

into an exploration of personal memory. Given its place in the final frames of the

film, it is possible to see this text as being the epilogue of the story which preceded it

and, therefore, the Hong Kong that appears in In the Mood is a nostalgic construct, a

personalised and romanticised view of a specific period in the city’s history. Here, it

seems, there is both a longing for the past and a distortion of history which is bound

inexorably to the city itself.

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If we are to examine the film with the idea of the city as a catalyst for nostalgia in

mind, the formal elements of In the Mood begin to generate new levels of meaning.

For example, much of the space portrayed in the film, just like Chow’s memory, is

obscured. In the opening sequence, each shot seems composed as a distancing

mechanism; walls, curtains, lamps, doorframes and tenants consistently obscure the

subject from the audience (see appendix, image 11). The character’s respective

spouses are never seen, even in sequences where they have relatively large chunks of

dialogue and, as a result, the shot-reverse-shot style of shooting dialogue is all but

abolished. Shots linger where they are traditionally expected to cut, focusing on door

frames, handles and light switches which have been briefly touched by Su or Chow,

mimicking the obsession of memory traces such as the jukebox in Fallen Angels, or

the apartment in Chungking. Here, however, it is not a character in the film that is

focusing upon these traces, but the film itself.

Combined, these elements create a technique of distancing which, as Brunette notes

(quoted above), is encapsulated in the final intertitle. However, unlike Wong’s

previous films, the cinematography is wholly objective; we are never given a point of

view to attach to and the distinct lack of wide angle lenses that have been so

prominent in films such as Chungking, Fallen Angels, and Happy Together denies us

the ability to be pushed into the space. Here, the image is consistently flattened, the

colours toned down and the frame obscured. The space is extended by the use of

sound (we constantly hear the chatter of other tenants in the building, diners in the

restaurant and passersby in the street), but this space is almost never shown to us. In

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addition, moments of increased emotional proximity between the two characters are

shot at a languorous pace, accompanied by a romantic cello piece and focusing on

small motions such as Su and Chow brushing past each other on the stairs, sequences

which appear as a recurring motif throughout the film (see appendix, image 12). It

seems that, here, no single character is obsessed with memory or time, but instead the

film itself takes the role of the lovelorn nostalgic, recalling, in obscured detail, an era

of Hong Kong’s history which is no longer present. Indeed, as Chow returns to the

apartment some years after, the penultimate intertitle states:

That era has passed. Nothing that belonged to it exists anymore.

Such intertitles are the key to understanding the formal construction of the film, as they

consistently lead the viewer not only to envision a romanticised period of Hong Kong’s

history, but also to compare it with the contemporary manifestations of the city in

Wong’s other work.

However, unlike previously discussed films such as Fallen Angels and 2046, which invite

the audience to focus primarily on the nostalgia of love and loss and an obsession with

the past using the main characters as a proxy, In the Mood generates nostalgia for an

entire – albeit short - period of history which ended with the beginnings of Hong Kong’s

cultural revolution in 1966. Clocks, as with many of Wong’s other films, are ubiquitous,

but in this film – intercut between tracking shots of lavish art deco apartments and the

flowery cheongsam dresses of Su Li-zhen - they appear to signify not only the loss of a

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certain moment, but of time itself as loss. As Wong himself notes, in several interviews,

in reference to Days of Being Wild:

[...]Since I didn’t have the resources to re-create the period realistically, I

decided to work entirely from memory. And memory is actually about a sense of

loss – always a very important element in drama. We remember things in terms

of time:’Last night I met...’ ‘Three years ago, I was...’ (Brunette 2005: 20, Rayns

1995: 14)

The Hong Kong of Days of Being Wild is set in the sixties, but the society as

shown in the film never really existed like that, it’s an invented world, an

imaginary past. (Brunette 2005: 20, Ciment 1995)

If, then, Days of Being Wild was Wong’s nostalgic recollection of a Hong Kong during

social upheaval in the latter half of the 1960s, it could be said that In the Mood is an

exploration of the city during what Wong appears to envision was its golden years, a time

when his parents would have been living similar lives to that of Su and Chow.

Ultimately, it seems that the theme of time and memory in Wong’s films is the strongest

binding link between not only the films discussed here, but those spanning his entire

career. It is, however, In the Mood for Love which seems to be one of Wong’s most

personal projects, making it not only a fictional manifestation of a historical space, but an

exploration of personal memory and the malleable nature of time.

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Conclusion

The intention of this dissertation was to identify, explore and discuss the various ways in

which Wong has represented the city of Hong Kong throughout his directing career. In

terms of space, we can conclude not only that Wong consistently creates a strong link

between Hong Kong and his characters, but that the city itself is presented as the source

of instability which defines them.

By extension, this ubiquitous sense of instability affects each character in several ways.

Firstly, it sees them often unable to grasp onto a sense of identity, causing them to retreat

into the space of their own minds (giving only the audience the ability to hear them

through the use of voiceover). Secondly, as a result of this instability, each character

seems plunged into a perpetual state of nostalgia, attempting to recall a time when things

were different (such as the mute’s recollection of his childhood in Fallen Angels or

Chow’s various manifestations of Su Li-zhen in 2046).

Combined, the influence of such an unstable environment and a persistent focus on what

could have been, or what once was, establishes a running theme throughout Wong’s work

on the relationship between time, memory and loss. Given its transformation over the past

century (as discussed in chapter one), Hong Kong seems to be a prime location for a

filmic exploration of this as the city – noted in several references throughout this essay –

has become synonymous with postmodernity in relation to the boom of globalisation, the

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hybridisation of its local culture and the distinct sense of a space that has been partially

defined by its ability to adapt and transform, physically, socially and economically.

In addition each film discussed in this essay could be seen as an exploration of Hong

Kong at certain periods in history. Through an auteur’s creative vision, Fallen Angels

examines city life as it is today, 2046 as it is destined to become, and In the Mood as it

once was. Through these films, Wong seems to have created a timeline which follows the

city through a process of metamorphosis, with each transmutation affecting the lives and

identities of its citizens.

However, several questions are still left unanswered. Firstly, what exactly are the

differences between the historical and fictional Hong Kong? Although this question has

been raised and, to a small degree, addressed in this essay, a more in-depth study of the

historical timeline of Hong Kong’s cultural and economical climate over the last century

would be required in order to provide a satisfying answer. In addition to this, in order to

keep the essay as structured and focused as possible, the event of the 1997 handover has

been avoided – an event which critics such as Teo and, to a lesser extent, Brunette

purport to be a major influence in films such as Happy Together and 2046 (indeed, the

year 2046 refers to the final year of China’s fifty year promise to govern Hong Kong as a

special administrative region). It seems only logical to assume that further research would

reveal a relationship between this state of political purgatory and Wong’s films.

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Ultimately, this dissertation can conclude that, through an analysis of some of Wong’s

most celebrated films, there is not only a certain disparity between the historical Hong

Kong and its fictional counterparts, but that Wong has adopted this city to examine the

nature of time and memory in a postmodern world, thus presenting Hong Kong itself as a

postmodern space.

Consequently, it seems reasonable to assume that, if Wong is ever to return to Hong

Kong as a director, his work will continue to focus on the unstable nature of the city and

its ability – in his creative manifestations of it – to inspire a longing for identity and a

resulting obsession with nostalgia; qualities which appear inherent not only in his

characters and the city he creates, but perhaps in Wong himself as a filmmaker.

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Appendix

Image 1 (© Alex Turner Photography):

Hong Kong Island as viewed from the Kowloon side.

Image 2 (© Alex Turner Photography):

The interior courtyard of Mirador Mansions.

Image 3 (© Alex Turner Photography):

A hallway of Chungking Mansions containing a hostel and internet cafe.

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Alex Turner ©2010

Image 4 (© Jet Tone):

The killer and his agent meet in isolation.

Image 5 (© Jet Tone):

The space of the killer’s apartment and the world outside.

Image 6 (© Jet Tone):

The agent paces through the empty Hong Kong subway.

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Alex Turner ©2010

Image 7 (© Jet Tone):

Hong Kong’s subway, before the colour correction of Wong’s post-production.

Image 8 (© Block 2 Pictures/Paradis Films/Orly Films/Jet Tone):

The CGI cityscape of 2046.

Image 9 (© Block 2 Pictures/Paradis Films/Orly Films/Jet Tone):

Saturation and grading comparison between 2046 (left) and In the Mood (right)

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Alex Turner ©2010

Image 10 (© Block 2 Pictures/Paradis Films/Orly Films/Jet Tone):

Saturation and grading comparison between 2046 (left) and In the Mood (right)

Image 11 (© Block 2 Pictures):

The mise-en-scène consistently obscures the camera’s view.

Image 12 (© Block 2 Pictures):

Fleeting moments of physical and emotional contact in In the Mood for Love.

50

Alex Turner ©2010

Bibliography

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Baudrillard, Jean (1994) Simulacra and Simulation USA: University of Michigan Press

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the World’ After the End: Representation of Post-Apocalypse Minneapolis and London:

University of Minnesota

Boland, R. (n.d.) Hong Kong’s Central-Mid-Levels Escalator – The Longest in the World

Available: http://gohongkong.about.com/od/whattoseeinhk/a/midlevelsescala.htm Last

accessed: 10 January 2010

Brunette, P. (2005) Contemporary Film Directors: Wong Kar-wai Chicago: Illinois

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Bureau of Public Affairs. Hong Kong (12/09) Available:

http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2747.htm Last accessed: 6 April 2010

Carter, C. (2007) East Asian Cinema China: Kamera Books

Cheuk, P.T. (2008) Hong Kong New Wave Cinema (1978 – 2000) Bristol: Intellect

Ciment, M. (1995) ‘Entretien avec Wong Kar-wai’ Positif 410

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_1614447,00.html Last accessed 9 January 2010

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Window Shopping: Cinema and the Postmodern Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of

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Kaufman, A. (2001) Interview: The ‘Mood’ of Wong Kar-Wai: The Asian Master Does It

Again. Available: http://www.indiewire.com/article/decade_wong_kar-

wai_on_in_the_mood_for_love/ Last Accessed: 22 December 2009

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Webel, S. (2007) Subway Available: http://stevewebel.com/photographer/tag/subway/

Last accessed 31 January 2010

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University of Minnesota Press

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Alex Turner ©2010

Filmography

2046 Wong Kar-wai (2004) China/France/Germany/Hong Kong

As Tears Go By Wong Kar-wai (1988) Hong Kong

Chungking Express Wong Kar-wai (1994) Hong Kong

Culture Show, The #3.6 (2004) [TV progamme] BBC, BBC2 19 May 2005

Days of Being Wild Wong Kar-wai (1990) Hong Kong

Fallen Angels Wong Kar-wai (1997) Hong Kong

Hiroshima mon amour Alain Resnais (1959) France/Japan

Last Year in Marienbad Alain Resnais (1961) France/Italy

In the Mood for Love Wong Kar-wai (2000) Hong Kong/France

55