Wong Kar-wai names his five favourite movies of all time
For his deft cinematic touch and poetic approach to his delicate narratives, the Hong Kong filmmaker and screenwriter Wong Kar-wai is known as one of the greatest directors of modern cinema. Rubbing shoulders only with the very best creatives in the industry, including Martin Scorsese, Quentin Tarantino, Lynne Ramsay, Christopher Nolan and Denis Villeneuve, Kar-wai is a true great.
Emerging in the industry in the late 1980s, Kar-wai’s first great success came in 1994 with the release of Chungking Express, a postmodern romance that tells a frenetic tale of loss and love between two unlikely figures. Further success came throughout the decade, helming Fallen Angels in 1995, Happy Together in 1997 and his masterpiece, In the Mood for Love, in 2000 at the dawn of the new millennium.
Even though his career thrived shortly before the 21st century, Kar-wai has been active in the modern industry, releasing 2046 and The Hand in 2004, several years before he released The Grandmaster in 2013. Shortly after the release of his cinematic duo in 2004, the director sat down with Newsweek to reveal his five favourite movies of all time, naming a variety of films from across the globe.
First on his list isn’t just one movie, but three, picking out Satyajit Ray’s Apu Trilogy “for its humanity”. Made up of 1955’s Pather Panchali, 1956’s Aparajito and 1959’s The World of Apu, Ray’s trilogy is known as one of the greatest trilogies ever made, telling the story of a young boy who grows into a conscious adolescent and a sensitive older man across three iconic Indian classics.
“For its poetry,” Kar-wai’s second pick is the influential Jean-Luc Godard film Breathless, that would spark a revolution in independent filmmaking during the 1960s. Following a small-time thief who steals a car and murders a policeman, then finds love in an American journalism student, the film features iconic performances from the likes of Jean-Paul Belmondo and Jean Seberg.
The filmmaker’s third pick is the Alfred Hitchcock classic Vertigo, starring James Stewart as a detective who is hired to investigate the wife of an old friend, a task which leads him down a rabbit hole of obsession. Picking the film “for its sensuality,” Kar-wai was presumably enthralled with the tumultuous romance between Stewart’s John Ferguson and Kim Novak’s Madeleine Elster.
The director goes back to 1948 for his fourth choice, picking the Fei Mu movie Springtime in a Small Town “for its poignancy”. The Chinese romance tells the story of a lonely housewife whose life is altered forever when her childhood love returns to her town, starring the likes of Wei Wei and Hongmei Zhang. Penned by the celebrated Chinese writer Tianji Li, Springtime in a Small Town is one of the country’s most underrated movies.
Finally, Kar-wai’s list is completed by Yasujiro Ozu’s Early Autumn, one of the Japanese auteur’s many masterpieces. Choosing the film for “humor and wisdom,” there’s no surprise that the Hong Kong filmmaker likes Ozu, with the pair sharing an ability to capture the nuances of life during the most poignant moments, with Early Autumn telling the story of an elderly man and his concerned family who worry for his health.
Wong Kar-wai’s five favourite movies:
- Apu Trilogy (Satyajit Ray, 1955, 1956 and 1959)
- Breathless (Jean-Luc Godard, 1960)
- Early Autumn (Yasujiro Ozu, 1962)
- Springtime in a Small Town (Fei Mu, 1948)
- Vertigo (Alfred Hitchcock, 1958)
