Wong Kar-wai’s homage to an American classic: “People don’t make films like that any more”
The work of Wong Kar-wai has always felt incredibly idiosyncratic. It’s not hard to recognise a still from a movie like Fallen Angels, with its predominantly green-soaked palette and wide-angle lens that creates a simultaneously dreamlike and nauseating atmosphere. The same goes for Chungking Express, which is saturated in a contemplative kind of melancholy, illuminated by the neon lights of a city after dark.
There is a slowness and sense of longing and isolation present in much of the filmmaker’s work, and it’s his honest dissection of human relationships and the quest for fulfilment that has made him one of the most acclaimed directors of his generation. While he made his debut with As Tears Go By in 1988, Chungking Express, released six years later, was a defining moment in Wong’s career, allowing him to earn international acclaim. Since then, he has continuously earned praise, especially for his evocative 2000 film In the Mood for Love, a classic of the 21st century.
While Wong has shown an interest in action cinema from the beginning of his career with movies like As Tears Go By and Ashes of Time, the filmmaker took many fans by surprise when he ditched the contemporary love stories for martial arts in 2013 with The Grandmaster, it is a far cry from the likes of In the Mood For Love and My Blueberry Nights, but it was incredibly successful, even becoming Wong’s highest box office earner with a gross of $64.1million.
Evidently, Wong’s skills as a filmmaker can be easily transferred to whatever genre he wishes to tackle. In the case of The Grandmaster, he wanted to make something that harkened back to the films of another era, and while it falls into the martial arts genre – something predominantly associated with Chinese cinema – he looked at many classic American films. In fact, he paid homage to some of his favourites within the movie, including Sergio Leone’s Once Upon a Time in America, by using Ennio Morricone’s musical cue.
Discussing this decision with Slant Magazine, the director revealed: “Oh, it’s an homage. We had these discussions, like two days ago, with a very good writer who wrote many big films. The interesting thing he said was that ‘it used to be that films were about stories. Today, films are about short stories.’ And I think the reason I wanted to pay homage to Once Upon a Time in America, to Sergio Leone, to Morricone, is because people don’t make films like that anymore. People don’t have the patience for epics. Epics are really about time. It’s a journey, and not just action.”
It’s interesting that Wong claims that people don’t have the “patience for epics” anymore, considering that blockbuster epics seem to be the main kind of box office fodder these days, with movies like Dune, Gladiator II, Killers of the Flower Moon, and countless franchise movies from the likes of Star Wars and Marvel emerging at a rapid pace.
However, what Wong says about patience and time is understandable. Many epic movies these days seem to rely on excessive action, while the classic epics that inspired The Grandmaster looked somewhat different. Clearly, Wong is more interested in the “journey” that he can tell through an epic, rather than relying on endless flashy Hollywood images.
