Start with In the Mood for Love, which is his best film and the most complete statement of the method: two neighbours who never act on what they feel, shot in slow motion to Shigeru Umebayashi. Then Chungking Express for the lightest, Happy Together for the rawest, and 2046 only afterwards.
Wong shoots restraint as if it were passion, which is why his films look erotic while almost nothing happens in them. Two people share a corridor, order the same meal, brush past each other in a stairwell, and the camera slows down and the score swells and the moment carries more weight than most films manage with a whole third act.
He also works without a finished script, shooting for months and finding the film in the edit, which is why the same actors and even the same characters recur across works and why several of his films exist in multiple versions. The consistency of the result despite that method is the remarkable part.
Where to start
In the Mood for Love. Ninety-eight minutes, two performances, and the single best demonstration of what he does. It is also the most formally controlled thing he has made, which makes it a better entry than the looser early films. Chungking Express is the lighter alternative.
Top picks
Filmography
- As Tears Go By (1988)
- Days of Being Wild (1990)
- Chungking Express (1994)
- Ashes of Time (1994)
- Fallen Angels (1995)
- Happy Together (1997)
- In the Mood for Love (2000)
- 2046 (2004)
- The Grandmaster (2013)
Sources and further reading
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FAQs about Wong Kar-wai
Do In the Mood for Love and 2046 connect?
Yes, and loosely rather than as a sequel. 2046 follows the same man some years later and reuses the character name from Days of Being Wild, so the three form an informal trilogy. Watch In the Mood for Love first; 2046 is considerably more diffuse and works better as an epilogue.
Is it true he shoots without a script?
Substantially. He works from an outline and finds the film across long shoots and longer edits, which is why Chungking Express was made in a gap while Ashes of Time was stalled, and why several of his films exist in more than one version. Actors have described arriving with no pages.
Which Wong Kar-wai film is the wrong place to begin?
Ashes of Time, which is a wuxia film assembled from a famously chaotic shoot and is close to incoherent on a first viewing, and 2046, which assumes the earlier films. Both are worth reaching eventually. Neither will make sense as an introduction to what he does.