Country: Hong Kong
Language: Chinese
Year: 2000
Running Time: 97 min
Chow has a secret. A little secret that was originally meant to be sweetly revengeful but ended up like an albatross. Haunting him.
The seduction part has been bittersweet, no doubt. Lizhen, her husband who has been conducting an adulterous affair with Chow’s wife for some time now, has succumbed to the intricacies that have been carefully laid out by Chow. Lizhen didn’t think that she was going to fall so low.
She thought she was curious, as to how people could forfeit their normal, happy life and opt for the compromising situation of living in a series of lies. She thought she was going to take a look and then turn back. And then she fell.
The revenge has been complete. Or at least that was what it seemed. And then the bitter aftertaste began to set in. It is such an unfortunate twist of fate that the manoeuvring should backfire. Chow, yearning for Lizhen, has fallen his own prey. A prey of his secret heart.
“I have heard that in the old days, when people want to unburden a secret, they go into the mountain and dig a hole to bury the secret there.” It is such thoughts that Chow muses to Angkor Wat years later… to unburden a secret.
|
Director
|
Wong Kar Wai
|
|
Producer
|
Wong Kar Wai
|
|
Writer
|
Wong Kar Wai
|
|
Executive Producer
|
Ye-Cheng CHAN
|
|
Associate Producer
|
Jacky Pang Yee-wah
|
|
Production Company
|
Block 2 Pictures Inc.
|
|
Production Company
|
Paradis-Orly Films
|
|
Cinematography
|
Christopher Doyle
|
|
Cinematography
|
Mark LEE Ping-Bing
|
|
Art Director
|
William Chang Suk-Ping
|
|
Music
|
Michael Galasso
|
|
Editor
|
William Chang Suk-Ping
|
|
Lai Chen
|
|
|
Maggie Cheung
|
|
|
Rebecca Pan
|
|
|
Tony Leung Chiu Wai
|
|
Best Actor & Technical Achievement Award for Best Cinematography and Editing Cannes, Best Foreign Language César, Taipei Golden Horse Awards for Best Actress, Cinematography & best Costumes, Screen International Language for non-European Film Awards, Official Hong Kong Selection for the Academy Awards
Wong Kar Wai is an unusual artist in Hong Kong’s film industry. After his first few feature films, he was acknowledged as one of the most exciting Asian “auteurs” of his day and one of the most influential directors of contemporary cinema.
Born in 1958 in Shanghai, he and his family emigrated to Hong Kong when he was five years old. He obtained a diploma in graphic design from Hong Kong Polytechnic School and became a television production assistant. He worked on numerous TV series and became a screenwriter for the cinema. Wong Kar Wai’s directorial debut, AS TEARS GO BY (1988), gave him the opportunity to work with the actress Maggie Cheung for the first time. This film earned him recognition in Cannes where it was selected in the Critics’ Week category.
In 1990, Wong Kar Wai gathered together the cream of Hong Kong’s young stars for one of his most ambitious films, DAYS OF BEING WILD. CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994), an ultra-contemporary, rapid, lightweight film which earned him the title of “Chinese Quentin Tarantino” by the Anglo-Saxon press. Indeed, he has achieved similar cult status with his subsequent films.
In 1995, he shot FALLEN ANGELS based on an idea for a sketch that was written for CHUNGKING EXPRESS and dropped at the last minute. He then made HAPPY TOGETHER, a daring film telling the tale of two Chinese homosexuals exiled in Argentina during the hand-over of Hong Kong to China. With this film, Wong Kar Wai won the Best Director prize at the 1997 Cannes Festival. IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE was presented in 2000 and earned Tony Leung the Best Actor award at Cannes.
2007 MY BLUEBERRY NIGHTS
2004 2046
2000 IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
1997 HAPPY TOGETHER
1995 FALLEN ANGELS
1994 CHUNGKING EXPRESS
1994 ASHES OF TIME
1991 DAYS OF BEING WILD
1988 AS TEARS GO BY