Cover Wong Kar-wai was known for his nostalgic take on Hong Kong (Photo: Getty Images)
Wong Kar-wai was known for his nostalgic take on Hong Kong (Photo: Getty Images)
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Happy birthday, Wong Kar-wai! We look back at some iconic Hong Kong locations such as Chungking Mansion and Mong Kok, which added character to his films, be it ‘In the Mood for Love’ or ‘Fallen Angels’
Hong Kong film director Wong Kar-wai turns 66 today (July 17, 2024). The auteur is known for shaking up the local film industry with his avant-garde storytelling through highly aestheticised shots, nostalgic lenses and captivating scripts in the last four decades. At the time when Wong Kar-wai appeared on the filmmaking scene, Hong Kong was typically known for its straightforward, action-packed martial arts or gangster films.
But Wong Kar-wai took a different creative direction, focusing on aesthetic, mood-building storytelling and a nostalgic presentation of the city and its people: think the bittersweet affair between Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung in In the Mood for Love (2000), the free-spirited Leslie Cheung in the bold gay film Happy Together (1997), or the secret yearning for human connection between Takeshi Kaneshio and Michelle Reis in Fallen Angels (1995).
Tatler celebrates Wong Kar-wai’s birthday by revisiting five iconic places in Hong Kong that have provided the backdrop in which his cinematic magic unfolded.
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Cross Harbour Tunnel in ‘Fallen Angels’
The final scene of Wong Kar-wai’s neo-noir crime and comedy film Fallen Angels is among the most remembered moments in the auteur’s oeuvre. In that scene, a mentally unstable woman dumped by her boyfriend (played by Michelle Reis) holds tightly onto a mute ex-convict (played by Takeshi Kaneshio) as the two speed through the grim Cross Harbour Tunnel on a motorcycle at night. The row of green-hued lights on the tunnel’s ceiling casts a paleness on Reis's shadowy face, and the whole tunnel appears to be contorted under the wide-angle lens. The long tunnel contrasts with her monologue, which talks about the transient feeling of warmth of holding on to this stranger and serves as an important backdrop to the story about finding human connection in a lonely city.
Goldfinch Restaurant in ‘In the Mood for Love’ and ‘2046’
Unlike expectations, most of In the Mood for Love, which is set in 1962 Hong Kong, was shot in a film set in Bangkok as the streets and buildings representative of the era were demolished by the time the film was made in 2000. The restaurant where Tony Leung’s and Maggie Cheung’s characters have their first meal together, however, was a real place in Hong Kong: Goldfinch Restaurant in Causeway Bay, which opened in the same year the film is set.
This restaurant was also featured in his movie 2046, released four years later. Sadly, the Hong Kong-style steakhouse, which featured vintage burgundy booth seats, closed in 2018 due to high rent.
Chungking Mansion in ‘Chungking Express’
The iconic building, which is made up of independent low-budget hotels, shops and restaurants, has not only given Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 movie its name, it has also provided it with a maze-like setting for the story, which revolves around two policemen’s love entanglements. In fact, Cop 663’s flat was cinematographer Christopher Doyle’s flat at the time.
Don’t miss: Cinematographer Christopher Doyle reflects on his 40-year career and what’s next for him
Mong Kok in ‘As Tears Go By’
Wong Kar-wai had yet to build up his iconic aestheticised style when he made As Tears Go By (1988), which portrays the hidden world of gangsters in Mong Kok. But already, this film has shown his tendency to capture the everyday life of local neighbourhoods—in this case, Mong Kok’s hawkers’ markets, busy alleys, cramped flats, rooftops and small restaurants with foldable tables.
The Mid-levels stone wall in ‘Days of Being Wild’
The 1990 film Days of Being Wild tells the tales of several lovelorn individuals, played by Maggie Cheung, Leslie Cheung, Andy Lau and Tony Leung, who navigate their emotional journeys of unrequited love, futile hope and loneliness. The stone wall at the junction of Castle Road and Conduit Road in Mid-Levels, where the characters idle and wait for the other’s phone calls, is parallel to their endless wait for someone to return or for time to pass.
Zabrina is the Senior Editor, Arts and Culture of Tatler Hong Kong. She specialises in performing arts, visual art and film. Her wanderlust was first fuelled by the Mighty Rovers Antarctica Expedition 2010. Over the years, she has interviewed A-list artists and filmmakers, including Oscar winners Chlóe Zhao and Tim Yip, Golden Horse winner Sylvia Chang, In the Mood for Love cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Pachinko author Min Jin Lee, and Coachella’s first Chinese solo singer Jackson Wang. She won gold at the WAN-IFRA Asian Media Awards for her 2021 feature on the waves of hate crimes targeting Asian Americans.
