Tag Archives: Wong Kar-wai

WONG KAR WAI — HAPPY TOGETHER

During a fire accident in 2019, we lost some of the original negative of HAPPY TOGETHER. In the ensuing months, we tried to restore the negative as much as we could, but a portion of it had been permanently damaged. We lost not only some of the picture, but also the sound in those reels. As a result, I had to shorten some of Tony’s monologues, but with the amazing work of L’Immagine Ritrovata, we managed to restore most of the scenes to better quality. — Wong Kar Wai

As part of the series World of Wong Kar Wai, Film at Lincoln Center presents a new 4K digital restoration—supervised by the director—of HAPPY TOGETHER, Wong’s “feverish portrait of the life cycle of a love affair that’s by turns devastating and delirious… capturing the dynamics of a queer relationship with empathy and complexity on the cusp of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong, when the country’s LGBTQ community suddenly faced an uncertain future.”*

Starring Leslie Cheung and Tong Leung—and shot by Christopher Doyle—this 4K digital restoration was undertaken from the 35mm original camera negative by the Criterion Collection in collaboration with L’Immagine Ritrovata, Jet Tone, and One Cool. See link below for details.

HAPPY TOGETHER

Film at Lincoln Center Virtual Cinema

Janus Films

Now streaming.

Above, from top: Wong Kar Wai, Happy Together (1995) Leslie Cheung (left) and Tong Leung; Leung (left) and Cheung; Cheung (left) and Leung; Happy Together poster, courtesy and © Jet Tone; Leung (left) and Cheung; Cheung and Leung. Images courtesy and © Wong Kar Wai, Jet Tone, and Janus Films.

Below: Leung (left) and Cheung from Christopher Doyle, Buenos Aires (1997), the cinematographer’s photo book published in Japan documenting the filming of Happy Together.

CITIES OF LAST THINGS

CITIES OF LAST THINGS—the fifth feature by director Ho Wi Ding—follows a haunted police detective through a reverse-narrative spiral. Reminiscent of the gorgeous neon-and-noir dreamscapes cinematographer Christopher Doyle created for Wong Kar-Wai, the Taipei triptych opens with a suicide in the year 2056, then works its way back to 2019 and the 1990s.

Jack Kao (61 years old), Lee Hong Chi (29), and young Hsieh Chang Ying play Zhang Dong Ling over the course of three crucial nights in the character’s life. The film was shot in 35mm for a wonderfully grainy sheen—Jean Louis Vialard was the director of photography. This award-winning Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival selection screens Monday night in Los Angeles.

CITIES OF LAST THINGS

Monday, May 6, at 6:30 pm.

Regal L.A. Live Cinemas

1000 West Olympic Avenue, downtown Los Angeles.

From top: Louise Grinberg and Lee Hong Chi in Cities of Last Things; Jack Kao; Ding Ning (center right); Lee (right); Grinberg. Images courtesy the filmmaker and LAAPFF.

DOUBLE SIRK

Douglas Sirk’s ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS (1955) and MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION (1954), part of the Film Society of Lincoln Center series Emotion Pictures—International Melodramas, will screen on New Year’s Day.

A potent influence on FassbinderWong Kar-wai, Todd Haynes and many others, these masterpieces (along with Sirk’s Written on the Wind and Imitation of Life) are the high-water mark of overwrought Hollywood melodrama.

“Setting arch-American characters and tales in lurid tableaux of riotous colors and tangled shadows, catching the frozen moments of contemplative self-horror of furiously dynamic characters and the stifled energies of reflective ones, Sirk plays ironic variations on American themes.” — Richard Brody*

 

ALL THAT HEAVEN ALLOWS, Monday, January 1, at 7 pm.

filmlinc.org/films/all-that-heaven-allows

MAGNIFICENT OBSESSION, Monday, January 1, at 9:15 pm.

filmlinc.org/films/magnificent-obsession

WALTER READE THEATER, 165 West 65th Street, New York City.

newyorker.com/richard-brody/written-on-the-wind

Jane Wyman and Rock Hudson in Magnificent Obsession (1954). Image credit: Universal Pictures.

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