Wong Kar-wai

Called the leading heir to the great directors of post-WWII Europe and lavished with awards, Wong Kar-wai has redefined perceptions of Hong Kong's film industry. Wong's visual brilliance and emphasis on atmosphere over action have set him apart from peers while earning him an admiring international audience. In the Mood for Love regularly appears on lists of the twenty-first century's greatest films while critics and filmgoers recognize works like Chungking Express and Happy Together as modern classics.

Peter Brunette describes the ways in which Wong's supremely haunting visual films create a new form of cinema by telling a story with stunning, suggestive visual images and audio tracks rather than character, dialogue, and plot. As he shows, Wong's early background in genre film offers fascinating insights on his more studied later works. He also delves into Wong's perennial themes of time, love, and loss and examines the political implications of his films, especially concerning the handover of former British colony Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China.

“"Highly recommended."-- Choice”

“An insightful and encompassing look at an important director.”--Film International "Brunette traces the love, longing, and regret on view in all of Wong's films, and he rightly emphasizes their 'graphic expressivity'—that is, the distinctive, visually kinetic approach that continues to be the director's hallmark as he matures."--Booklist "Highly recommended."--Choice "Film scholars and movie buffs alike will surely welcome [Brunette's] stimulating discussion."--Ruby Cheung

Peter Brunette was the Reynolds Professor of Film Studies at Wake Forest University. He wrote books on Roberto Rossellini and Michelangelo Antonioni and was the coauthor of Screen/Play: Derrida and Film Theory. He was chief critic for indieWIRE.com and reviewed regularly for the British trade journal, Screen International.

Wong Kar-Wai traces this immensely exciting director's perennial themes of time, love, and loss, and examines the political implications of his films, especially concerning the handover of former British colony Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China. This book is the first in any language to cover all of Wong's work, from his first film, As Tears Go By, to his most recent, the still unreleased 2046. It also includes his best?known, highly honored films, Chungking Express, Happy Together, and above all, In the Mood for Love. Most importantly, Peter Brunette describes the ways in which Wong's supremely visual films attempt to create a new form of cinema by relying on stunning, suggestive visual images and audio tracks to tell their story, rather than on traditional notions of character, dialogue, and plot. The question of Wong Kar-wai's use of genre film techniques in art films is also explored in depth.

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