World of Wong Kar Wai

“Finally, the World of Wong Kar Wai.”

“The first thing is a classic, a modern classic. We never make a mistake in recommending the box set of Wong Kar Wai. In the Mood for Love is a transformative movie. I know that it can be sounding like trite because this is just such a great movie, but in its beautiful directness the movie has so many secrets. The final scene, when finally the lover releases himself and tells his truth in the rocks in Cambodia, it’s one of the great moments of cinema, of modern cinema, contemporary cinema, that I can think of, that influenced me all the time, that not only influenced me as a filmmaker, but as a person. And so I salute the boxset for Wong Kar Wai.”

“That makes me want Wong Kar Wai things because I don’t know if I’ve... Like, I know his work but I haven’t digested it. I think people should digest or not encounter it. You need to bring it in. You need to eat it. Whoa! Speak and it shall... Woah... This... I could leave now, but I won’t, obviously.”

“Where are the, the Wong Kar Wais? I saw Wong Kar Wai here, In the Mood for Love, and with the restored ones. Wow, 4K. Oh, that's lovely. Yeah, okay, we'll take it. He together with Criterion, I guess, restored a couple of his films 4K, and as he, he's a guy who like keeps on working on some of his films. And so he kind of, I heard that he wanted, like, I mean he changed a couple of things, he recut a little bit he worked very ferociously on the restoration and the color, and I, I want to see some of these films again. I'm a huge fan.”

“I am going to take this with me: Wong Kar Wai, someone who really has inspired so many people. I know that Barry Jenkins was very inspired by this man, and he’s really someone for filmmakers to take a look at and see how he composes frames and tells a story, sometimes with just… Very minimal. How to make really smart decisions and storytelling decisions with lighting, with framing. I want to watch everything.”

“World of Wong Kar Wai. And he's really my favorite director, my favorite Chinese director. I will just say my favorites: Days of Being Wild. I remember the last shot so well, that probably has nothing to do with the film, but it's absolutely unforgettable. Indelible. And then Chungking Express. I loved Chungking Express. And that… In Chinese, Chungking Express is actually Chungking Forest. So it's that urban jungle, that loneliness, isolation, and longing to connect. Again, so atmospheric, so beautiful. And Faye Wong was so unique. I don't think I've seen other female characters like that. But so happy. This is, like, gold.”

“So this is me being greedy, taking an entire box set. In the Mood for Love is one of the most sexy and beautiful films. The locations, the costumes, the interactions, this forbidden love. You want to push them together, but you don’t. The rain… I don’t know how he makes everything… I have seen In the Mood for Love maybe six or seven times. It’s almost like an album that I just put on sometimes. And I haven’t– There’s so many on here that I haven’t seen, so this is going to be… I’m not going to leave the house for about ten days or something. I might just sit in there watching all this stuff.”