Mini biography

Wong Kar-wai (July 17, 1958, Shanghai, Hong Kong )

Born in Shanghai, he moved to Hong Kong with his parents at the age of five.

Coming from the Mainland and speaking only Mandarin and Shanghainese, he had a difficult period of adjustment to Cantonese speaking Hong Kong, spending hours in movie theatres with his mother.

He made his directing debut in 1988 with As Tears Go By, produced by Alan Tang.

It was a crime melodrama of the kind then hugely popular, and with heavy borrowings from Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets (1974), but already displayed one of his principal trademarks in its atmospheric and sometimes expressionistic color palette.

“Sometimes they think the way we work is very stylish and romantic, but actually it's the way we can survive and make the films. We can work with the things that we get, but not the things we wish we had.”

It is his only box office hit to date. Wong went on to direct several more feature films in the 1990s, among these were Chungking Express (1994), Fallen Angels (1995), Ashes of Time (1994).

His first major international recognition was at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival where he won the Best Director prize for Happy Together (1997).

The filming of In the Mood for Love (2000) had to be shifted from Beijing to Macau after the China Film Bureau demanded to see the completed script. Wong’s 2046 (2004) was the third chapter of a shared story that began with Days of Being Wild and continued with In the Mood for Love.

In 2006, he became the first Chinese director to preside the jury at the Cannes Film Festival. Wong Kar-Wai’s first full English-language film, My Blueberry Nights opened the 2007 Cannes Film Festival as one of 22 films in competition.

Director - Selected filmography

1. The Grandmaster | Yut doi jung si (2013)
   
2. There's Only One Sun (2007)
   
3. My Blueberry Nights (2007)
   
4. 2046 (2004)
   
5. Eros (2004)
   
6. The Follow | The Hire: The Follow (2001)
   
7. In the Mood for Love | Fa yeung nin wa (2000)
   
8. Happy Together | Chun gwong cha sit (1997)
   
9. Fallen Angels | Duo luo tian shi (1995)
   
10. Chungking Express | Chung Hing sam Iam (1994)
    
11. Days of Being Wild - A Fei zheng chuan (1990)
    
12. As Tears Go By - Wong gok ka moon (1988)