The Grandmaster OF ROMANCE

No one captures the language of love as achingly beautiful as filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai.

- CRYSTAL WOO, ABDUL AZIZ DRAIM

Ah, spring. Valentine’s Day may have come and gone, the romantic trails of Chap Goh Mei may have faded, but spring will always remain the season for love. In this year of the Wood Dragon (that happens every 60 years), love is here to tame the fire-breathing beast. And no one speaks the language of passion better than the Grandmaster himself, Wong KarWai. A writer-director in his own league, we adore the filmmaker for his distinct non-linear style, his guileless ability to capture seemingly mundane everyday moments and engrossing us in them, as he turns the subtlest of emotions into cinematic forms. And the music and fashion of his films are just as captivating as his storytelling.

Born in Shanghai (1958), Wong Kar Wai and his family moved to Hong Kong to escape the Cultural Revolution in China. As a young boy growing up in Hong Kong, his mother often took him to the cinema to watch many movies... any movie. “The only hobby I had as a child was watching movies,” he once said in an interview. His love for cinema and its transportive language informs his body of works, an impressive catalogue that includes trend-setting films from Days of Being Wild (1990) and Chungking Express (1994), to Happy Together (1997) and the masterfully lush In the Mood for Love (2000). Now, as Blossoms Shanghai, his debut TV series set in 1990s Shanghai starring Hu Ge, Ma Yili, Tiffany Tang, and Xin Zhi Lei, wrapped up its 30-episode run just last January, we celebrate the romantic cinematic world of Wong Kar-Wai and its soundscape. In the mood for a movie marathon? Catch the films of Wong Kar Wai and the Blossoms Shanghai TV series on mubi.com. 

HAPPY TOGETHER (1997)

Starring Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung and Chang Zhen