Love Power: Wong Kar Wai retrospective lights up BAMPFA

"When the name Wong Kar Wai first lit up stateside screens in the early 1990s, it was as if a bolt of lightning had suddenly struck the Hong Kong film scene, and now its energy was radiating across the Pacific. The electricity was intense and immediate. Wong's approach was a radical departure from the then-Crown Colony's typical fare, which relied heavily, up until that time, on swords and gangsters. Wong's films made room for affairs of the heart, in contrast to the stylized violence that had been Hong Kong's most popular product for years."

"Not very long after that, this reviewer called Wong the world's most romantic filmmaker. Nothing in the world has happened since then to challenge that reputation. "In the Mood for Love: The Films of Wong Kar Wai," a selective retrospective of 13 of Wong's most provocative works, is now well under way at the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive. The most brilliant of the director's gems-presented by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office-are there for pleasurable examination through Feb. 28."

"Wong's biggest all-time critical hit is the 2000 release In the Mood for Love, a lightning rod for doomed romanticism starring the most magnetic actors in Hong Kong, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu Wai. It screens Jan. 30 and Feb. 14. As if aroused by an insistent sexual drumbeat coming from deep inside them, cautious-but-curious urbanites Su Li-zhen (Cheung) and Chow Mowan (Leung)-each married to another person-perform an intricate pas de deux in the hallways and stairs of their HK apartment house."

Wong Kar Wai arrived on stateside screens in the early 1990s, bringing intense energy and a new romantic sensibility to Hong Kong cinema. His films pivot away from swordplay and gangster narratives toward affairs of the heart, melancholy, and stylized period detail. A selective retrospective of 13 provocative works runs at the Berkeley Art Museum Pacific Film Archive through Feb. 28, presented by the Hong Kong Economic and Trade Office. In the Mood for Love (2000) stands as his major critical triumph, featuring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, Christopher Doyle's luminous cinematography, and a tragic, elegiac emotional rhythm.

Read at East Bay Express | Oakland, Berkeley & Alameda