Dialogue with Zhang Jiande and Wong Kar-wai is a "systemic flaw" in Hong Kong movies

  Wong Kar-wai, who is nicknamed the "Sunglasses King" by movie fans, wears sunglasses all day long, attracting attention for his free and unrestrained filming method and cool film language.

  Zhang Jiande was one of the first scholars to study Hong Kong films, and also the first to study Wong Kar Wai.

In his monograph "Wong Kar-wai's Movie World", Zhang Jiande believes that Wong Kar-wai embodies a paradox: he is a director who cannot escape the Hong Kong film industry system-in fact, Wong Kar-wai movies and Hong Kong’s "popular entertainment" genre Films come in the same origin, but Wong Kar-wai likes to mix different types of elements and win wide recognition worldwide for his unconventional movie style.

  He believes that Wong Kar-wai is a "systemic flaw" in the Hong Kong film industry. This flaw is precisely due to Wong Kar-wai's immersion in the Hong Kong film industry for many years. Without the cooperation of commercial film director Liu Zhenwei and Wong Kar-wai, Wong Kar-wai would not be able to realize his art through commercial film industry dream.

  Wong Kar-wai's films have strong local roots, but transcend superficial Eastern stereotypes and are widely accepted by the East and the West.

His films started as popular entertainment in Hong Kong films, but they are beyond the conventions of popular genres.

  The production of "alternative movies"

  The Beijing News: You are an earlier scholar who studied Wong Kar-wai. The main part of "Wang Kar-wai's Movie World" was formed in 2005.

At that time, Wong Kar-wai's researchers were very few, but now, Wong Kar-wai's research has become a "manifest" in film research.

Will the progress made by Wong Kar Wai Research Institute in the past ten years and the changes that have taken place in Hong Kong films over the past ten years have changed your research and analysis of Wong Kar Wai films?

Have your views on Wong Kar Wai's movies changed over the years?

  Zhang Jiande: Over the years, my views on Wong Kar Wai's movies have not changed much.

However, if I were to rewrite a new book about Wong Kar Wai's movies, I might regroup his movies.

I will arrange his films into two main trilogy.

I call the first trilogy "Time Trilogy", including "A Fei's True Story", "In the Mood for Love" and "2046"; the second trilogy I call "Time and Space Trilogy", including "Chongqing Forest", "Fallen Angels" and "Happy Together".

As a result, there are four films left that are not in these two trilogy.

  I will put these four films into a more open frame for inspection.

"Carmen in Mong Kok" may be a movie that cannot be classified. As a debut, "Carmen in Mong Kok" is not within the mature style established by Wong Kar-wai from "The Story of Ah Fei".

Wong Kar-wai's American movie "Blueberry Night" is also a school of its own, which can be regarded as an "orphan" movie.

After that, two martial arts films, "Evil East and West Poison" and "The Grand Master" were left.

Both of these films are related to martial arts films and can be regarded as a continuing film sequence.

Perhaps Wang Jiawei will make another martial arts movie, and then it will be able to form a "Martial Arts Trilogy".

  Regarding the study of Wong Kar Wai's movies, I have not been influenced by anyone.

Basically, I wrote this book because I wanted to sort out my thoughts about this director.

From the moment I saw "The True Story of A Fei", Wang Jiawei's works have deeply moved me.

The nostalgia for the 1960s in his films resonated with me. It was the age when I grew up, and it was also the age when I started to like watching movies.

  Wong Kar Wai’s movies remind me of the years of my growth since I first watched the movie: my youth, my life at the time, and the time I spent in the cinema.

It was not completely happy during that time, because my father opposed my going to the cinema.

For my father, watching movies is a waste of time. He feels that watching movies affects my study.

  The movie "The Story of A Fei" is about time. It reminds me of the time I spent in the movie theater and how I can turn these times into something valuable.

After watching "The True Story of A Fei", I began to pay serious attention to Wong Kar Wai's film career, and I decided to write a book about Wong Kar Wai.

Fortunately, I really like the other movies he made after "The Story of A Fei", which made it easier for me to write this book.

  The Beijing News: You said in your book that Wong Kar-wai's films provide us with another way to examine art films.

Wong Kar-wai's film is too "Hong Kong" to be included in the European-style high art film pedigree; but it is too otherworldly to be called "Hong Kong".

How do you understand this "alternative film" which is different from European art films and Hollywood popular films?

  Zhang Jiande: Wong Kar-wai's films provide us with an oriental variation of European art films.

I think, in fact, his films are Buddhist films with a very Zen meaning.

Buddhist philosophy and religious elements are quite obvious in his films, and they determine the style and aesthetics of Wong Kar Wai's films.

For example, the concept of impermanence permeates his film structure. Therefore, we can regard his films as works that cannot be permanently settled.

On the whole, this dimension in Wong Kar Wai's movies has not been fully studied yet.

Since I didn't know much about Buddhist philosophy when I wrote this book, I didn't really discuss this issue in the book.

However, this will be a question I want to continue to explore when I write an article about Wong Kar Wai.

  Beijing News: Some netizens have concluded that in order for a Chinese-speaking director to be recognized in Europe and enjoy a high artistic reputation, he must show some kind of "Orientality"-such as Hou Xiaoxian, Zhang Yimou, Jia Zhangke, and even Hu Jinquan.

But Wong Kar-wai did not show his "Oriental" so deliberately.

Wong Kar-wai likes to mix different popular genres. The film always brings together elements from all over the world, and his shooting method is very experimental.

What do you think?

  Zhang Jiande: I think Western audiences regard Wong Kar-wai as an implicit "Western director."

This means that in the eyes of Westerners, Wong Kar-wai is more like a Western filmmaker.

The style of his films is modern, contemporary, somewhat experimental or anti-traditional, not like Zhang Yimou or Hou Xiaoxian, they are more like Chinese directors.

In the eyes of Westerners, Wong Kar-wai is concerned with the issues of time and space, which are the relatively abstract characteristics of his films.

In the eyes of Westerners, Zhang Yimou or Hou Xiaoxian pays more attention to the society and region in the stories told in their films.

Showing "Orientality" is indeed a means of attracting Western audiences, but Wong Kar Wai does not need to do so.

  The birth of the myth of Wang Jiawei

  Beijing News: We often put Wong Kar-wai into the second wave of Hong Kong movies.

However, Wong Kar-wai is very different from other directors of the New Wave of Hong Kong films.

Chen Guanzhong once said that although many directors of the Hong Kong New Wave wanted to make films that were different from the mainstream at the time, most of them did not want to take the road of European art films, but wanted to make some plots closer to Hollywood. sheet.

Only Wong Kar-wai truly combined the art film with the new wave and achieved success.

Why did the Hong Kong film industry give birth to Wong Kar Wai in the 1990s?

  Zhang Jiande: I think Wang Jiawei has succeeded in creating a completely personal, very delicate, charming and beautiful style.

He successfully convinced his industry supporters and funders that his style and content are totally worth the investment.

His aesthetics start from human emotions and are based on a universal emotion.

He not only described the relationship between people, but also conducted an in-depth discussion on it.

He seems to want to grasp the essence, abstraction and impermanence of interpersonal relationships.

Even if the audience cannot understand the meaning of his movie, the audience can still perceive, feel, and even taste the pure emotions and emotions of his movie characters.

  He can allow actors to express different emotions and their changes, so he can attract the best actors to act in his movies.

In fact, Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Leung Ka Fai, Tony Leung, Jacky Cheung, Brigitte Lin and other actors have dedicated their most memorable performances to Wong Kar-wai (these actors are all big stars, so they can help Wong Kar-wai's movies to make money).

At the same time, the imagery of Wong Kar Wai's films is very dense, the colors are very rich, and it also exudes an essence that seems to be grasped.

You can almost touch his image, like a painting.

  Beijing News: An old question.

Some people say that "Hong Kong movies are dead", but the previous "taste of Hong Kong movies" is gone.

Some directors have lost their direction directly, while directors like Chen Kexin, Tsui Hark, Xu Anhua can maintain their careers, but the films they make gradually have little to do with Hong Kong.

Will Hong Kong movies become more niche in the future?

  Zhang Jiande: The future of Hong Kong films lies in further integration with the mainland film industry, which is inevitable.

However, this is not to say that Hong Kong films will be completely "inlandized" and Hong Kong directors can maintain their own style and vision.

This may be the challenge facing Hong Kong filmmakers.

I believe that the Hong Kong film industry should implement the spirit of "one country, two systems".

Now, the Hong Kong film industry may need to be updated. It needs to be able to clearly express the concept of "Hong Kong Vision" instead of creating a concept that conflicts with "One Country, Two Systems".

  Hong Kong must also train young talents to form their own unique film style and vision. Naturally, they will also use their own dialect (Cantonese) to make films.

Hong Kong's film industry, academia and media must make considerable efforts, and it is a comprehensive and comprehensive effort.

  Beijing News: Just after 2000, many Hong Kong filmmakers went north.

In recent years, Wong Kar-wai has also begun to travel north, for example, "The Great Master" has mainland capital involved in the production.

"The Ferryman" produced by him has also caused strong controversy.

In addition, it is also rumored on the Internet that Wong Kar-wai is preparing to film the "Flowers" series.

What do you think of Wang Jiawei's "Northward" road?

  Zhang Jiande: I think any director wants to gain a foothold in the mainland film market, because the mainland has the world's largest film market.

  Yes, "The Ferryman" is terrible.

If Wong Kar-wai really directed this movie, then this is a completely wrong work in his career.

"The Ferryman" is obviously an anomaly. I'm not sure if it will drag Wong Kar Wai's career into the quagmire.

I still have confidence that Wong Kar-wai can produce more outstanding works in the context of the Mainland.

  Written by/Beijing News reporter Xu Yuedong