Essential 5: Wong Kar-Wai

Wong Kar-Wai is often cited as the world's most romantic director. His films are known for characters who go through life as if there is nothing else but romance and they are shot so lovingly as to make even the most stone-hearted viewer agree. If that was all there was to him, he would still be a director worth watching -- genuine romance is almost impossible to find at the movies. His films are also filled with subtext. For instance, Wong always shows clocks and highlights the movement of time in every shot. On one level this merely hightens the sense that all relationships are finite, and so is heartbreak. On a second level though, he is referencing the ticking clock that Hong Kong (where many of his films take place) was under during British rule. Many of those who live in Hong Kong had fled mainland China after the rise of communism there and lived in Hong Kong to escape what they saw as an oppressive system. Wong Kar-Wai shows metaphorically the fear many in Hong Kong must have felt about the hand-over of power that happened in 1997.