A retrospective of the films of influential Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar Wai, who combines neo-Expressionist cinematography, richly textured production design, and elliptical narrative structures to explore the existential complexities of change, desire, memory, love, friendship, and self-realization.
Read full description4K Digital Restoration, 25th Anniversary Edition
Also screens on Friday, January 30 (with an introduction by Daniel O’Neill) and Saturday, February 14 on 35mm (without the short film).
This twenty-first-century classic set in the early 1960s distills the essence of romance and melancholy, with gorgeous neighbors (Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai) “in the mood for love,” yet too proper to act on it.
4K Digital Restoration
Described by Wong Kar Wai as “a tragic study of little people in a big city,” his first feature provided enough fistfights and street battles to please audiences while debuting the mood-drenched atmospherics and unabashed romanticism that would define his career.
4K Digital Restoration
Also screens on Sunday, February 22 (without an introduction).
A haunting paean to memory, love, and longing, set during a long and sweltering Hong Kong summer, Wong Kar Wai’s first collaboration with cinematographer Christopher Doyle was a winner of five Hong Kong Film Awards.
4K Digital Restoration
Also screens on Saturday, February 28 (without an introduction).
Filmed in the middle of the making of Ashes of Time, Chungking Express is a cop movie and a mesmerizing jolt of Hong Kong’s energy, romance, and style, framed by Christopher Doyle’s lyrically kinetic cinematography.
Featuring a who’s who of Hong Kong superstars, Wong Kar Wai’s dreamy take on the martial arts genre (choreographed by the legendary Sammo Hung), follows a desert loner who connects swordsmen to vengeance seekers, looking for either blood or love.
4K Digital Restoration
In this ode to nocturnal Hong Kong, a disillusioned contract killer falls for his partner. “A pyrotechnical wonder about mystery, solitude, and the irrational love of movies” (J. Hoberman), Fallen Angels “takes every risk known to filmmaking, and succeeds triumphantly” (Sight and Sound).
4K Digital Restoration
Also screens on Friday, February 13 (with an introduction by Iggy Cortez).
Hong Kong superstars Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai play expat lovers adrift in Buenos Aires. Simultaneously bruising and yearning, Happy Together is “a take-no-prisoners movie that’s the very antithesis of sentimental gay love stories” (Kenneth Turan).
4K Digital Restoration, 25th Anniversary Edition
Also screens on Friday, January 9 (with an introduction by Weihong Bao) and Saturday, February 14 on 35mm (without the short film).
This twenty-first-century classic set in the early 1960s distills the essence of romance and melancholy, with gorgeous neighbors (Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai) “in the mood for love,” yet too proper to act on it.
4K Digital Restoration
Arguably Wong Kar Wai’s forgotten masterpiece, The Hand is a key bridge between In the Mood for Love and 2046 that weaves desire, longing, and the melancholy of unattainable beauty into a concise pattern. Preceded by I Travelled 9000 km to Give It to You.
4K Digital Restoration
Also screens on Friday, February 27 (with an introduction).
2046 “echoes” (in Wong Kar Wai’s preferred term) In the Mood For Love’s writer protagonist (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) three years on, now working on an erotic story, set in the year 2046, about a place where people lose themselves in memories.
4K Digital Restoration
Also screens on Sunday, January 25 (with an introduction by Daniel O’Neill).
Hong Kong superstars Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai play expat lovers adrift in Buenos Aires. Simultaneously bruising and yearning, Happy Together is “a take-no-prisoners movie that’s the very antithesis of sentimental gay love stories” (Kenneth Turan).
Also screens in a 4K digital restoration on Friday, January 9 (with an introduction by Weihong Bao) & Friday, January 30 (with an introduction by Daniel O’Neill).
This twenty-first-century classic set in the early 1960s distills the essence of romance and melancholy, with gorgeous neighbors (Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai) “in the mood for love,” yet too proper to act on it.
Singer Norah Jones headlines Wong Kar Wai’s English-language debut, which depicts a heartbroken singer on a road trip across America and the other lost souls—Jude Law, Rachel Weisz, and Natalie Portman among them—she encounters along the way.
Wong Kar Wai’s big-budget salute to the golden age of Chinese martial arts stars Tony Leung Chiu-wai as the legendary Ip Man (Bruce Lee’s mentor), attempting to unite several martial arts factions in a Republican China under threat from Japanese invasion.
4K Digital Restoration
Also screens on Sunday, January 11 (with an introduction).
A haunting paean to memory, love, and longing, set during a long and sweltering Hong Kong summer, Wong Kar Wai’s first collaboration with cinematographer Christopher Doyle was a winner of five Hong Kong Film Awards.
4K Digital Restoration
Also screens on Sunday, February 1 (with an introduction).
2046 “echoes” (in Wong Kar Wai’s preferred term) In the Mood For Love’s writer protagonist (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) three years on, now working on an erotic story, set in the year 2046, about a place where people lose themselves in memories.
4K Digital Restoration
Also screens on Sunday, January 18 (with an introduction).
Filmed in the middle of the making of Ashes of Time, Chungking Express is a cop movie and a mesmerizing jolt of Hong Kong’s energy, romance, and style, framed by Christopher Doyle’s lyrically kinetic cinematography.