NOV 19 20 FRI 7 PM, SAT 5 PM GUILD THEATRE
CHUNGKING EXPRESS
HONG KONG 1995
DIRECTOR: WONG KAR-WAI Hailed by many filmmakers as one of the great, inspirational films of the 1990s, Wong’s charmingly frenetic film launched the director into international acclaim. Shot during a break in the production of ASHES OF TIME, CHUNGKING comes off as an exultant paean to cinema, a love letter written in two parts. On the eve of his 25th birthday, Zhiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is submerged in heartbreak, trying desperately to conjure his lost love. The young policeman superstitiously counts every minute and every breath, dead set on savoring his sadness. When a mysterious smuggler (Brigitte Lin) appears, the unwitting Zhiwu is reminded that if love has an expiration date, then so does loss. CHUNGKING’s other half finds Tony Leung as a similarly hangdog policeman, more occupied by desire than by his call to duty. Making her film debut, international pop star Faye Wong provides an easy distraction for the policeman’s ennui—creating one of the most charming characters of any of Wong Kar-Wai’s films. (102 mins.)

NOV 20 21 SAT 7:30 PM, SUN 7 PM GUILD THEATRE
AS TEARS GO BY
HONG KONG 1988
DIRECTOR: WONG KAR-WAI In this lushly interpretive meditation on the crime film , Andy Lau is a plaintive, sleepy street punk whose trajectory into the strata of the crime world seems inevitable, if not for his sociopathic best friend (Jackie Cheung). Maggie Cheung, in the first in her string of collaborations with Wong, appears as the wilting beauty and object of hesitating desire. In the tradition of BREATHLESS and MEAN STREETS, Wong’s center is the handsomely forlorn criminal caught between mercurial ambition and romantic longing, here bathed in the strange flickering video light and rainy neon of underground Hong Kong. "Wong's visually stylish violence is not unlike ballet, and his images are breathtaking. The incredible energy of every frame of the film propels us along, and the performances make us care deeply about the characters"—David Overbey. (100 mins.)

NOV 26 27 FRI 7 PM, SAT 5 PM WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
FALLEN ANGELS
HONG KONG 1995
DIRECTOR: WONG KAR-WAI In what was originally meant to be the third segment of 1994’s CHUNGKING EXPRESS, FALLEN ANGELS is a decidedly more abstract, fevered trip through the criminal heart. Again, Wong’s characters (a hitman, his assistant, a mysterious mute) find everyday human interaction nearly impossible, settling instead for existential preoccupation and neurosis. Packed with the restless energy and pop visual set pieces which are his trademark, Wong’s characters charge headlong through a neon-lit city of endless nights, searching for love and finding sensation at every turn. “Watching FALLEN ANGELS feels a little bit like being shot out of a pinball machine and bounced around the Hong Kong equivalent of Times Square in its former heyday.”—Stephen Holden, NEW YORK TIMES. (104 mins.)

NOV 27 28 SAT 7:30 PM, SUN 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
ASHES OF TIME
HONG KONG 1994
DIRECTOR: WONG KAR-WAI Wong Kar-Wai’s now classic reinterpretation of the Hong Kong action genre is transplanted here into the mythical past of the martial arts epic. By far his largest-scale production, this big budget masterpiece is still a subversively artful entry into the action canon. Set in a desert inn where swordsmen test their fates, the otherworldly wasteland provides an ideal backdrop for the intersecting dramas of soulful warriors. Like in the introspective genre trials of John Ford and Sam Peckinpah, Wong’s tough guys suffer more from cynical loneliness than the pains of violence. Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung are perfectly cast as a pair of wizened warriors who trade the real world for the interior world of bad memories. A breathtakingly violent film (thanks to martial arts choreography legend Sammo Hung), ASHES succeeds as a tightly wound drama and a soulful look at violence. (100 mins.)

DEC 4 5 SAT 7 PM, SUN 5 PM
GUILD THEATRE
HAPPY TOGETHER
HONG KONG 1997
DIRECTOR: WONG KAR-WAI A gentle affection for outsiders is beautifully observed in this melancholy memory of lost love. When two Chinese expatriates in Argentina realize that their love is broken, they are sent onto divergent tracks of loneliness: one as a self-destructive hustler, the other as a homesick wanderer. Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung provide the delicate emotional core of the film, with performances as heroic as their turns in the martial arts and police dramas. Like Wong’s other films, HAPPY TOGETHER trades expository dialogue for a mix of visual poetry and disarmingly emotive pop music. Through the eyes of outsiders (in this case it’s both the characters and the director), Argentina is painted in lucid reflections and watercolor tears that provide an indelible portrait of love’s decay. (109 mins.)

FOLLOWED BY
BUENOS AIRES ZERO DEGREE
HONG KONG 1999
DIRECTORS: Kwan Pun-Leung, Amos Lee This behind the scenes look at the making of HAPPY TOGETHER provides thoughtful insight into Wong Kar-Wai’s unique creative process. The director’s sometimes criticized reputation for improvisational scriptwriting and tireless revision is illuminated by the hours of film that was shot and never included in the final cut of the film. By piecing together Wong’s unused footage and watching his creative process unfold we see the potential for entirely different films being born and dying before our very eyes. (68 mins.)

DEC 11 12 SAT 7 PM, SUN 7 PM
WHITSELL AUDITORIUM
Kenneth Turan presents:
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE
HONG KONG 2000
DIRECTOR: WONG KAR-WAI “A swooningly cinematic exploration of romantic longing, both restrained and sensual, luxuriating in color, texture, and sound, this film raises its fascination with enveloping atmosphere and suppressed emotion to a ravishing, almost hypnotic level. . . This time, however, the conventional nature of the material—a love story that is not only set in Hong Kong in 1962, but is PG-chaste enough to have been filmed then and there— makes it easier to appreciate the visual assurance and provocative, intimate directing style that have made all of Wong’s films major award winners. . . Adding to the superb sense of ambience is the film’s alluring use of muted yet vivid color. With sublime production design (once again William Change, who also edited the film), IN THE MOOD is a dream of complimentary pastels, with window blinds, wallpaper, kitchen appliances, shower curtains, even telephones all part of a rapturous color scheme… The result is a kind of ultimate romantic film, joining an almost Jamesian sadness and discipline to that extraordinary visual sensibility. It’s not the kind of thing you see every day.”—Kenneth Turan. (101 mins.)
Los Angeles Times film critic Kenneth Turan will introduce the December 11 screening of IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, one of the films included his new book “Never Coming to a Theater Near You,” a compendium of great films deserving wider recognition and exposure.

DEC 17 18 19 FRI, 7 PM, SAT 7 PM, SUN 7 PM
GUILD THEATRE
DAYS OF BEING WILD
HONG KONG 1991
DIRECTOR: WONG KAR-WAI Wong’s second feature, anticipating the cool mastery of his subsequent films, is a handsome coalescence of dreamy pop nostalgia and picturesque lyricism. Leslie Cheung plays the incarnation of Wong’s world-weary everyman, a young romantic who prefers unrequited longing to the trivialities of actual relationships. The young Shanghai man’s mission to find his mother in Manila is partly an act of love, but more certainly an escape. Here, urban life has the rhythm and pace of the sad, languorous love songs that fill the night. “A drama conceived entirely in terms of style, attitude and a sense of time straight out of a Dali painting." —Tony Rayns, British Film Institute. (94 mins.)