He became interested in photographing when pursuing his studies in the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. After graduation, Wong attended TVB's training class of TV production. Afterwards, he participated in the productions of a series of teleplays as the assistant, during which time he soon grew into an outstanding screenwriter.
In 1982, Wong Karwai left TVB and wrote ten film scripts in the next five years. Wong Karwai began his career as a movie director in 1988 when he successfully directed his maiden work As Tears Go By, which was screened at Cannes in 1989.
Actually, before Wong Karwai became a director, he had 12 years of screenwriting experience, which established a solid groundwork for his current career. So when he truly began to direct his films, he wrote the plays himself, a practice he continues to this day. However, unlike other directors, Wong Karwai never has a whole script before he directs his films.
"When I begin to shoot a new film, first of all, I shoot the general plots of the film, meanwhile, I amend my plays while shooting," he says. This is why you can see many night scenes in Wong's films, for he has to write and rewrite his playbooks in the daytime. "It is not right to say that I care nothing about the audience. However, when I'm truly involved in the process, I only think from my own perspective." Wong says that his films are shot for the audience, but not only for their satisfaction.
In Wong Karwai's words, many actors do not like to cooperate with him in shooting films since he has been very strict with his work, which has to be revised and cut once and again. The actors have to bear the risk that their performance might be cut sometime. In spite of all these, Wong Karwai is such a director with the charm to make those even world-famous stars wish to be in the cast of his movies, even with lower pay.
Nevertheless, for more than ten years, Wong Karwai has had two partners working with him all along: actor Tony Leung Chiu Wai (Liang Chaowei) and the photographer Chris Doyle (Du Kefeng). Tony Leung's first cooperation with Wong Karwai was during Wong's shooting of Days of Being Wild.
Leung says before that, he seemed to lose his interest in acting and it was hard for him to find any progress. However, Wong Karwai had the ability to help Leung exert his potentials.
Leung says that Wong Karwai is a very talented director who treats every actor very well. He is able to find those unique characteristics in every actor that they are even not aware of. He is the kind of director that gives the actors lots of space to act instead of only making them listen to him.
Wong says making films is like driving a train ahead. Everyone on the train loves film and has their dreams in it. Every film is like a train station. At every stop people come and go; however, what they believe is wherever the train goes. It will go its route and the journey will be a happy one.
Email to Friends
Print
Save