The cinema world is no stranger to film revisions of this scale. Some fans-and even Wong himself-see this as an opportunity to watch old favorites in a fresh light others see it as a sacrilegious act of artistic butchery. In Criterion’s box set, these films are presented with clarity we’ve never seen before on home video, but they’ve also been edited with a heavy hand: color timing has been shifted, aspect ratios have been narrowed, and dialogue has been cut. These are updated versions of Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, and In the Mood for Love that could be described not only as remasters but also, controversially, as director’s cuts. The reason for this is the brand new 4K restorations of Wong’s most beloved film ares supervised by the director himself. World of Wong Kar-Wai, somewhat unpredictably, proves to be his boldest artistic statement we’ve seen in a long time, and not everyone is pleased with the results. It’s no wonder that now, eight years since the release of his most recent film, The Grandmaster (2013), Wong’s global base of admirers feels starved for new creative dispatches from the auteur. After the release of 2046, his deeply unconventional sci-fi-tinged sequel to In the Mood for Love, Wong tried his hand at a Hollywood romance with the poorly received My Blueberry Nights (2007), which only further distanced the elusive director from his roots and made the hiatus feel even more bittersweet. The intervening years, though, have been quiet.
By the time his most popularly appreciated films received the vaunted Criterion treatment in America, he was already long recognized as an international phenomenon, one who represented the sparkling energy of the new wave of Hong Kong cinema but with a character all his own.
The connection is immediately clear in Wong’s debut, As Tears Go By, which is more a conventional (for the period) Hong Kong gang movie than the stylized romances that he would later make his name from. Wong emerged from the same wave of Hong Kong filmmakers that birthed the epic action and crime sagas of John Woo and Jackie Chan, whose visionary takes on visceral cinematic excitement made them quick and easy transplants to Hollywood in the ’90s. Teased early last year, Criterion’s Wong Kar-wai box set marks the long-awaited return of the filmmaker to the label’s catalog after their beloved special edition releases of Chungking Express and In the Mood for Love went out of print years ago. It’s a faithful tribute to the director even on its own. The discs themselves unfold outward from their cradle, artfully designed to express a movement and transformation recognizable to those who know Wong’s mischievously dynamic cinema. The box unwraps like origami, housing a glamorous book whose French-fold pages carry secret images of intimate moments from the seven included films: As Tears Go By (1988), Days of Being Wild (1990), Chungking Express (1994), Fallen Angels (1995), Happy Together (1997), In the Mood for Love (2000), and 2046 (2004). Like the legendary Hong Kong director’s films, the World of Wong Kar-Wai physical product is a beautiful whirlwind of color, style, and interlinked mysteries. The Criterion Collection’s World of Wong Kar-Wai box set presents a cinema in flux.