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The vivid memory-scapes of Hong Kong master Wong Kar Wai

Tanjil Rashid on the vivid memory-scapes of Hong Kong master Wong Kar Wai

17 July 2021

9:00 AM

17 July 2021

9:00 AM

The films of Wong Kar Wai are a kind of map of Hong Kong. In them the city becomes a magnificent metropolis of missed connections, a tempestuous port where ill-fated lovers cross paths like ships in the night. And Wong has filmed the city from so many angles, with such spatial precision, that if the People’s Republic were ever to grow impatient with the territory’s seditious tendencies and raze it to the ground, Hong Kong could be reconstructed, flawlessly, from Wong’s films alone.

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The Wong Kar Wai retrospective runs at the BFI and ICA until 29 July.

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