Love & Neon: The Cinema of Wong Kar-Wai

Overview

It's impossible to watch a movie directed by Wong Kar-Wai and mistake it for the work of another filmmaker. As he has kept proving over his 32-year career to-date, his work is just that distinctive. And while the opposite isn't true, either — no one will ever confuse a movie helmed by someone else for one of Wong's efforts — his influence on cinema and his peers is evident in every neon-hued tale of yearning, every mesmerising and aching love story that says as much through its imagery as it does with dialogue, and plenty of martial arts fare as well.

Wong makes films to luxuriate in — to truly feast your eyes upon — and, unsurprisingly, Sydney Film Festival and the Australian Centre for the Moving Image want to celebrate that fact, and his work. Accordingly, they're teaming up to present touring program Love & Neon: The Cinema of Wong Kar-Wai. It showcases 11 of the filmmaker's titles, surveying his entire career, and will screen in Sydney from Saturday, January 16–Sunday, January 31 at the Art Gallery of New South Wales and also from Tuesday, January 19–Thursday, February 18 at Dendy Newtown.

In the Mood for Love is on the bill, of course, but it isn't the only movie worth checking out on the silver screen. You can also see his debut feature As Tears Go By; Chungking Express, which is inspired by a Haruki Murakami short story; and the touching Happy Together — plus, the rebellious Days of Being Wild, the gorgeous 2046, and Wong's first English-language film My Blueberry Nights. Or, there's also his two martial arts epics: Ashes of Time: Redux and The Grandmaster.

You'll be watching restored versions of most of the above, too, including glorious 4K restorations.