WORLD CINEMA

Name: Chung Wai Kiat

Id: 2015050254

Couse: Film and TV Production

I would like to choose 90’s HONG KONG film director as my topic of my final assignment. The reason of me to choose this topic is because I want to do research about it and I watch Hong Kong‘s film grown up so I am so interested on this topic and I believe that Hong Kong film influences me to the film industry. I will go watch two Hong Kong director’s movies and compare their work. I may not choose all movie to watch but I would prefer those won award, famous and have high box office‘s movie.  The director that I choose is Wong Kar Wai and John Woo .In this proposal, you can compare both of the director’s style and who is better.

Wong Kar Wai

-born in 17 July 1958, Shanghai, China. He moved to Hong Kong when he is 5 years old.

- I have seen few movie of wong kar wai, such as Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, In The Mood of Love, Happy Together and The Grandmaster.

- In my opinion, Wong always change his style to deliver the story to the audience like there are more movement in the Chungking Express but there are less movement in  In the Mood of Love but there is few things that you often can see in his movie.

- The theme for most of his movies is romance or the love, betrayal and lonely of people in his movie. His movie mostly state that the lack of communication between people nowadays and the fear of people reject or rejected by someone else. If you can notice, you will found out that his movie is always more concentrate on the two character only (the lover) because almost three quarter of the entire movie is about the two characters.

-Secondly, in his movie he always show the two character cross path to each other in the same scene but different time to show that the fate can just pass by(In the Mood of Love). Besides, the editing part of his movies, he likes to straight cut to another scene suddenly without any tip but he never shows the time had already pass by so audience sometimes will hard to notice it. He always use the character’s monologue to tell the audience what had happened or the time had passed by. The character is also always do the same thing, repeat the same dialogue many times

-Then, his movie‘s editing part like to confused the audience, he will put some scene that nothing relate to his movie or the continuous scene but he managed to done it well because he will using the dialog or the classical music to relate or combine all these scene together and so he also been called as the music video director. The music that he had choose is very suitable for the movie and let the audience feel like been to that period.

-For the camera part, he likes to use handheld camera to shooting especially in the Chungking Express, Days of Being Wild and Happy Together but the camera is more silent in the movie In the Mood of Love. The filming angle of his movie is always special than the other director and the give me the most deep impression is he reverse the camera to shoot the Hong Kong street in the movie Happy Together.

-The composition of his scene is always rich because he will using the background or foreground to create rich composition. His movie scene look atheistic, the reason is because he obtaining a diploma in graphic design from the Hong Kong Polytechnic School in 1980.

- The storyline of most of his movie has no storyline because he do not focusing on the story like the other director but he more focusing on what the character thinks and how the story goes on if he stands on the angle of the character, what do the character see and what will the character do . The character of most of his movie is lonely and decadent. So, Wong is using a character to tell a story instead using a story to tell a character. Wong also does not state the story clear is because he want to show things can be seen in different way not only from one angle. Most of his character is very lonely and eager to love.

-Slow motion is also an one of the icon in his movie but the more significant is he like to decrease the frame rate and tell the actor do the action slower than the normal and make the 24 frame per second (fps), 3 frame per unit but cut out the next 2 frame, that’s can show that the actor is moving normal but the surrounding look very blur and Can highlight the main body, strengthen the sense of movement to create the lonely and strong movement feeling.

-Furthermore, in his movie time or date is also become a significant in his movie because he always use it for most of his movie. Example, in In the Mood of Love and Days of Being Wild is show the clock. Besides, in the other movie like Chungking Express and Ashes of Time, the character’s monologue must include the date or the time.

- The last one is that every of his movie must have the classic monologue. Example,in the Days of Being Wild, Leslie Chung had said :

“I heard someone say this world there is no foot of a bird, it can only have been Fly Fly, fly get tired, they sleep inside in the wind, the bird life can only come down to earth again, and there it is again the time of death.”

Influences

Martin Scorsese- Taxi Driver

Wong Kar Wai is influenced by Martin Scorsese very well, there are few evidence

-In the beginning of the movie, Taxi Driver, Martin uses the gazzling image to show the colorful street or the fast-paced world in the movie same as Wong use in the Chungking Express but he managed to improved it with his own style because he add the technique I had state above.

- Next, Wong shoot the scene of street in the movie, Happy Together is also same as Martin. Martin putting the camera in the car and pass by.

- There is also a scene in the movie that Travis driving in the tunnel and the tunnel is used by Wong Kar Wai in the last scene of the movie, The Fallen of Angle.

- I also noticed that the colour of the background they used is also the same, is blur and more focussing on the character and is very colourful.

- Besides, both of them also like to use time and date in the movie. Example, Travis monologue itself state that May 10^th he is writing his diary and he had working for a long time.

- The character of both of their movie is also doing the same things everyday repeatly, Travis is cleaning the taxi every time he return the taxi.

- Slow motion is also used by him, the last scene that Travis killed people and sit there waiting for the police, he was using slow motion tracking shot.

John Woo

-        Born in 22 September 1948, Guangzhou, China.

-        The movie that had seen is A Better Tomorrow, Hard Boiled, Red Cliff 1&2.

   After watch these few movies, there is a few similarity in his movie:

In his movie, you sure can find out there are the bird flying, mostly is pigeon. Example, in the movie Red Cliff, the Shun Shang Xiang is using the pigeon to communicate with Zhu Ge-liang and Zhou Yu. In the movie, Hard Boiled, he also shows some close up of the bird in the beginning (restaurant that the bird lover gather). So, the bird is becoming one of his symbolic icon in his movie.

The second that can be notice is most of his movie is action movie, he made the comedy movie also in his early career but he face the problem by the mid of 1980s until 1986 he finally meet a chance to direct a movie that change his life, A Better Tomorrow and most of his movie is full of violence and combination of man’s romantic. So, he called Aesthetics of Violence Godfather by the audience. His movie is not just about action but he also focus on the relationship and loyalty between the man.

The character of his movie most of them is belong to justice and the good rewarded, evil with evil. In his movie, he prefer more heroism in the character because he lived in the surrounding that not well when he is a kid.

Besides, slow motion is also one of his symbolic icon in his movie. He likes to use slow motion in his action scene. In my opinion, he likes to use a long shot first then slow motion close up then different angle long shot of the another subject then back to the long shot of the main character for the editing part but all of them is continuous or link to the frame of the after .John influenced by Sam Peckinpah. Example, in the movie name The Wild Bunch, the action scene is also using slow motion when shoot by someone.

The Comparison between Wong Kar-Wai and John Woo

  Wong Kar Wai and John Woo are two different style of director, one is more silence and the other is more action. One of them is often making love story and another is action movie, but both of them is telling a story about the relationship between people. Both of them have their own strong point and weak point. If want to choose the most director that I admire, I prefer Wong Kar Wai .

  In my opinion, Wong is better than John because of few point. Firstly, the storytelling skill of him is better than John, this is because Wong is using the angle of camera, the colour used and the music to tell the story instead of just using the normal storyline to tell the story like John did but the most important is he is telling the story by the character’s inner world. This is where he is better because he look deeper or focus on the character. The angle of he using is more exquisite than John because he will using more time to produce a movie but there is some part that I don’t like that much. Example, in Chungking Express, there is two storyline but I think the first storyline is unnecessary because he does not really tell the story well or I cannot understand. So, he should concentrate on the second storyline and elaborate it.

   The storyline of both director is also very different. Wong’s story is simpler but meaningful and more realistic to our real life because most of them is improvise suddenly by him from his father experience because his father was working in the night club. In the other side, john’s story is more common, is just how a hero defeat the bad guys. This is where he lose to Wong because he do not connotation enough. The storyline of him always contain some humor inside because he made comedy before this and this is also one of the reason his movie is more popular compare to Wong’s. Wong is not that good in this and he should improve this because some scene of him is not easily understand by audience and easily feel bored. Example, in the movie Ashes of Time, in the beginning of the movie the two character is moving very fast and I can’t even see what is he doing then suddenly explode although I understand as a fighting scene but he should take it more exquisite like his latest movie, The Grandmaster.

  However, Wong’s editing skill is obviously weaker than John Woo because his footage is always cannot link to each other but the opponent, John had managed to edit well than Wong because before John Woo become director, he had learn the editing skill from the senior of his company when he is working as movie slate. Example, in his movie Hard Boiled, there is a scene that make me have deep impression. Tequilla is aiming the bullet that he put in the hole of a paip he made to open the door, he is aiming then take a deep breath then shoot. In this scene, John first take a frontier medium shot of Tequilla then cut to the bullet scene, pull out zoom shot then back to the medium shot then show the close up of his nervous hand then suddenly he increase the beat of the edit, he fast cut to his medium shot from different angle and the pull out zoom long shot of him and the bullet fastly then finally show the explosion. The scene really did make me feel the nervous and how cool is Chow Yun Fatt (Tequilla) is but that does not mean that Wong cannot managed to link the movie because he very smart by using the music to link like I had state above.

  There is also a scene of the movie Hard Boiled that I like the most, the scene that Chow Yun Fatt and Tony Leung is fighting with the bad guys in the hospital. In this scene, John had use long take and handheld camera to shoot that scene. The scene is 2 minutes and 42 seconds long. That scene makes me feel like I am in the fighting scene. However, Wong’s camera work is better than John. Most of John’s camera is normal but Wong’s is more special like I had state above. The image of his movie is very beautiful. John’s explosion or action scene is better than Wong’s. The scene of most of his movie is very grand so the audience is more enjoy the movie than Wong’s movie and this causes the box office of John is higher because it is more excited and entertain compare to Wong’s movie. Besides, the slow motion scene John is also very good in it but Wong’s is not bad also. In Wong’s latest movie, The Grandmaster, the slow motion is used in the action scene and you can see that Wong’s take the slow motion more exquisite than John’s and he improvise it with his own style, undercranked shot  or decrease the fps. The style of them is totally different, one is more atheistic and the other is more commercial.

  The character in Wong’s movie is more lonely and negative but for John’s character is more positive or a hero that save the weak. The character in John’s movie is mostly concentrate on the loyalty and friendship or brotherhood between men. John is more fantasy because he knows there are not many hero in the world but everyone want to become a hero. The character that he made is also good because he create a hero that not just saving the beauty or having any superhero power like the usual story before. Wong is more concentrate on the relationship between a couple and how their inner world is. The reason Wong is better is because the character is more real in the life that can touch my heart and sometimes I may have some resonate with the character.

Conclusion

 As conclusion, although both of the director have their own strength and weakness but I like Wong Kar Wai’s movie more than John Woo because John’s movie is not realistic enough. Example, in the movie, A Better Tomorrow 1 and 2, the main character Chow Yun Fatt is not dying or won’t die so easily although he already shot by someone. The people he shoot is absolutely die but the bad guys hard to kill them. Besides, the bullet they using is many look like infinity and the explosion scene is so over. The more important is that John is more concentrate on the action scene than the story. The whole movie, Hard Boiled is almost half of the movie is just action. So, that is the reason why I choose Wong Kar Wai as my favourite director. Thank you.