the grandmaster (2013). directed by wong kar wai.

i am a fan of wong kar wai. so it is perfectly ok with me that a kung fu movie has very little fighting scenes, in fact what he did was trying to show that martial arts is about self restraint and not about using the fighting ability for self interest. i haven't seen wong's work for a while, i think the last was re-watching ashes of time (1994) with my brother a few years ago. so it is nice to be taken into wong's universe again - the place where people say very little but their facial muscles and manners convey the opposite, haunting music follows through the characters' raging emotions with period colors during the war years. 

that floats my boat.  

happy together (1997). directed by wong kar wai.

i watched this movie years ago in the middle of the night, alone. it is one of those nights in which i can't sleep and the only way to pass time is to watch something that would put me to sleep. happy together (1997) ain't that kind of movie. 

i watched my own break up, in motion. painful shit, i tell you. once upon a time. 

 i've bought it for a long time knowing it was wong kar wai's work but i just couldn't find the right time to watch it. it was an absorbing film - while the protagonists are gay men (tony leung and leslie cheung) it is not so much about gay men per se, it is about two people trying to save a disintergrating relationship. they moved from hong kong to beunos aires looking for a reason to fix "them" - from the look of it, a new environment, or rather a change of something external is not exactly the stimulus for an internal change in a relationship. they drifted apart, leung met someone new who is far more stable than cheung. but they are still together, waiting for the final break and nobody wants to call the shot. 

a friend of mine called the end of a relationship as sweet sorrow. this is what it is. when there is no reason to stay, but you are still in it, anyway.

in the mood for love (2000). directed by wong kar wai.

my brother is currently hospitalised on a case of a nasty eye infection due to unhygienic use of contact lenses. his left eye was swollen red and there was pus behind the iris. seriously, yuck. i told him to do away with contact lenses for the rest of his life.

we were talking on the phone as he is convalescing in the hospital and had to be treated with eye drops   every 4 hours. he told me he finally got around to watch wong kar wai's in the mood for love (2000) and he was in awe at how beautiful the film is. it is sadly beautiful, the helplessness of the situation filmed intimately to mirror the inner sorrow of a wronged partner. i love the colours, the music, maggie cheung's flowing red cheong sam - is it a symbol of her anger? tony leung's reticence complements cheung's pain, and they walk hand in hand, paralyzed by their common heartache.

if it's raining outside and a thought of a lost loved one occurs to you, perhaps you can share the feelings here. i can't vouch that you'll feel any better about it, though.

ashes of time (1994). directed by wong kar wai.

wong kar wai shot this film in a time when pantene was nay impossible to be fund in the age where the sun, the desert, camels, renegades and travelling swordsmen were a norm and there was no place for silky, straight flowing hair was at all possible. casted with leslie cheung, the two tony's (leung ka fai and leung chui wai), jackie cheung and female heavyweights such as maggie cheung, carina lau and brigitte lin. everybody is reflecting of what they used to have, yearning for the past to be the future, regretting the past for the time they can not turn back.

life is now. not tomorrow.