WKW ─ The Cinema of Wong Kar Wai

The long-awaited retrospective from the internationally renowned film director celebrated for his visually lush and atmospheric films. Wong Kar Wai is known for his romantic and stylish films that explore—in saturated, cinematic scenes—themes of love, longing, and the burden of memory. His style reveals a fascination with mood and texture, and a sense of place figures prominently. In this volume, the first on his entire body of work, Wong Kar Wai and writer John Powers explore Wong’s complete oeuvre in the locations of some of his most famous scenes.

The book is structured as six conversations between Powers and Wong (each in a different locale), including the restaurant where he shotIn the Mood for Love and the snack bar where he shot Chungking Express. Discussing each of Wong’s eleven films—fromAs Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild to 2046 and The Grandmaster—the conversations also explore Wong’s trademark themes of time, nostalgia, and beauty, and their roots in his personal life.

The first book by Wong Kar Wai, and the first comprehensive look at his oeuvre, this stunning, lavishly illustrated volume is as evocative as walking into one of Wong’s lush films. With more than 250 photographs and film stills and an opening critical essay by Powers, this volume is poised to become the film book of the year.

John Powers is a writer and film critic. Powers covers film and politics forVogue and Vogue.com and is the pop-culture critic and critic-at-large on NPR’sFresh Air with Terry Gross. His work has appeared in numerous publications, includingHarper’s, The Nation, Gourmet, The Washington Post, the New York Times, andL.A. Weekly, where he spent twelve years as a critic and columnist.