Last year, Wong Kar-Wai released the TV series “Blossoms” in China. The show was a whopping 30 episodes of around 50 minutes each — totaling to about 25 hours of television. This was good news for Wong fans, but there’s still no U.S. distribution for “Blossoms,” and I am wondering who would be willing to handle such an ambitious project — Mubi?
When it was announced five years ago, “Blossoms” was supposed to be Wong’s next film, but it then morphed into a TV series. This was an adaptation of Jin Yuchen’s novel of the same name and it received mostly positive reviews in China.
With that said, it’s been 10 years since Wong’s last feature, which would be the Wuxai action epic “The Grandmaster,” starring Ziyi Zhang. Much like 2007’s “Blueberry Nights,” it garnered mixed reviews upon release.
Cineuropa and Variety recently reported that French Couture giant Saint Laurent, which recently launched a feature-film production banner, will be helming Wong’s next film. No other details, plot, casting or otherwise, were given except that it’s currently in development.
The 64-year-old-director has been in a bit of a funk of late, it started with his first foray in English-language, 2007’s "My Blueberry Nights," which starred, of all people, singer-songwriter Norah Jones as the lead and played more like a greatest hits of his better and more rewarding films.
Nobody, and I do mean nobody, was as hot as Wong Kar-wai in the ‘90s world cinema scene. During that time he went on a historic stretch of films: “Days of Being Wild,” "Chungking Express," "Fallen Angels," "Happy Together," and, the peak, "In the Mood For Love." He followed the latter up with a sequel titled "2046," which, as it stands, is the last acclaimed film he's released, almost 20 years ago.
Some believe that Wong hasn’t been the same since he parted ways with longtime DP Christopher Doyle in the early aughts. In a way, the critical success of their ‘90s and ‘00s films was very much due in part to the iconic cinematography. We’ll see if Wong can break out of his artistic dry spell.