So, Wong Kar-Wai’s filmmaking career in China is probably over. I truly don’t know how he gets out of this with his reputation intact.
The slow-burning disaster surrounding “Blossoms Shanghai,” which is supposed to have its North American premiere on The Criterion Channel next month, has now reached a point where it’s hard to see how he recovers from this.
At the center is Gu Er, a little-known screenwriter who says he wrote substantial portions of the ‘Blossoms’ scripts while being paid just ¥3,000 a month—not as a writer, but as Wong Kar-Wai’s personal assistant. According to Gu, he was responsible for everything from script drafts to cooking meals, all while coping with increasingly debilitating ALS symptoms. For three years, he tried to resolve the issue quietly, facing—again, according to him—stonewalling, legal pressure, and attempts to bury his claims.
His patience ran out. And then came the leaked tapes. As the days went on, the releases became significantly more damning. In the later recordings, Wong can be heard talking about setting up a bootcamp for aspiring writers, with the clear implication that he’d then steal their work. Both Wong and Qin can be heard acknowledging that Gu had written most of ‘Blossoms,’ contradicting the official credits entirely. They also make a range of sexist comments about women and about female audiences— remarks that have spread widely across Chinese platforms.
The recordings depict Wong publicly belittling Gu, mocking his condition, and humiliating him for sport, even as Gu’s ALS symptoms worsened. By the time the most recent tapes were released, public opinion in China had decisively turned.
Yet I don’t even think what I’ve written so far is what will get Wong canceled in China. What’s more likely to be the culprit is that the tapes also contain disparaging comments about the Chinese government and its COVID-era policies. Wong reportedly describes the CCP as ‘a greedy one-party state.’ That alone is often enough to end a filmmaker’s mainland career. Combined with the rest, it’s difficult to imagine a path forward for him in China. He is also said to have remarked that the CCP ‘has no compassion’ and ‘only knows how to reap people’s lives like crops.’
What’s bizarre is how quietly this story has landed outside China. The story has tet to tryly travel to Western countries What’s almost certain is that Wong Kar-Wai’s era in Chinese filmmaking may have just ended, and his legacy may never recover from it. Meanwhile, in the West he will continue to be mythologized as the elusive auteur behind “In the Mood for Love” and “Chungking Express.”