How seeing In the Mood for Love and meeting its art director William Chang changed this creative director’s life
- Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love showed a different side of Chinese culture, and Ruth Chao was blown away by the art direction
- When she later had the chance to work with the film’s art director, William Chang Suk-ping, it was a dream come true
A visually ravishing masterpiece of moody atmospherics and unconventional, fragmentary storytelling, director Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love (2000) was a landmark cinematic production, not just in Hong Kong, but globally.
Ruth Chao, founder of Hong Kong creative agency Ruth Chao Studio, tells Richard Lord how the film, and its art director, William Chang Suk-ping, changed her life.
I saw the film when I was 12 or 13. It was the age of DVDs, and I just found it, put it in the machine and watched it by myself.
As a child, I didn’t remember that much of the story. But it looked completely different from the rest of Hong Kong cinema. It was a new aesthetic experience – how great and how tasteful everything was. All the tiny details together made the storytelling experience so different and unique. There were all these slow-moving, almost dreamy sequences. I remember the feeling of that – like you’re in a beautiful dream.
I love how it celebrates Chinese culture. As a child, I hadn’t seen culture presented this way. It had been all kung fu, Bruce Lee – all very pumped up. This was a tasteful, beautiful, alternative interpretation of our culture.
