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Lifestyle/ Entertainment

Wong Kar-wai’s filmmaking stalls, with Amazon series nixed and Shanghai-set Blossom film and series on hold

  • Hong Kong director’s hotly anticipated Amazon series Tong Wars has been ‘cancelled for some time’, sources say, and never even began filming
  • Shooting in China of Wong’s film and series Blossoms, a follow-up to In The Mood For Love, has been delayed, like all shoots there, by coronavirus outbreak
Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai. His Amazon series Tong Wars has reportedly been cancelled, and shooting in China of his Chinese-language film and series Blossoms, a follow-up to In The Mood For Love, postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak. Photo: AFP

Hotly anticipated projects from award-winning Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai have either been cancelled or delayed.

Sources with ties to the director say his Amazon television show Tong Wars has been “cancelled for some time” and another project, a Chinese-language feature film and series, Blossoms, has been postponed because of the coronavirus outbreak.

Neither Amazon or Hong Kong’s Jet Tone films, which produces Wong’s films, have responded to requests for comment, but it appears both projects have stalled.

Wong is Hong Kong’s most renowned living filmmaker. Through films such as Chungking Express (1994) and In the Mood for Love (2000), he created his own aesthetic and put a new brand of Hong Kong movie on the map for a generation of cinephiles.

In the Mood for Love, starring Maggie Cheung (left) and Tony Leung, was one of Wong’s most critically acclaimed films. Blossoms is reported to be a follow-up to it. Photo: Universal Pictures
In the Mood for Love, starring Maggie Cheung (left) and Tony Leung, was one of Wong’s most critically acclaimed films. Blossoms is reported to be a follow-up to it. Photo: Universal Pictures

In September 2017, Wong signed a deal with Amazon to produce a series set in 19th century San Francisco called Tong Wars. The series would be filmed in the Californian city and would deal with the gang wars that tore apart its Chinatown at the turn of the 20th century.

No filming was ever carried out for the project, it has been reported, and it now appears Amazon has nixed the series without announcing its cancellation. A spokesman did confirm to Screen Daily that the company had relinquished its rights to the story.

Maggie Cheung in a scene from In The Mood For Love (2000). Photo: Jet Tone Films
Maggie Cheung in a scene from In The Mood For Love (2000). Photo: Jet Tone Films

Wong was also working on a feature-length Chinese-language film called Blossoms based on the 2012 novel of the same name by Jin Yucheng. The project was first announced when the director received an honorary award from the Hong Kong Screenwriters Guild in March 2019, and it was widely reported that the work was to be a “follow-up” to In the Mood for Love.

The film is something of a passion project for Wong, and would mark his long-anticipated return to Shanghai, the city where he was born. Wong has reportedly been working on the script for the film for more than six years.

Blossoms, which tells the story of the Chinese economic boom of the 1990s, was delayed last year when Wong entered into a deal with Chinese online entertainment giant Tencent to produce a web series of the same name to precede the release of the film.

Now shooting for the film and series, like all other shoots in China, has been put on hold because of the coronavirus outbreak centred on Wuhan. Filming is expected to resume as soon as the health emergency in China has passed.

Brigitte Lin in a still from Wong’s popular Chungking Express (1994). Photo: Jet Tone Production
Brigitte Lin in a still from Wong’s popular Chungking Express (1994). Photo: Jet Tone Production

Wong’s name is still attached to Paradise Guesthouse, a web series for China’s Huanxi Media consisting of a dozen 45-minute episodes revolving around the female owner of a guest house in coastal China.

That series was announced in 2016. Production was slated to begin in the first half of last year but the show’s status remains unclear.