Latest news with #InTheMoodForLove
The Star
20-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Star
Hong Kong cinema plans to resurrect its golden age with fresh faces at Cannes
Tony Leung Ka-fai poses for photographers at the photo call for the film 'Sons Of The Neon Night' at the 78th international film festival, Cannes, southern France, Saturday, May 17, 2025. Photo: AP Hong Kong's once world-famous movie industry wants to bring back the heydays of the 1970s to the 1990s by investing in a new generation of directors, the chairman of the city's film development council said at the Cannes Film Festival. "We should not forget our identity. How the people all over the world would look at us when they recognise a Hong Kong movie," said Wilfred Wong, chairman of the council that is mainly responsible for government funding of the industry. Hong Kong cinema exploded in the 1970s with Bruce Lee's martial arts films. Following his death, that mantle was taken up by Jackie Chan. The industry expanded into other genres and became the darling of international film festivals with titles such as In The Mood For Love , Infernal Affairs and Kung Fu Hustle . Stars like Andy Lau, Michelle Yeoh and Maggie Cheung, and directors such as John Woo and Johnnie To, were frequently seen walking on the festival's red carpet. Hong Kong's star started to fade in the 1990s when the former British colony was handed over to China, due to a variety of factors, including overproduction, the Asian financial crisis and talent leaving for Hollywood. With a view to the shrinking industry, investors were unwilling to take a risk on young talent and would only approve productions with well-known stars and directors. Hong Kong's Film Development Council is now looking to address that by financially supporting new directors' first film initiative. The council has in recent years groomed 32 new directors, said Wong. One of those new talents, director and actor Juno Mak, wrote and directed the Cannes out-of-competition film Sons Of The Neon Nights , starring veteran actor Tony Leung Ka-fai. "It's kind of happiness, joy, enjoyable and satisfaction. So we can again show to all the audience and all the people in the world what Hong Kong productions are going on now," Leung Ka-fai said. The 67-year-old actor said that Hong Kong's film industry was in need of new blood. "We need new generations of directors, new generations of actors and actresses, new generations of script writers, new generations of every part that makes this dream," he said. – Reuters
Time Out
29-04-2025
- Entertainment
- Time Out
In pictures: Prada and Wong Kar Wai's glamorous fine dining restaurant in Shanghai
In love with In The Mood For Love? Fans of arthouse director Wong Kar Wai can now step into his alluring and glamorous cinematic world at Mi Shang, Prada's first standalone fine dining restaurant in Asia. Opened on March 31, the restaurant is located in a beautifully restored 1918 mansion and art venue in Shanghai called Rong Zhai, which the Prada Group reopened as a cultural hub in 2017. In actuality, it's more than just a restaurant, with six spaces to explore throughout the massive residence, which comprises a restaurant, pastry shop, lounges, and a terrace. Where Wong Kar Wai's influence takes over is in the interior decor, which has been sourced directly from Prada's vast art collection. Thoughtfully arranged with Chinese antique furniture, Mi Shang perfectly encapsulates the East-meets-West flavour of this collaboration. At Mi Shang Prada Rong Zhai, you can also view a special art exhibition developed by Wong Kar Wai in collaboration with the art brand Duo Yun Xuan. Titled Rising Clouds, Blooming Flowers, it features a series of Shanghai-style woodblock artworks inspired by the director's television series, "Blossoms Shanghai". Mi Shang Prada Rong Zhai is now open to the public from 10am to 10pm daily. You can make reservations for the dining experience via its WeChat mini-program. Before you head down, here's a look into its spaces. The Pastry Shop Savour classic Italian pastries, including cassata, delizia al limone, and tiramisu, created by Diego Crosara, a World Champion pastry chef who is now the Creative Pastry Director of Marchesi 1824, a Prada Group brand. The pastry shop is inspired by Prada's first Milan store, which opened in Galleria Vittorio Emanuele in 1913. The Caffè and The Study Reminiscent of the Shanghai social hubs common in the 1910s to the 1930s, The Caffè is built around an elegant bar counter crafted by the same local artisans who restored the villa's wooden elements. Within is The Study, an intimate space with vibrant wallpaper and antique collectibles. The Library This lounge in the South Wing features a curated collection of books that cover topics such as Chinese crafts, decorative arts, and Italian design. Here's also where you can view an artwork from the Rising Clouds, Blooming Flowers series, crafted by Wong Kar Wai in collaboration with Duo Yun Xuan Art Centre. The Dining Room The heart of Mi Shang, the Dining Room is where Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love and Happy Together aesthetics are the most apparent. For food, expect Italian classics paired with Chinese ingredients, dreamed up by executive chef Lorenzo Lunghi of Ristorante Torre, who has worked in multiple Michelin-starred kitchens, including Ristorante Gambero Rosso and Saturne. The Terrace Ever heard of Arcadia Hall? Opened in 1885, it was a major entertainment venue that enjoyed its heyday in the late 19th and early 20th century. It is reimagined in The Terrace, a breezy, open-air space where visitors can lounge at 1930s Italian bamboo tables and chairs framed by greenery and a colonnade.
South China Morning Post
26-04-2025
- Entertainment
- South China Morning Post
‘Global' Hong Kong mustn't lose sight of its own beauty
Hong Kong doesn't need to chase the sameness of Coldplay concerts and viral trends. It needs to be assured in its own taste This spring, In the Mood for Love is once again flickering on cinema screens in Hong Kong. More than two decades on, Wong Kar-wai's film has lost none of its glow. A meditation on time, restraint and unspoken desire, it quietly signals that Hong Kong once moved to a different rhythm. It is tempting to read this re-release as political, especially in a city where cultural memory has become a muted form of dissent. In truth, the film captures not the colonial past but the emotional present. What draws people to Wong's work is not nostalgia – rather, it's atmosphere, mood or the slow, deliberate pacing of life. Much of In the Mood for Love was filmed in Bangkok, a location chosen not for strict accuracy but for its ability to evoke a Hong Kong that no longer physically existed. That choice says everything: Wong is not archiving the past; he is conjuring up its emotional temperature and memories of fleeting spaces. With projects such as his television series Blossoms Shanghai and his curatorial work for the Prada restaurant in Shanghai, Wong continues to shape mood. Though set in the 1990s, Blossoms often evokes 1920s Shanghai through layered interiors and stained light. Wong insists that beauty does not belong in archives but in daily life: in stairwells, gestures and silence. For the director, Shanghai and Hong Kong are not just cinematic backdrops but emotional landscapes. Born in one city and raised in the other, he embodies haipai – Shanghai style – a cross-cultural current flowing between the two cities. His films trace a rhythm once shared by the cities, carried by migration, commerce and memory. Some of the world's most influential business empires, from China Merchants to Jardine Matheson, are not just headquartered in Hong Kong, they were born or remade here. Many would have begun as modest ventures in a city that offered rare opportunities for growth at the edge of empires. Maggie Cheung in a still from the 25th anniversary edition of In The Mood For Love. Photo: Jet Tone Production The city's commercial rise was never just the product of laissez-faire ideals. It was shaped by family businesses, trading houses and cross-border capital that found in Hong Kong a unique stage. In return, they shaped the city – how people dressed, ate and imagined their place in the world. Newsletter Daily Opinion By submitting, you consent to receiving marketing emails from SCMP. If you don't want these, tick here {{message}} Thanks for signing up for our newsletter! Please check your email to confirm your subscription. Follow us on Facebook to get our latest news. These firms could not have emerged the same way anywhere else. This is not to romanticise capital, but to recognise Hong Kong as a place of reinvention. Today, the critical question is not whether Hong Kong still matters, but whether its influence can shift from efficiency to authorship. If the hands that once shaped its commerce still define its skyline, perhaps they can also help restore a more deliberate kind of beauty. Not branding. Not nostalgia. Not luxury for its own sake, but a textured, intentional authenticity. Adrian Cheng's K11 represented one recent attempt at this, bringing art into retail before the market was ready. The timing was unfortunate. But the aspiration remains compelling: what if a city could feel again? Something seems to be shifting. The popularity of local films like The Last Dance and a renewed interest in tailoring and neon signs are no accident. They reflect a hunger for something more grounded. Global aesthetic slop, homogenised, packaged and served with algorithmic precision, is wearing thin. As conspicuous consumption evolves, catching a Coldplay concert has become social currency; that too says something about the city. Chris Martin at Coldplay's concert at the Kai Tak Stadium on April 9. Photo: Harvey Kong Hong Kong does not need to chase sameness. It needs to remember and be assured in its own taste, whether it's smoke curling up from incense coils at Man Mo Temple, chandeliers glittering at the Peninsula, or red plastic stools gleaming under fluorescent light. These are not trends, but texture – identity, even. And there are ways to carry them forward without flattening them into another viral design language. Hong Kong can still absorb global influences and express them in a vocabulary that feels local and lived in, as it once did. It shouldn't need to mimic the next trending aesthetic to matter. It should let its inheritance evolve into something alive. To return to Wong, the point is not to look back, but inwards, asking what kind of future knows how to feel deeply. Policy can support this shift. The aesthetic life is not a luxury but a civic resource. Private-public partnerships might seed a film archive in Sai Ying Pun or fund apprenticeships in Cantonese opera and letterpress. There could even be another Hong Kong-Shanghai cultural corridor – to give the next generation tools to see. Business once sculpted Hong Kong. It can set the city's cultural pulse racing again. Bring back the neon. Bring back the stories. Bring back the belief that living beautifully is still possible – not for old times' sake, but for a future that remembers how to see.
