(中文版在下面)
Re-watching films is beset with emotional risk. Some movies age badly, fail to live up to memories of genius, and leave you wishing you had never touched them again. Others double down in significance, becoming ever more brilliant, and startle with their clairvoyance – the mysterious ability they had to tell the future.
Where do the films of Wong Kai-wai lie? With several of his films restored in 4K for the recent Hong Kong Film Festival, moviegoers packed the Hong Kong Cultural Centre to revisit the auteur’s masterpieces.
Yet for all their visual splendor, a back-to-back screening of In the Mood for Love [花樣年華] and Happy Together [春光乍洩] also offered a fair amount of nostalgia, sand despite being filmed more than 20 years ago, a large dose of eerie future vision as well.
Happy Together, released in 1997, the year of Hong Kong’s handover to China, is the story of Lai Yiu-fai (Tony Leung) and Ho Po-wing (Leslie Cheung) looking to rebuild their damaged relationship in Buenos Aires, Argentina, and battling failure every inch of the way.
The movie opens with the two men’s British National Overseas (BNO) passports being stamped, a small detail that struck a chord with the audience, many of whom undoubtedly hold BNO passports and have been affected in some way by moves to invalidate the travel document.
As the two characters struggle through migratory existence, the parallels between their plight to hold on to identity could not have been clearer in a city where many are now deciding what to do with their future, and indeed, besieged by conflicts about what being a Hong Konger actually means.
At the heart of the film is a question: where is home? That is Hong Kong in 2021, encapsulated to a tee. In the Mood for Love (2000) sees Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) form a bond as they suspect their partners are being unfaithful on them, with one another.
The audience witnesses this tragedy unfurl through the lens of old Hong Kong during the 1960s, with all its grandeur, energy, industriousness and hope, that only the golden era of a city can bring. Yet in that period was the chaos of Hong Kong’s Communist Riots in 1967; in a scene where Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) tries to find Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) at her old residence, a newly moved in tenant declares that the city is too chaotic and many people are emigrating.
The parallel of this in today’s uncertainties is unnerving, and for the audience, it prompted many a gasp of surprise, sadness and maybe even anxiety. Twenty years ago, it was a detail, much like the BNO passports in Happy Together, that we might have missed.
Now, it is uncannily prescient.
從王家衛看未來
王家衛的電影又屬於哪一種呢？近日，幾套由王家衛執導的電影完成4K數碼修復工程，並再次搬上香港文化中心的大銀幕，吸引一眾電影愛好者蜂擁而至，重新欣賞這位電影大師的大作。
翻煲電影總會掀起種種情感。好些電影翻睇後總覺得與回憶有出入，越睇越不堪入目，最後落得「早知唔睇好過」的結論。相反，有些電影越嗒越有味道，有種「早就將世事看透」的預言能力，讓人嘖嘖稱奇。
《花樣年華》及《春光乍洩》兩部經典，20載後雙雙重新上映，視覺效果華麗依然，不過真正引人入勝的，是那份情懷，以及幾乎令人毛骨悚然的未來預視感。
《春光乍洩》於1997年上映時正值香港回歸，故事講述黎耀輝（梁朝偉飾）及何寶榮（張國榮飾）於布宜諾斯艾利斯的旅程，二人爭執過後嘗試修補關係的道路上所面對的種種掙扎。
電影以兩人的BNO被蓋上印章揭開序幕，在今日爭相續領BNO，然而又被宣佈不再承認BNO的港人心中，一個簡單細節更是觸動著觀眾的神經。
故事二人面對身在異鄉的掙扎，那份對身份認同的困惑，恰恰成為現今港人的寫照，與不少港人正思考未來去向以及香港人身份的現況相映成趣。
「家歸何處？」是這兩套電影所探討的核心，亦正正是2021年香港人的寫照。在《花樣年華》（2001）中，周慕雲（梁朝偉飾）與蘇麗珍（張曼玉飾）因各自懷疑伴侶不忠，最後兩人亦互相暗生情愫。
主角兩人之間的悲劇以香港60年代作為背景，電影將其描述為一個充滿輝煌、活力、勤奮、希望的黃金時期，但當時香港正處於六七暴動的動盪之中，就如周慕雲（梁朝偉飾）嘗試在蘇麗珍（張曼玉飾）的舊居尋找她的一幕之中，新住客就表明「而家咁亂，走得嘅仲唔走咩！」
兩套電影「神預言」今日眾人所面對的各種不確定，貼切程度不禁令人不寒而慄，亦勾起了觀眾一次又一次的驚訝、傷感，甚至焦慮之感。20年前，我們錯過的，可能就是像《春光乍洩》中的BNO那麼含蓄的細節。
那，才是真正的神預言。
Drunken master 