BEIJING, Nov 25 — When it comes to Hong Kong cinema, Wong Kar Wai is one of its defining names but his stellar work comes with a far less-than-stellar reputation.
Wong has been said to be difficult to work with many stories circulating online about his poor treatment of cast and crew on his films.
The late Leslie Cheung even declared he would no longer work with Wong after a terrible experience on Happy Together.
South Korean actress Song Hye-kyo claimed that Wong tried to take her passport to prevent her from leaving China during the shooting of the film Grandmaster.
Yet even after decades of these stories going around Wong remained in demand as a director but that might soon end, in China at least after an aggrieved writer released a series of damning audio recordings on Weibo.
According to What’s on Weibo, the audio was uploaded on Weibo by screenwriter Cheng Junnian who goes by the online name Gu Er in a post on his WeChat account.
Cheng accused Wong and Blossoms Shanghai lead writer Qin Wen of exploitation, including assigning him work but not crediting him as a writer on Blossoms, instead he gets only a small mention in the film’s credits as a production editor.
In one of the recordings, Wong can be heard criticising the China government’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic, saying among other things: “This kind of chaos only happens in a greedy one-party state.”
While his CCP critique could likely spell the director’s career death knell in China, the other audio recordings, if real, also paint a sordid picture of the auteur’s lack of respect for various actors and industry names.
For instance, Wong in the recordings made sexual comments about actress Jin Jing’s body with lead writer Qin Win only laughing in response.
In response the Blossoms production team has accused Cheng of “malicious editing and distortion,” casting aspersions on the legitimacy of the recordings.
The recordings have already been scrubbed from the official account but they have already been circulating online far from the purview of China’s diligent censors.
What next for Wong? He has so far remained silent about the scandal even as his latest film Blossoms Shanghai has been getting good press otherwise.
Time will tell if this will all blow over.
