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Director Wong Kar-wai's elusive masterpiece 'The Hand'

2023年6月20日 19:16

In 2022, we witnessed the fervor for director Wong Kar-wai's work once again with the 'Wong Kar-wai 4K' collection of five films ('Chungking Express', 'Fallen Angels', 'Happy Together', 'In the Mood for Love', '2046') and 'Days of Being Wild'. Now, a special screening of his short film 'The Hand' has been decided!
Moreover, this is a special long version that adds 12 minutes of previously unreleased footage to the 44-minute runtime from its 2005 release.
'The Hand' was one of three short films in the 2005 omnibus film 'Eros', consisting of Wong Kar-wai's 'The Hand' (Eros's Pure Love), Steven Soderbergh's 'Equilibrium' (Eros's Prank), and Michelangelo Antonioni's 'The Dangerous Thread of Things' (Eros's Temptation).
What a truly magnificent lineup.
The common theme was 'Eros', and the main theme song was Caetano Veloso's 'Michelangelo Antonioni'. (Speaking of Caetano Veloso, that's 'Cucurrucucú Paloma' from the opening scene of 'Happy Together'!)

'The Hand' Synopsis
1960s, Hong Kong. A young tailor's apprentice named Zhang meets and becomes captivated by the beautiful high-class call girl Hua. Zhang continues to make dresses for her for many years, but...

From distributor materials

Gong Li is superb, Chang Chen is sublime, and Wong Kar-wai is perverse and the best.

It is no exaggeration to say that this is a Gong Li film.

Hua, the high-class call girl, is aware of her beauty and charm and has high pride, but she is also a woman who is somewhat impatient and fragile.
I believe Gong Li is an actress who can express not just beauty but also raw humanity, and the sex appeal that oozes out in this film is truly captivating.
And the qipao (cheongsam) that further highlights Gong Li's beauty!
Beautiful qipaos also appeared in 'In the Mood for Love' and '2046'. This time, they appear as garments worn by a call girl, solely to adorn herself.
With see-through materials, embroidery, and sequins, they are chic yet glamorous and elegant designs.
I want you to enjoy the excellence of Gong Li wearing these on the big screen!
I felt a sense of karma in how the sorrow of her eventual downfall only serves to bring out her beauty even more.

If Monica Bellucci is the treasure of Europe, then there is no doubt that Gong Li is the treasure of Asia.

Chang Chen delivers a masterful performance opposite Gong Li!

He later said in an interview that co-starring with Gong Li in this film influenced his mindset as an actor.
He portrays how Zhang's presence gradually becomes a hope and support for Hua with a convincing, sublime visual performance. Through his pomaded hair and classical suits, one can read his growth from a boy to a man and his deepening love.
In the role of Zhang, who has extremely few lines, every look, breath, expression, posture, and movement expresses a pure and single-minded love for Hua, and I feel that Chang Chen broke out of his shell as an actor through this role.
Especially in the final scene, there is a sense of awe in that fleeting expression as if waking from a dream.
I was dissatisfied with his limited screen time in '2046', but thanks to 'The Hand', it was not only offset but positively upgraded!

Chang Chen tends to play men who are a bit off, as he is single-minded and his love is too heavy, such as stabbing his lover out of jealousy in '2046' or harboring one-sided romantic feelings after being treated kindly just once in 'The Grandmaster'. I want him to be happy soon.

This is the highest concentration of Wong Kar-wai's work, as if the 60s trilogy ('Days of Being Wild', 'In the Mood for Love', '2046') had been condensed and boiled down!

Perhaps because 'The Hand' is a short film, it has fewer of the implications or ambiguous timelines and scenes found in his previous works, and I think the story is simple and relatively easy to understand.
Because of that, the Wong Kar-wai style is filled directly and in high concentration throughout the work, so the watchability and satisfaction might be greater than a feature-length film.
The scenes added as part of the special long version were so great they made me recoil. Do you really use food like that?
Zhang painstakingly tailors dresses for Hua that she wears for other men. The way it is filmed to make the audience feel both cruelty and exhilaration is masterful.
There are no nude scenes or direct sensual depictions, and the desire to touch is suppressed at the very last moment; I thought this was 'Eros' for Wong Kar-wai.
I want director Wong Kar-wai to shoot another short film.

The torrential rain scene is present this time as well.
I was curious if Hong Kong really has that many days of heavy rain, so I looked it up and it was thunderstorms every day for 10 days from 6/20 to 6/29...

Thoughts on the relationship with '2046'

Su Li-zhen, played by Gong Li in '2046', always wears gloves, and the reason remains a mystery. There is a description that it seems to be related to her past.
The original title of 'The Hand' is 'The Hand', and the hand is an important point in the story.
The 'hand' common to both works. I end up thinking that Su Li-zhen's past might be Hua from 'The Hand'... like a multiverse that branched off somewhere.
This depth, which makes you pick up on various scenes and think about them, wondering if it might be so or not, is one of the charms of Wong Kar-wai's works.

Maybe 'multiverse' is a convenient word!?

Please see this elusive masterpiece in theaters, which has been difficult to watch for a long time as the DVD went out of print!
(It is included as a bonus on the recently released '2046' 4K restored Blu-ray.)
It is a must-see for those who were captivated by Wong Kar-wai again at last year's 'WKW4K', as well as those who are watching his work for the first time.
We look forward to seeing you there!!

'The Hand Long version'
6/23–6/29 1) 12:25–13:25 《1-week limited screening》