Filmmaker Wong Kar-wai is getting his films restored in 4K ahead of the 20th anniversary of "In the Mood for Love", his most celebrated work till date.
The director said the technology update was important for a better viewing experience as the projections are now done in 4K.
"We've been working on these restorations for a long time. A few years ago I watched my film somewhere, looked at the monitor, and said, 'Why does it look so messy?' They said, 'Now we are used to 4K projections, so you have to upgrade it, otherwise you will have those kind of feelings.'
"We have been working on it. Last year in Lyon, we showed the restored films in front of 5000 audiences, and it looked very, very good. The problem is that it's like opening a Pandora's box, because you will never never feel like it is good enough. You say, It looked better before,' or The colour is not right,' etc. It brings up a lot of pains," Wong told Filmmaker magazine on the sidelines of Hawaii International Film Festival.
The films that are getting 4K restoration include "As Tears Go By" (1988), "Days of Being Wild" (1990), "Chungking Express" (1994), "Ashes of Time" (1994), "Fallen Angels" (1995), "Happy Together" (1997), "In the Mood for Love" (2000), "2046 (2004), My Blueberry Nights (2007), and The Grandmaster (2013).
The celebrated director's next is "Blossoms", a film based on Jin Yucheng's 2013 novel, which follows the lives of three Shanghai residents from the end of China's cultural revolution in the 1960s through their life in America in the 1990s.
"I think the Chinese-American experience has a lot of connections and inference with what's becoming modern China now.
"It's a very interesting history and experience that hasn't been addressed properly, and I think that would be something that would be very interesting to do. That's why we also went to Chinatown here (in Honolulu), because that's the first spot before San Francisco Chinatown."
Wong last directed 2013's "The Grandmaster".
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