World of Wong Kar-Wai
Screening Dates
  • July 17, 2021 8:45
  • July 18, 2021 5:15
  • July 21, 2021 6:30
New Restoration

“A visually exquisite and highly erotic period piece … The one masterpiece [in 2004’s Eros] is Wong Kar-Wai’s moving The Hand.”

Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader

The Hand — presented here in its new, extended, director’s cut version — was Wong Kar-Wai’s contribution to Eros, a three-part anthology film with other segments by Michelangelo Antonioni and Steven Soderbergh. Wong’s piece, the runaway critical favourite, is a sensuous, luxuriant tale of memory and longing (and contagion) in the director’s moody, masterful mode. Mainland megastar Gong Li (seen in Wong’s 2046 the same year) plays a high-end courtesan in early-1960s Hong Kong. Taiwanese actor Chang Chen (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon) is the shy apprentice tailor who becomes erotically obsessed with her. Wong magic-makers Chris Doyle and William Chang were responsible for the ravishing cinematography and divine couture, respectively. The production was disrupted by the SARS epidemic, forcing director and crew to wear masks, wash hands frequently, and avoid close contact. Sound familiar? (A new Wong project, Blossoms, was postponed in 2020 due to COVID-19.) 

Reduced ticket rates in effect for The Hand: $10 General / $9 Student or Senior

“Wong has become one of contemporary cinema’s great sensualists … The Hand seems perfectly continuous with his other work.”

A.O. Scott, New York Times
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