Search  for anything...

World of Wong Kar Wai (the Criterion Collection) [Blu-ray]

  • Based on 998 reviews
Condition: New
Checking for product changes
$120.48 Why this price?

Buy Now, Pay Later


As low as $20.08 / mo
  • – 6-month term
  • – No impact on credit
  • – Instant approval decision
  • – Secure and straightforward checkout

Ready to go? Add this product to your cart and select a plan during checkout. Payment plans are offered through our trusted finance partners Klarna, PayTomorrow, Apple Pay, and PayPal. No-credit-needed leasing options through Acima may also be available at checkout.

Learn more about financing & leasing here.

Selected Option

Free shipping on this product

This item is eligible for return within 30 days of receipt

To qualify for a full refund, items must be returned in their original, unused condition. If an item is returned in a used, damaged, or materially different state, you may be granted a partial refund.

To initiate a return, please visit our Returns Center.

View our full returns policy here.


Availability: In Stock.
Fulfilled by Amazon

Arrives Monday, May 6
Order within 10 hours and 31 minutes
Available payment plans shown during checkout

Format: Blu-ray March 23, 2021


Description

With his lush and sensual visuals, pitch-perfect soundtracks, and soulful romanticism, Wong Kar Wai has established himself as one of the defining auteurs of contemporary cinema. Joined by such key collaborators as cinematographer Christopher Doyle; editor and production and costume designer William Chang Suk Ping; and actors Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Maggie Cheung Man Yuk, Wong (or WKW, as he is often known) has written and directed films that have enraptured audiences and critics worldwide and inspired countless other filmmakers with their poetic moods and music, narrative and stylistic daring, and potent themes of alienation and memory. Whether they’re tragically romantic, soaked in blood, or quirkily comedic, the seven films collected here are an invitation into the unique and wistful world of a deeply influential artist. Seven-Blu-ray Special Edition Collector’s Set Features • New 4K digital restorations of Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love and 2046, approved by director Wong Kar Wai, with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio soundtracks • New 4K digital restorations of As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild, with uncompressed monaural soundtracks • New program in which Wong answers questions submitted, at the invitation of the director, by authors André Aciman and Jonathan Lethem; filmmakers Sofia Coppola, Rian Johnson, Lisa Joy, and Chloé Zhao; cinematographers Philippe Le Sourd and Bradford Young; and filmmakers and founders/creative directors of Rodarte Kate and Laura Mulleavy • Alternate version of Days of Being Wild featuring different edits of the film’s prologue and final scenes, on home video for the first time • Hua yang de nian hua, a 2000 short film by Wong • Extended version of The Hand, a 2004 short film by Wong, available in the U.S. for the first time • Interview and “cinema lesson” with Wong from the 2001 Cannes Film Festival • Three making-of documentaries, featuring interviews with Wong; actors Maggie Cheung Man Yuk, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Chang Chen, Faye Wong, and Ziyi Zhang; and others • Episode of the television series Moving Pictures from 1996 featuring Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle • Interviews from 2002 and 2005 with Doyle • Excerpts from a 1994 British Film Institute audio interview with Cheung on her work in Days of Being Wild • Program from 2012 on In the Mood for Love’s soundtrack • Press conference for In the Mood for Love from the 2000 Toronto International Film Festival • Deleted scenes, alternate endings, behind-the-scenes footage, a promo reel, music videos, and trailers • Plus: Deluxe packaging, including a perfect- bound, French-fold book featuring lavish photography, an essay by critic John Powers, a director’s note, and six collectible art prints as tears go by Wong Kar Wai’s scintillating debut feature is a kinetic, hypercool crime thriller graced with flashes of the impressionistic, daydream visual style for which he would become renowned. Set amid Hong Kong’s ruthless, neon-lit gangland underworld, this operatic saga of ambition, honor, and revenge stars Andy Lau Tak Wah as a small-time mob enforcer who finds himself torn between a burgeoning romance with his ailing cousin (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk, in the first of her iconic collaborations with the director) and his loyalty to his loose- cannon partner in crime (Jacky Cheung Hok Yau), whose reckless attempts to make a name for himself unleash a spiral of violence. Marrying the pulp pleasures of the gritty Hong Kong action drama with hints of the head-rush romanticism Wong would push to intoxicating heights throughout the 1990s, As Tears Go By was a box-office smash that heralded the arrival of one of contemporary cinema’s most electrifying talents. Days of being wild the breakthrough sophomore feature by Wong Kar Wai represents the first full flowering of his swooning signature style. The initial entry in a loosely connected, ongoing cycle that includes In the Mood for Love and 2046, this ravishing existential reverie is a dreamlike drift through the Hong Kong of the 1960s in which a band of wayward twenty somethings—including a disaffected playboy (Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing) searching for his birth mother, a lovelorn woman (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk) hopelessly enamored with him, and a policeman (Andy Lau Tak Wah) caught in the middle of their turbulent relationship—pull together and push apart in a dance of frustrated desire. The director’s inaugural collaboration with both cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who lends the film its gorgeously gauzy, hallucinatory texture, and actor Tony Leung Chiu Wai, who appears briefly in a tantalizing teaser for a never-realized sequel, Days of Being Wild is an exhilarating first expression of Wong’s trademark themes of time, longing, dislocation, and the restless search for human connection. Chungking Express the whiplash, double-pronged Chungking Express is one of the defining works of 1990s cinema and the film that made Wong Kar Wai an instant icon. Two heartsick Hong Kong cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung Chiu Wai), both jilted by ex-lovers, cross paths at the Midnight Express take out food stand, where the ethereal pixie waitress Faye (Faye Wong) works. Anything goes in Wong’s gloriously shot and utterly unexpected charmer, which cemented the sex appeal of its gorgeous stars and forever turned canned pineapple and the Mamas & the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” into tokens of romantic longing. Fallen Angels Lost souls reach out for human connection amid a glimmering Hong Kong in Wong Kar Wai’s hallucinatory, neon-soaked nocturne. Originally conceived as a segment of Chungking Express only to spin off on its own woozy axis, Fallen Angels plays like the dark, moody flip side of its predecessor as it charts the subtly interlacing fates of a handful of urban loners, including a coolly detached hit man (Leon Lai Ming) looking to go straight; his business partner (Michelle Reis), who secretly yearns for him; and a mute delinquent (Takeshi Kaneshiro) who wreaks mischief by night. Swinging between hard-boiled noir and slapstick lunacy with giddy abandon, the film is both a dizzying, dazzling city symphony and a poignant meditation on love, loss, and longing in a metropolis that never sleeps. Happy together one of the most searing romances of the 1990s, Wong Kar Wai’s emotionally raw, lushly stylized portrait of a relationship in breakdown casts Hong Kong superstars Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing as a couple traveling through Argentina and locked in a turbulent cycle of infatuation and destructive jealousy as they break up, make up, and fall apart again and again. Setting out to depict the dynamics of a queer relationship with empathy and complexity on the cusp of the 1997 handover of Hong Kong—when the country’s LGBTQ community suddenly faced an uncertain future—Wong crafts a feverish look at the life cycle of a love affair that is by turns devastating and deliriously romantic. Shot by ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle in both luminous monochrome and luscious saturated color, Happy Together is an intoxicating exploration of displacement and desire that swoons with the ache and exhilaration of love at its heart-tearing extremes. In the mood for love Hong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Su Li-Zhen (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their spouses creates an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching soundtrack and exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping Bing, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past two decades of cinema, and is a milestone in Wong’s redoubtable career. 2046 Wong Kar Wai’s loose sequel to In the Mood for Love combines that film’s languorous air of romantic longing with a dizzying time-hopping structure and avant-sci-fi twist. Tony Leung Chiu Wai reprises his role as writer Chow Mo-Wan, whose numerous failed relationships with women who drift in and out of his life (and the one who goes in and out of room 2046, down the hall from his apartment) inspire the delirious futuristic love story he pens. 2046’s dazzling fantasy sequences give Wong and two of his key collaborators—cinematographer Christopher Doyle and editor/costume designer/production designer William Chang Suk Ping—license, to let their imaginations run wild, propelling the sumptuous visuals and operatic emotions skyward toward the sublime.


Is Discontinued By Manufacturer ‏ : ‎ No


MPAA rating ‏ : ‎ NR (Not Rated)


Product Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 0.7 x 7.5 x 5.4 inches; 1.27 Pounds


Director ‏ : ‎ Wong Kar Wai


Media Format ‏ : ‎ Blu-ray, Subtitled


Release date ‏ : ‎ March 23, 2021


Actors ‏ : ‎ Andy Lau Tak Wah, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Faye Wong, Maggie Cheung Man Yuk


Subtitles: ‏ ‎ English


Studio ‏ : ‎ The Criterion Collection


Frequently asked questions

If you place your order now, the estimated arrival date for this product is: Monday, May 6

Yes, absolutely! You may return this product for a full refund within 30 days of receiving it.

To initiate a return, please visit our Returns Center.

View our full returns policy here.

  • Klarna Financing
  • Klarna Pay in 4
  • PayTomorrow Financing
  • Apple Pay Later
Leasing options through Acima may also be available during checkout.

Learn more about financing & leasing here.

Top Amazon Reviews


  • A true masterpiece in moving making
In The Mood For Love is a masterpiece. There’s no other way to explain it. No other movie has ever made me feel like the characters do. It’s about two people, Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung who yearn to be with each other but can’t for a number of reasons. You empathize with them so much. One of the reasons is the cinematography used. Most of the movie is filmed as if you’re viewing the characters from within the same room. There’s also heavy symbolism like showing Cheung through some window shades that look like bars which gives the impression that she’s a prisoner of her situation. The movie also emphasizes the cramped conditions Cheung and Leung live in within a small and crowded apartment building in adjoining rooms. They are so close but so far apart. I can’t recommend this movie enough. Everyone should see it for its pure beauty. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on January 1, 2023 by joel wing

  • My experience with disc skipping
Like other reviewers here, I had some problems with disc skipping. I had recently made the plunge into 4K by buying a Sony 4K player and had bought a 4K disc to watch it on. When I watched the 4K disc, it froze about an hour into the movie. I ordered a replacement 4K disc, and the movie played through fine. So I concluded it wasn't the player's fault, it was just a bad disc. I then had the WKW Criterion Collection set unwatched at home and began watching it on the 4K player. Chungking Express froze about an hour in. Happy Together froze about 1 hour and 15 minutes in. I was so disappointed, because I had immediately assigned blame to the discs after remembering reading such complaints on Amazon reviews. Then I did some research into Sony 4K players and found that 4K players in general are rife with freezing problems, both for 4K discs and Blu Rays. Do a search of your 4K player on https://forum.blu-ray.com/ and you'll see many people sharing grievances about skipping and freezing. After rescinding the blame on the WKW Blu Ray discs, I hooked up my old LG BD640 I replaced with the Sony 4K. That thing has never frozen on me in over 10 years. Suffice it to say, the LG BD640 played the WKW Blu Ray discs just fine with no freezing, not even a pause during playback. Seems like 4K players on the market have notorious quality control issues. It's unfortunate, but my recent experience backs up this claim. As for the set itself, I've also heard about the supposedly notorious changes Wong Kar Wai made to the films presented on this disc. I do consider myself a purist and dislike revisionism done by directors on home video releases 20 years after the fact, especially without involvement by the crew responsible for the content the director changed. For example, I think Ridley Scott's Blade Runner final cut is an ugly change, replacing the blue-red 80s color palette with horrible teal-orange, something the DP Jordan Cronenweth (RIP) had no say in. In contrast to a director being called out for a change by a living crew member, William Friedkin had once tweaked the color palette of The French Connection for a Blu Ray release, a change the DP Owen Roizman publicly expressed disapproval over. However, in the case of the Wong Kar Wai set, the aspect ratio and color grading changes were all done with Christopher Doyle's consent. So, I can't really object to the presentation here. The most egregious change is the stretched Fallen Angels aspect ratio from 1.85 to 2.39, and a couple of scene changes from color to B&W. After watching it just now, the change worked for me. I didn't notice any ruined shot compositions that others point out. Likewise, the colors of In the Mood for Love are muted, but it seems to underscore the loneliness pervasive throughout that movie rather than hinder it. The only thing I really object to is the new digitally created credits. I really miss the black-over-white end credits to Chungking Express as Faye Wong's Dreams plays; right now, the song plays over animated white-over-black. A minor complaint though, as the cleanup of the prints to what the director really wanted to present (especially with the blessing of Christopher Doyle) makes up for it. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on February 7, 2022 by MAB

  • Transformative. Each film is a poetic world unto itself.
At the risk of getting ahead of myself, my estimation of Criterion's boxset is based only on the first three films, namely 'As Tears Go By', 'Days of Being Wild', and 'Chungking Express'. I am still making my way through the remaining films. Nonetheless, I have found each of the films to be quite beautiful. They evoke a world of love lost, choices regretted, momentary happiness, and the loneliness of life passing you by. ‘As Tears Go By’ (1988) is about love, rivalry, and brotherhood on the mean streets of Hong Kong. As “Wah” (Andy Lau) struggles to keep his younger brother “Fly” (Jackie Cheung) out of trouble from gambling debts to another gangster, he meets his cousin, “Ngor” (Maggie Cheung), who complicates his life because of the feelings she stirs in him. Torn between his affection for Ngor and his loyalty to Fly, Wah’s life on the streets has him by the neck and may never let him flee to Lantau Island and a quiet life with Ngor. ‘Days of Being Wild’ (1990) is a sad but beautiful film about an emotionally detached man “Yuddy” (Leslie Cheung), who was given up for adoption at birth and yearns to find his real mother. In the meantime, Yuddy’s abandonment issues cause him to hurt others, such as the woman at a local food stand, “Su Li-zhen” (Maggie Cheung), and the stripper he picks up after her, “Leung Fung-yi” (Carina Lau). Both of whom carry a torch for Yuddy, which blinds them to the men who genuinely cares for them. Lastly, anyplace can be a crossroads where people’s paths meet. For two policemen frequenting the same snack shop, they each encounter loves found and lost in Wong Kar Wai’s ‘Chungking Express’ (1994). Why does the heart always long hardest for what is beyond its reach? Faye Wong enchants as a quirky shop girl who’s not sure if she desires love or adventure more. Needless to say, I am looking forward to watching the other three films. So, then, why did I not give a perfect five-star rating? Similar to others, I had some issues with the two of the three movies glitching. The first film, 'As Tears Go By', played without a hitch. Perfect. However, 'Days of Being Wild' froze late in the film, in the scene when Yuddy and his policeman/sailor friend run into each other at train station, where a fight breaks out. In this case, I cleaned the disc, which did contain some faint spots. In addition, I followed Sony's instructions for troubleshooting a disc that skips or freezes. Happily, the disc didn't freeze any further. 'Chungking Express', on the other hand, was more troublesome. However, I did manage to repair it. In this case, I found a fingerprint on the edge of the disc, not mine. I'm very careful about never grabbing any disc by the surface. In addition, when I used my microfiber cloth to clean the disc, I noticed a greasy film spread over the surface, which took considerable effort to mop up properly. Who knows how that got there? Fortunately, as I said, I succeeded in repairing this disc. When I examined the other three discs, I found what looked three tiny fingerprints on the 'In the Mood for Love' disc, which I cleaned without much trouble. Hopefully, the playback will be glitch-free. The other two discs looked perfectly clean. The odd thing about this experience, which may have to do with the awkward packaging, is that I have never had any issue with a Criterion disc before, be it Blu-ray or DVD, new or used. Maybe I have just been lucky, but this was definitely a first. Hopefully, it will be the last. ... show more
Reviewed in the United States on May 20, 2021 by David Martinez

Can't find a product?

Find it on Amazon first, then paste the link below.