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Wayne Wang Profile
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Crossing borders
Wang
was frustrated with the limits of the small screen, and decided to make
the move back to the United States. He settled in San Francisco, and set
about raising the money to make his first feature film Chan Is Missing.
Before The Joy Luck Club, however, came Slamdance (1987). Here Wang attempted to try something new, and nothing could be further removed from his usual Asian inspiration than this seedy story of a cartoonist who becomes involved in a sex scandal and is framed for the murder of his lover. Although the movie starred well known actors such as Mary Elizabeth Masterantonio, it was a huge failure both with critics and at the box office. >>> |
Wang decided to stick to what he knew best for his next project, Eat A
Bowl Of Tea (1989) a wedding set within the environment of traditional
Chinese arranged marriages. He then made the documentary style feature
Life Is Cheap...But Toilet Paper is Expensive ( 1990) in his native Hong
Kong. 1993 saw Wang's first mainstream movie, the hugely popular The Joy Luck Club. Based on Amy Tan's widely read novel, this tells the separate yet intertwined stories of three American-born modern Chinese women and their relationships with their traditional mothers. Wang directed the movie beautifully, and managed to capture the very essence of the novel on the big screen. A huge success, both critically and with the movie going public, The Joy Luck Club put Wayne Wang on the Hollywood map. This was obvious with 1995's Smoke, written by first rate novelist Paul Auster and starring such American greats as Harvey Keitel, Ashley Judd and William Hurt. Set in a Brooklyn cigar shop, this was Wang's first successful non-Asian themed film, and its simple look at the different characters that inhabit the small store proved a hit with cinema audiences. This was followed up with Blue In The Face (1995), set in the same cigar shop but with different characters played by such people as Roseanne, Madonna, Michael J. Fox and Lou Reed. >>> Continued on page 2 Send us your feedback on this article or anything else in The Blurb |
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Wayne
Wang was born in Hong Kong on the 12th January 1949, and was so named
after his father's cinematic hero, John Wayne. Influenced by his father's
love of the movies, he later travelled to the United States to study film
and television at the California College of Arts and Crafts, and, on his
return to his birth place, directed several episodes of TV shows such
as The Golden Needles (1974) and All In The Family. 
Thanks to grants from, among others, the American Film Institute, he managed
to make his movie on the small budget of $22,000 (mainly due to the fact
that he personally directed, produced and edited it himself.) This story
about two cab drivers who search San Francisco's Chinatown for the person
who has taken their $4000 established Wangs reputation as a director who
was prepared to provide an honest look at Chinese-Americans and the problems
they faced. His next move Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart (1984) cemented
this reputation, as the story of the relationship between a Chinese Mother
and her American born daughter was both poignant and entertaining. In
fact, many regard this movie as a predecessor to Wang's most well known
work, The Joy Luck Club (1993).