Thread by @chowleen

The great modernist Hong Kong writer Liu Yichang 劉以鬯 passed away today. Peripatetic, diasporic, cosmopolitan - Liu's life and work embodied a lesser known trajectory of modern Chinese literature. Wong Kar Wai's IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE was inspired by 2 of his best known stories.

Wong Kar Wai brought Tony Leung with him to visit Liu Yichang - he wanted him not only to understand Liu's stories better, but also capture something of Liu's style in his creation of the character of Chow Mo-wan, lovelorn journalist and pulp fiction writer.

According to Wong Kar Wai, his film ITMFL -and especially Tony Leung's Chow Mo-wan -was an homage to Liu Yichang and his generation of diasporic Chinese writers who lived through war and dislocation.
Two stories worthy of rediscovery: 酒徒 (The Drinker) and 對倒 (Tête-bêche).

RIP Liu Yichang 劉以鬯 (1918-2018) - whose passing truly feels like the conclusion to a story arc, that of the long twentieth century of modern Chinese literature. My friend Ben Wong 黃勁輝 made a gorgeous documentary of his life. Check it out: "1918"

"All memories are sodden."

「所有的記憶都是潮濕的。」

-from "Drunkard" 酒徒 by Liu Yichang 劉以鬯.
And opening intertitle of Wong Kar Wai's film 2046

“He remembers those vanished years. As though peering through a dusty window pane - the past was something he could see, but not touch.
He always longed for all that had past.
If he could shatter that dusty glass, he could walk back into those vanished years.”
-Liu Yichang / WKW

"The beauty in a film is more than how it looks visually. A good film should have an aftertaste; maybe a shot, or a line, or even a moment. Something that stays with the audience for a very long time."

- Wong Kar Wai, on In the Mood for Love (interview with John Powers)