Wong Kar-Wai is not your typical Hong Kong action movie director.
If you love Chow Yun-Fat dodging bullets through a John Woo movie or Jackie Chan pulling one incredible stunt after the other or Jet Lee flying and kicking around or Stephen Chow talking nonsense and you see your first Wong Kar-Wai movie you may be in for a surprise. Certainly audiences were when Days of Being Wild came out.

Born in Shanghai in 1958 Wong emigrated to Hong Kong at the age of five. After completing a graphic design education at the Hong Kong Polytechnic in 1980 he entered the entertainment industry to work for TVB. In 1982 he left the realm of television and worked as a writer for Cinema City, which wasn't the very best of cooperations. So soon he was doing some freelance writing.

After writing some scripts for Alan Tang's production company In Gear Film, Tang offers him the chance to direct his first movie.
Though far more commercial than Wong's later work, As Tears Go By (1988) is a good introduction to his style of film making and can be seen as a reworking of Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets. Filmed on original locations in Mongkok (part of Kowloon) his directorial debut features a cast of Andy Lau, Jackie Cheung and Maggie Cheung (who finally got a chance to show that she could play more than Jackie Chan's girlfriend in the Police Story films). Allegedly the script was inspired by a newspaper article about two teenagers who got money from the triads to commit a murder.
Originally a different ending was planned: Jacky Cheung should die, Andy Lau was intended to become a cripple (by a bullet in the head) and was to be left in the care of Maggie Cheung. Since producer Alan Tang didn't like this ending we got what we have now.
As Tears Go By was a success. While it was the first Hong Kong movie to be presented at the film festival in Cannes in 1989 and loved by critics, it was commercially successful as well.

So Wong got his chance to make his next movie which should be more in terms with his artistic vision than As Tears Go By.
In 1990 he brought together an all-star cast (again Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau and Jackie Cheung and other big names like Leslie Cheung, Carina Lau, Tony Leung Chi-Wai and Alex Man) to make Days of Being Wild. Audiences didn't think so: They found it rather slow moving and boring than wild. There are worlds between Wong's artistic masterpiece and the standard no-brains, nonstop roller coaster ride one has come to expect from Hong Kong. Though critics loved it and gave prizes and publicity the expensive movie (about HK$ 50 mio.) flopped big time at the local box office.
Days of Being Wild's original concept was a four hour movie consisting of several stories the first of which was to take place in the Thirties. There was (and is still) talk about Days of Being Wild 2.

Wong returned to scriptwriting (Saviour of the Soul) before he set himself his next task: Ashes of Time.
Ashes was originally planned as the first of two co-productions, but the need to make a hit for the New Year 1993 led to the second movie being published first: The Eagle Shooting Heroes by Jeffrey Lau.
The making of Ashes of Time continued the trend of expensive filmmaking and famous actors. It took such a long time to complete the film that Wong even found time to do another movie in between (Chungking Express).
When Ashes was finally finished it received critical acclaim, especially for Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle who won prizes (in Venice and the Golden Horse award) for his work and worked with Wong on other movies.
The plot is rather complicated, even Maggie Cheung (who played in the film) admits that she had to see it more than once the know what it was about. So if you want to watch it better read the book first. If you don't get the plot, there are some fine but short fights choreographed by Samo Hung to enjoy.

During filming and post-production of Ashes Wong made Chungking Express which became famous in the west by Quentin Tarantino choosing it for his first U.S. release.
The plot consists of two parts connected in a nice way but with no direct reference in the stories themselves. The planned third part later became Fallen Angels. Takeshi Kaneshiro and Brigitte Lin (unrecognizable with wig and glasses) star in the first part, Tony Leung Chi-Wai and Faye Wong in the second. It was popstar Faye Wong's acting debut and her interpretation of the song Dreams by The Cranberries is used in the film. If you don't like this song this shouldn't be too much of a problem. But if you don't like California Dreaming by The Mamas & The Papas you are in serious trouble when watching Chungking Express. (The same applies to As Tears Go By if you just can't stand the cantopop version of Berlin's Take My Breath Away.)
The scenes in Tony Leung's room were actually shot in cameraman Christopher Doyle's apartment.

The third story which was to be included in Chungking Express had to be abandoned because the film was too long already. Wong developed this story further and it grew into Fallen Angels. While this film can be seen as a sequel to Chungking Express it has much more violence (but it's still a Wong Kar-Wai movie, so if you just want action look somewhere else).

Wong's next film Happy Together won him a best director award in Cannes.