Celebrated and award-winning Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai (“Chungking Express,” “Happy Together”) is not having much luck as both upcoming projects he’s working on have stalled.
South China Morning Post says that Wong’s hotly-anticipated Amazon television series “Tong Wars” has been “cancelled for some time”. In addition another project, the Chinese-language feature film and series “Blossoms,” has postponed of any kind due to the coronavirus outbreak.
Wong signed to produce “Tong Wars” in late 2017, a series to be set in 19th century San Francisco and would deal with the gang wars that tore apart its Chinatown at the turn of the 20th century. No filming had begun before Amazon scrapped the series and has reportedly relinquished its rights to the story.
Wong was also to adapt Jin Yucheng’s novel “Blossoms” into both a feature-length Chinese-language film that would serve as something of a follow-up to his most famous work “In the Mood for Love”. Wong has reportedly been working on the script for the film for more than six years and Wong made a deal last year to produce a web series of the same name to precede the release of the film.
For now, filming for the series have stalled due to the outbreak that began in Wuhan. Filming is expected to resume as soon as the health emergency in China has passed, but there is no potential date as yet.
Wong is also still attached to the web series “Paradise Guesthouse” for China’s Huanxi Media, but that show’s status is also unclear. Neither Amazon or Jet Tone films have responded to requests for comments by the outlet.
