Getting your questions ready
Getting your questions ready
Beat the crowd
10 questions No timer
70 free Wong Kar-wai trivia questions with answers — entertainment quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Wong Kar-wai makes films without scripts, shoots forty takes of a glance and delivers prints to Cannes a day late, and the results sit on lists of the greatest films ever made. This quiz walks through his whole career, from a Shanghai childhood and TVB soap scripts to As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, the six-week miracle of Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, In the Mood for Love, 2046, The Grandmaster and his first TV series. Along the way you will be asked about the pineapple tins and the Cranberries cover, Iguazu Falls and Piazzolla's tangos, Angkor Wat, the 15-month shoot, Norah Jones and Lawrence Block, Ip Man and Wing Chun, plus the people who built the look: Christopher Doyle, William Chang, Tony Leung Chiu-wai and producer Esther Chen. Easy questions suit anyone who has seen a couple of the films; the expert tier asks for composers, novelists and restoration labs. Every answer was checked against Wikipedia's articles on Wong and his individual films, and the supporting sentence is attached to each question. If you like this, try our quizzes on Hong Kong cinema and on Cannes Film Festival winners.
30 of 70 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01In which city was Wong Kar-wai born in 1958?
Shanghai
His family emigrated when he was five, and the two older siblings left behind did not see him again for ten years.
Q 02What job did Wong's father take after the family arrived in Hong Kong?
Managing a nightclub
His father had earlier been a sailor; young Wong said his only childhood hobby was going to the cinema with his mother.
Q 03What did Wong study at the Hong Kong Polytechnic in 1980 before dropping out?
Graphic design
He left after being accepted into a training course at the TVB television network.
Q 04Which 1988 crime drama was Wong Kar-wai's directorial debut?
As Tears Go By
It followed a conflicted young gangster watching over a hot-headed friend, and starred singer Andy Lau.
Q 05Wong's debut feature was inspired by which Martin Scorsese film?
Mean Streets
Its Cantonese title reads roughly as 'Mongkok Carmen', after the district where its enforcer hero collects debts.
Q 06Wong is credited with ten 1980s screenplays but claims to have worked uncredited on roughly how many more?
50
He spent two years on Patrick Tam's Final Victory alone, earning a Hong Kong Film Awards nomination.
Q 07Which director was Wong's most direct influence and mentor, likely inspiring his use of colour?
Patrick Tam
Wong wrote the screenplay for his action film Final Victory.
Q 08Who played the disillusioned playboy Yuddy at the centre of Days of Being Wild?
Leslie Cheung
The film flopped at the box office but won five prizes at the 1991 Hong Kong Film Awards.
Q 09Days of Being Wild is set in which year?
1960
Wong picked the decade because he remembered it well and had a 'special feeling' for it.
Q 10In Days of Being Wild, Yuddy learns his birth mother lives in which country?
The Philippines
His adoptive mother Rebecca, a former prostitute, had refused for years to reveal the secret.
Q 11Which cinematographer first worked with Wong on Days of Being Wild and shot his next six films?
Christopher Doyle
Stephen Schneider credits his 'masterful use of light and colour' with rendering every frame a work of art.
Q 12Wong's longtime cinematographer, known in Chinese as Dou Ho-fung, was born in which country?
Australia
He was born in Sydney in 1952 and has won the Hong Kong Film Award for cinematography six times.
Q 13Which production company did Wong form with Jeff Lau in 1992?
Jet Tone Films
He set it up after the box-office failure of Days of Being Wild left him unable to fund a planned sequel.
Q 21Faye Wong's Cantonese cover of which Cranberries song plays over the end credits of Chungking Express?
"Dreams"
Titled 'Mung Tsung Yan', it appeared on her 1994 album Random Thoughts.
Q 22Which director's label, Rolling Thunder Pictures, brought Chungking Express to American audiences?
Quentin Tarantino
His endorsement did a lot to introduce Wong's work to the West in the 1990s.
Q 23Fallen Angels was originally written as what?
The third story of Chungking Express
Wong split them for length, calling the pair 'one film that should be three hours long'.
Q 14Ashes of Time was loosely based on The Legend of the Condor Heroes, a novel by which author?
Jin Yong
Wong ended up taking little more than three characters from the book.
Q 15Under what title did Wong re-edit and re-score his 1994 wuxia film for release in 2008?
Ashes of Time Redux
He assembled it using negatives gathered from around the world.
Q 16At which festival did Ashes of Time compete for the Golden Lion in 1994?
Venice
Its cinematographer won the festival's cinematography prize, though audiences at home found the wuxia film baffling.
Q 17Chungking Express was conceived and completed in roughly how long?
Six weeks
Wong shot it during a break in post-production on Ashes of Time, filming each night what he had written that day.
Q 18Which song does Faye Wong's character play over and over in Chungking Express?
"California Dreamin'"
The Mamas & the Papas hit signals her simultaneous fear of and longing for change.
Q 19In Chungking Express, Cop 223 buys tins of which fruit that expire on 1 May?
Pineapple
May, his ex, liked the fruit, and 1 May is his birthday; he gives the relationship until he has bought 30 cans.
Q 20The first word of the 1994 film's English title refers to what?
Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui
'Express' refers to the Midnight Express food stand in Lan Kwai Fong.
Q 24Who plays the hitman in Fallen Angels?
Leon Lai
He, Michelle Reis and Karen Mok were all new to Wong's films.
Q 25What kind of lens did the cinematographer use extensively in Fallen Angels to distort the actors' faces?
Wide-angle
The camera stayed as close as possible to the actors to make them look detached from the world around them.
Q 26Takeshi Kaneshiro's character in Fallen Angels, Ho Chi-mo, is what?
A mute ex-convict
He lives with his father in Chungking Mansions and breaks into shuttered shops at night.
Q 27Happy Together follows a Hong Kong couple who travel to which country?
Argentina
Wong shot abroad partly to escape pressure to make a film about the 1997 handover.
Q 28Which prize did Wong win at Cannes in 1997 for Happy Together, a first for Hong Kong?
Best Director
He shrugged it off as 'just something you can put on an ad'.
Q 29In Happy Together, the couple break up after getting lost on the way to which landmark?
Iguazu Falls
Fai finally visits it alone once he has earned enough money to fly home.
Q 30Happy Together's English title is borrowed from a 1967 hit by which band?
The Turtles
Danny Chung covers the song on the soundtrack.