LakshmiHong Kong–born filmmaker Wayne Wang has spent more than four decades moving between independent cinema and Hollywood, often exploring questions of identity, culture, family, and belonging. He first gained recognition with Chan Is Missing (1982), a landmark of Asian-American independent cinema, before directing films including Dim Sum: A Little Bit of Heart, The Joy Luck Club, Smoke, Chinese Box, Anywhere but Here, and Maid in Manhattan. His work has earned him a reputation for bringing an intimate, observational sensibility to stories that cross cultural and generational boundaries.
His latest film, The Diary of a Mad Old Man, adapts Junichiro Tanizaki’s provocative 1961 novel. The film follows Utsugi, an aging businessman whose fascination with a much younger woman develops into an increasingly obsessive fixation, forcing him to confront his own mortality, desire, and physical decline. Starring Lily Franky and Fan Bingbing, the film explores the uneasy territory between eroticism, aging, power, and vulnerability, while maintaining the dark humor and psychological complexity of Tanizaki’s original work.
The film premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival, where Wang sat down with One Lash Shot to discuss the long road to bringing Tanizaki’s novel to the screen, his approach to depicting desire and intimacy, and the cultural perspectives that shaped the film.
What was it about Tanizaki’s The Diary of a Mad Old Man that first made you want to bring it to the screen? I understand your wife read the novel before you did and felt that you might have a particular connection to it—what did she recognize in the book and what ultimately drew you in?
She actually said, “Oh, this is not so good.” She usually really loves Tanizaki because the book, if you read it, is very much about his physical condition—his health and medical issues.
The diary is more like a record of how his body is deteriorating. So, in that sense, it wasn’t too interesting. But I read it, and I felt that I could easily be him.
I’m getting pretty old, and I’m constantly thinking about my own mortality. I was also taken to the museum where he worked, and I sat at the desk where he wrote this book. Something kind of weird happened. I mean, I usually don’t have this kind of thing happen, but it felt like, okay, he was saying, “Do this film. Do this film. It’s in you.”
So, I decided to do it. And it was a great choice.
Wayne, you’re from Hong Kong, Lily-san is from Japan, and Bingbing-jie is from China. How did the three of you find your way into the same film—and what was it like navigating those different cultural perspectives on set?
We’re so different anyway.
But I understand both cultures very well. I’ve worked in Japan before, and that was very difficult. I’ve also worked in mainland China, and that was difficult in a different way.
So, I kind of gave myself the leeway to set up a structure that allowed them to be who they are, rather than for me to say, “You have to read this line this way,” or, “This is how I interpret it.”
I didn’t. I never said, “This is how I interpret it.” I might just say sometimes, “This is too much,” or, “This is too dramatic.”
That’s what I do. I’m more about shading than anything else.
Tanizaki’s novel is much darker and more satirical, while your film becomes a meditation on aging, mortality and desire. What drew you toward that interpretation?
I think originally, you know, I said in the Q&A, too, that first of all, it was Christopher Lambert. And then it was Brian Cotts. They were both Caucasian, in a sense, and both fit the mold of the book, so to speak.
But in the end, I got leery of having either of them play a very macho Utsugi, and also of having a Caucasian play Utsugi, because I think it just would be wrong. It would become The Teahouse of the August Moon with Marlon Brando.
So anyway, I went back to Japanese. And I’ve always really admired Lily-san and wanted to work with him. I came to realize that what he had was a kind of cynical innocence. It’s like a childlike look at life, but one filled with experiences and darker shadings, while still keeping that childlike innocence.
The film contains many intensely erotic and sometimes deliberately uncomfortable scenes. How did you approach depicting Utsugi’s obsessive desire while keeping the human story underneath it?
By not pushing certain things. I mean, very early on, I became aware that some people might still call the film very much a male gaze, and I was very conscious of that.
Very early on, I was sensitive to not using that male gaze. I wanted to be more neutral, so to speak, and not always have it be about him looking, or about his sexuality. Even when he looked, he was kind of shy about it.
So, I think it was my own caution that kept me from going too far—I don’t know, going too sexual or too explicit with it.
And I think Lily-san brought more innocence and naivety to it, while still going full bore into it. You know, he just kind of went into it, but he brought those elements with him.
Actually, I didn’t look at it as a male gaze.
I personally didn’t either, because I felt that she had more power in that dynamic.
I know. Completely. She controlled him. She manipulated him, you know, through most of it. Exactly.
You mentioned that you shot the film almost like a documentary, using many wide shots and avoiding close-ups until the very end. Why was that visual approach important to you?
That’s very important to me because it gives the audience the freedom to be themselves more and to be in the moment.
You know, when you have to do a close-up, you first of all have to do exactly the same thing, or else it won’t cut. So, when you do different masters, it has to be different masters because that gives you a different way to get in and out of the scene. When you do masters, the actors can just be free of that.
You don’t have to, for example, tell them, “This is the moment that you touch your hair.” It’s just really restrictive. So, in that sense, I really like the master shot.
Over time, many people have said, “Why do your films feel so real and authentic?” And I say it’s kind of the way I set up my shots and how I sort of do it—it’s almost like a documentary.
I remember Fred Wiseman, who is a very, very well-known documentarian. He never even moved his camera. He had only one master shot, and he just left the camera there and documented.
He did not manipulate everything. Yeah, that’s a different approach.
But what made you want to do it for this particular film though?
Because they were very sensitive. It didn’t become a mess.
You brought together Lily Franky and Fan Bingbing, two stars from very different cultural backgrounds. How did you know they were the right cast?
For a long time, it was Brian Cotts. He came to us and said, “I really want to do this,” but he had a very macho view of it.
Fan Bingbing was also approached, and she said, “I’m interested in this.”
So actually, in one of the early Screen International articles, the two of them were listed in the cast. And I freaked out at the last minute because that was how we could get the money to make the film. I freaked out because of what I was saying about The Teahouse of the August Moon or Madame Butterfly.
So, I just did a 360-degree turn. I said, “I’m wiping the slate clean with Fan Bingbing.”
I lost all my funding.
We almost had to start all over. I can work with very little money, but I made a choice because I wanted it to be Asian, at least.
And now, today in Japan, there are actually a lot of mainland Chinese who come here, but for different reasons.
Arthur Sharpe’s score has moments that feel almost rooted in Kabuki or traditional Japanese theatre. What did you want the music to bring to the film?
Arthur’s brother is an actor, you know?
I forget his name, but he’s in a series called The White Lotus. He’s the kind of half-Asian actor. He’s not Japanese.
He’s never been to Japan. He’s not Japanese.
His brother always says, yeah, so he’s very aware of his so-called Japanese identity.
In the beginning, I said, “Can we make the music more Japanese?” He said no. So, a lot of times, when you’re Asian and you grow up in a Western culture, you kind of deny it to a certain extent. You want to be more—whether it’s English or more American.
Yeah, so he was like that, but it kind of came out very naturally as time went on. So, I really liked it.
He didn’t use the stereotypical Japanese music. I love the drums. And the last dancing scene—that was fantastic.
Exactly. There’s a remarkable final image of Susu dancing alone on Utsugi’s grave, where her feet are engraved. What does that moment mean to you?
Well, we shot the scene, and Arthur found some taiko drummers in London and kind of made it work, along with a choreographer we hired who was very good.
And I said, “I didn’t really want actual dancing. I just want her to be happy and moving to a certain rhythm so we can cut it to the music.”
Describe the film in one word.
Funny.
Lakshmi
