France’s enduring love affair with Wong Kar-wai continued over the weekend, as the country named the Hong Kong filmmaker a Commander of the Order of Arts and Letters. The Order of Arts and Letters is one of France’s major cultural designations and has three classes: Commander, Officer and Knight. Past Chinese recipients include director Zhang Yimou (Commander); actress Gong Li (Officer); and Hong Kong action star Jackie Chan (Knight). France has long celebrated Wong’s art-house career. He was awarded the best director prize at the Cannes Film Festival in 1997 for “Happy Together,” and he served as jury president at the festival in 2006. Wong’s latest film, “The Grandmaster,” starring Messrs. Leung and Chang, was released in China earlier this year and is an art-house look at the world of martial-arts experts. It is scheduled to open in Europe and North America later this year. Wong has displayed a long-time interest in martial-arts films and novels. His 1994 movie “Ashes of Time” is based on the novel “The Legend of the Condor Heroes” by writer Louis Cha. At a master class in March, Wong told an audience in Hong Kong that he was driven “to make a film about the beauty and elegance of Chinese men and women.”
