Days of Being Wild

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Days of Being Wild

Days of Being Wild

Days of Being Wild

Set in 1960, the film centers on the young, boyishly handsome Yuddy, who learns from the drunken ex-prostitute who raised him that she is not his real mother. Hoping to hold onto him, she refuses to divulge the name of his real birth mother. Almost entirely ignored on its original release, the film has gathered strong critical interest over time, and has a Metacritic score of 96%. Critics praise the film for its beauty and eroticism, though some do not discern a narrative arc that brings the pieces together. The lack of a strong narrative sort of had me less than interested, or at least as much as I could have been. Maybe i was in the wrong mindset. I loved the color palette, and it is nice to gt more out of Hong Kong than martial arts and action films... but this just was not for me.

This is the fourth Wong Kar-Wai film I've seen, but it might as well have been the first... which is to say that it's pretty much the same thing as the other three Wong Kar-Wai films I've seen, so it's like watching them again. This is not actually a bad thing, it's more of a style thing, like how Ozu's films are largely the same concepts, themes, imagery, characters, etc., repeatedly. Wong Kar-Wai remakes himself a lot, I've noticed. In this film, the idea is the tango, as opposed to the other musical structures of his other films. A womanizer in 60s Hong Kong obsessively destroys two women until he must leave, at which point he meets an ex-cop/first woman's confidant who actually seems to understand him a bit better than the women ever did, being as it were that all the women can do is try to get over him. The man is led, in theory, by his anxiety over his true mother and his need to control women based off of his lack of control over them: his true mother abandoned him, his adoptive mother entraps him, and he can't get over his frustration of either. The thing about Wong Kar-Wai's films I don't understand, though, is that though all of them have unique plots, great imagery, and good performance (the things that typically add up to "a good film"), for some reason I always get the sense that the overall value of anything in them is the same. Christopher Doyle's cinematography and Kar-Wai's directing loves blocking, framing, reframing, framing within frames, and especially vibrant color, but the overall effect is remarkably undramatic. His stoic characters and their bubbling aggression are sometimes pretty apathetic despite their emotion. He follows characters, and then leaves them, and then sometimes brings them back, and sometimes doesn't, and sometimes the story is done before the movie ends, and sometimes the movie ends before the story is done, and overall I notice that the effect is pretty much the same. The ultimate effect is a glossed over, smooth surface, which is pretty to look at but honestly not very tactile to touch. Basically, this is a good movie. It's just not very interesting. Which is exactly what can be said of everything of Kar-Wai's I've seen. The more of his work I watch, the less I understand its popularity. --PolarisDiB

Many people here seem to be of the opinion that this film is not very typical of Wong's work. I would like to disagree. To me, this film is a very typical Wong film. That is, if you are expecting the absolutely perfect colours, pictures and frames of 'In the Mood for Love', you will be disappointed. This film, like many of his other films, has a more rough quality to it. All you who have seen 'In the Mood' and liked it should really see this film, as I don't think you can understand 'In the Mood' without having seen this one. I was not particularly overwhelmed by 'In the Mood', but now that I have seen this film, I at least understand the later film better. So maybe also those who did not like 'In the Mood' should see this one, as it might change their perception of that film. To me Wong Kar-Wai's best film is still Chungking Express. And this film, although kind of in line with that film, does not reach up to that standard. I am glad I saw this film, as it explains other parts of Wong's work to me, but were it not for the sake of understanding that bigger picture, I don't think I would recommend it.

I guess the main reason that this is my favorite WKW movie is that it's one of the least abstract of his movies and I feel like the viewer becomes more emotionally involved with the characters because of that. The music, as always with WKW, is wonderful and the cinematography is fine, I especially like all the shots of the lush tropical forests. It isn't as beautifully photographed as many of his later films like chungking express and in the mood for love. And it doesn't feature much of the fancy techniques that WKW likes to employ in movies like fallen angels or happy together. Still I think this is my favorite of Wong Kar Wai's movies, not necessarily the best, but the one I enjoy the most. Highly Recommended.

So far, I've watched 4 Wong Kar Wai films, and they seem to suggest that if one constantly uses one's experience as an excuse to go down a path of self-destruction, that one person has no one to blame...but him/herself. The film starts with Yuddy (played by the late Leslie Cheung), the child of an aristocratic Filipino woman, who gives him to a wealthy alcoholic courtesan (played by Rebecca Pan), doing what he does best-making a woman fall for him, and dumping her when he finds he has no more feelings for her, or when she seeks commitment and security from him. His first target is the shy Su Lizhen, played by the eternally youthful Maggie Cheung, whom he tells her that she would see him in her dreams. My thoughts on that statement, what a bold thing to say! A classic example of Yuddy's arrogance! In the next meeting she tells him that she did not dream of him, he tells her that is because she did not sleep. Upon falling asleep, perhaps she did dream of him..and when he finds her again, her ears are flushed. He tells her to look at his watch which says that it's one minute before 3:00PM on April 16, 1960. Poor Lizhen! She would always remember that one minute, as it slowly increased to 2 minutes, an hour, half a day, and next, she's at his apartment. When she asked for some form of commitment, Yuddy promptly dumps her. Yuddy then moves on to Mimi, a cabaret girl (played by the ever voluptuous and passionate Carina Lau), and the love they share is passionate and aggressive. His best friend, Zeb, a quiet, yet loyal friend, is smitten by Mimi but she warns him against falling for her. Mimi is a passionate and possessive lover, but even she could not satisfy the ever drifting Yuddy, and is left to suffer the consequences of the break up. Meanwhile Yuddy blames his adoptive mother for his situation, and for not telling him who his real mother is. His cruelty does not surprise her, as she had long noticed that he had viewed her as a foe, and is unwilling to see her find her own happiness. In a bid to satisfy Yuddy, she tells him who his real mother is. Lizhen on the other hand, while going through the consequences of her break up befriends Tide (played by Any Lau), the gentle policeman. he tries to be a friend to her, and tells her that if she truly needed Yuddy, to go and tell him to his face. Tide unwittingly falls for Lizhen, and would wait at the phone booth in the district he does his rounds in for her call, but never got one. When his mother died, he became a sailor. The movie reveals itself like a poem, with each character trying to find his/her own identity, but perhaps never achieving it. Leslie Cheung the arrogant and self destructive drifter, Yuddy as though Yuddy is his second nature. Suave, handsome, but commitment-phobic, and never treating women with any respect. Jacky Cheung did well in his role as the shy Zeb who idolized Yuddy, no over acting this time unlike what he did in Bullet in the Head. Carina Lau played Mimi with ease, you could feel her passion, her possessiveness and her emotions, as though she was wearing all these qualities on her sleeve. Maggie Cheung and Andy Lau did well as the characters who were attracted to each other but the romance never materialized. When Lizhen finally had the courage to call Tide, it was too late as he had already left to become a sailor. As for Yuddy, perhaps he learnt that a bird which never lands can never exist, it is dead because it had chosen the path towards self-destruction. Yuddy had no one to blame but himself for his situation. The last scene with Tony Leung Chiu Wai dressing up was really cool, it made me wonder if that character developed to Chow Wo-Man. I wished WKW had released Part 2 of the film, it'd be nice to see how Wong explains TLCW's character.

It made me feel like becoming a stalker, following the characters around; or it's like secretly opening other people's mail and reading their letters. Although nothing happened, somehow I was thrilled. "While you live, nothing happens. The scenery changes, people come in and go out, that's all. There are no beginnings. Days add on to days without rhyme or reason, an interminable and monotonous addition... But when you tell about a life, everything changes; ... events take place in one direction, and we tell about them in the opposite direction.... The story is going on backwards: moments have stopped piling themselves happy-go-luckily one on top of the other, they are caught up by the end of the story which draws them on and each one of them in turn the previous moment..." -- Jean-Paul Satre "Nausea" If a normal film tells a story, this film makes you feel like living through it. Following the grand "French New Wave" tradition, it is as good as it gets.