SBS On Demand added two early movies directed by Wong Kar-wai, As Tears Go By and Days Of Being Wild. I’d not seen either and went for Days Of Being Wild (1990) first, the main thing I knew about it being that it bombed on release in Hong Kong despite having high profile stars. As an early work, it makes sense to me only through the comparisons made with In The Mood For Love since both are set in the 1960s (it is also the first movie of a loose trilogy with In The Mood and 2046 – and this is the only way I could make sense of the final scene). It also preempts his more successful follow-ups Chungking Express and Fallen Angels with its main six characters and the way they bound off each other into potential couplings. Set primarily in Hong Kong, it opens with a young stud (Leslie Cheung) who sports a white singlet and slicks his hair back constantly with a comb, a James Dean type, who romances a girl who works at a corner store (Maggie Cheung). However, he’s also a cad and a bit of a dick, and leaves her broken hearted, bouncing into another pick-up with a showgirl (Carina Lau). His rootlessness and flippancy seems to stem from his relationship with his adopted mother (Rebecca Pan) and her own dalliances with younger men. Meanwhile, a lonely beat cop (Andy Lau) takes an interest in Maggie Cheung’s character during late night walks (my favourite sequences) and the stud’s buddy (Jacky Cheung) is fruitlessly in love with the showgirl. Mainly, the movie is about the eroticism around shooting faces and bodies – there are no sex scenes or any nudity, but there’s a tactile sensuality in how kissing is filmed or how bodies move in space. That and the fetishism around objects heavy with symbolism, the repeated shots of a clock, the electric fan that keeps the heat at bay, watches, earrings, flip-flops, etc. I was drawn in by the style and the way images are saturated with green-blue tones; it is a gorgeous movie to look at even when it mostly takes place indoors in dilapidated rooms. It moved slow, then sped up breathlessly in the last 15 minutes. It might take a revisit for me to fully click with it, but I’m glad I experienced Days Of Being Wild. The version on SBS On Demand is in remastered quality – no idea if it also means its been reedited by Wong Kar-wai as he has done with the Criterion remasters box-set; the English subtitles though are not so flash. Apart from that, recommended.
VHS Tracking 