Wong Kar Wai-A Fei zheng chuan (’Days of Being Wild’) (1991)

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Hong Kong 1960. A sweltering hot summer, York (Leslie Cheung), an amoral disillusioned and cruel young man, is kept in luxury by his foster mother, a retired courtesan who gives him everything but the one thing he needs to known-the identity of his natural mother. A self-obsessed man, desperately seeking his true identity, York plays carelessly with his lovers, a lonely submissive bargirl (Maggie Cheung) and a beautiful club hostess/dancer (Carina Lau) and his friends, before leaving them all for Taiwan in search of the truth that has been denied and may ultimately destroy him. dvdasian







Raised by a foster mother who used to make her living as a courtesan, York (Leslie Cheung) has only one wish, to find out who his real mother is. Stubborn and careless York gets acquainted with a lonely submissive bar girl (Maggie Cheung) and a beautiful club hostess/dancer (Carina Lau) before leaving his whole life behind in search of the truth which may ultimately destroy him. Leslie Cheung’s superb performance in Days of Being Wild was honored with the trophy for Best Male Actor in the Hong Kong Film Awards of the relevant year! yesasia







DAYS OF BEING WILD is the film that started it all for auteur art film director Wong Kar Wai, exhibiting many of the preoccupations and devices that would characterize his work throughout his career until the present time. The precise, almost melodic slowness of the pacing is reflective of the existential conundrum in which the characters are mired, offsetting the random, fleeting nature of the glimpses of love they are afforded. The first film in Wong’s oeuvre that is a product of his happy alliance with cinematographer Christopher Doyle, it is a film of chance, the persistence and terrifying weight of time and memory, and the fortuitous accident that passes for love. dvdasian







Leslie Cheung stars as Yuddy, a vain, sexually predatory orphan whose mother abandoned him with her prostitute sister when he was very young; today, he lackadaisically searches for his birth mother while living his layabout lifestyle funded by his put-upon aunt. He approaches Lai (Maggie Cheung), a snack bar clerk, who rejects him but is haunted by Yuddy’s classic line that they were friends for exactly one minute on that exact date; although realizing that he will never care for her she continues to pine for him, turning for solace to a cop (Andy Lau) who duly falls in love with her. dvdasian







Yuddy moves on to Mimi (Carina Lau), a beautiful cabaret dancer who is ultimately unable to maintain her tough facade when she falls for Yuddy; her vulnerability draws in Yuddy’s best friend (Jackie Cheung), who idolizes him and is rejected by Mimi. The soap-opera quality of this web of love serves to illustrate the uncontrollable nature of emotions and the fact that they are governed by coincidence, underscoring the rather bleak existentialism of the film. However, the humanity depicted in the actors’ stunning performances, and the dreamlike nature of the sequences that effect the impression of memory, redeem the seemingly unredeemable characters. dvdasian