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A Masterpiece!

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Sophomore feature of Hong Kong taste-maker Wong Kar-wai, DAYS OF BEING WILD is part of the furniture on any list that elects best Chinese films, but in retrospect, it was somewhat of a damp squib upon its release in terms of its box-office pull, especially when taking account of its stellar cast (6 mega-stars in toto), fortunately, its reappraisal has never lost its momentum ever since.Bestowed with searing good looks, Leslie Cheung indubitably holds court as Yuddy, the titular "ah fei", which means "hooligan", a skirt-chaser who callously shirks any responsibility or commitment, and peculiarly, Leslie tempers Yuddy's wantonness with a pinprick of vulnerability that is so amazingly vicarious and betrays what a beautifully damaged goods he is, and Wong's trademark ambient construction of its blue-hued, mise-en-scène (poky space, lustful undertow, ambiguous closeups, plus aesthetic compositions by the yard, marked by his first collaboration with Christopher Doyle) and exotic music numbers impeccably tallies with Leslie's decadent and destructive charisma, to great lengths that one can hardly distinguish whether he is acting or not. Yuddy's victims include a mousy stadium ticket clerk Su Lizhen (Maggie Cheung, exuding an unyielding quality of passiveness and self-involvement that shows up her acting chops), and later a vivacious cabaret dancer Mimi (a no-holds-barred Carina Lau, achingly taking the short end of the stick as a crass, cast-off lover), these two girls are diametrical in their makeups, yet, in the eyes of Yuddy, they barely differ, his misogynistic perspective has its own provenance, raised by Rebecca (Pan), an erstwhile fille-de-joie who perversely keeps a lid on the identity of Yuddy's biological mother, Yuddy revels in their toxic love/hate relationship, which exacerbates through their bilingual (Shanghainese and Cantonese) barbs-exchange, Pan remarkably holds her own with moxie and pathos in this quintessential object lesson of the hand that rocks the cradle. When Yuddy is off screen, the plot meanders into less appealing subplots pairing a distraught Mimi with Zeb (Jacky Cheung), Yuddy's buddy, who carries a torch for her; and a distressed Lizhen with a peripatetic policeman Tide (Andy Lau), who will later become a sailor and comes across Yuddy during the third act in Philippines, as a witness when the latter's fate is sealed by his reckless action. Wong and co-screenwriter Jeffrey Lau lard the narrative with incisive wheezes to decipher Yuddy's existential philosophy, from his one-minute friend pick-up line to the allegory of the feet-less, paradise bird, poetically encapsulates Wong's story-light, mood-heavy winning allure. Lastly, Tony Leung Chiu-wai's famous cameo as the new "ah fei" near the coda seems out of nowhere today, but as a matter of fact, it strongly tantalizes what its botched sequel would be if it would be green-lit, and Tony would become Wong's most eminent leading man ever since. In a sense, it inadvertently adds a strange layer of mystique which drastically boosts Wong's nascent career, and presages his future auteurist ascension, as we would know by now, the best is yet to come.

This movie was WKW's second feature film, the first to collaborate with cinematographer Chris Doyle, the first to follow his artistic obsessions. The movie had a great cast: Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau, Andy Lau, Rebecca Pan, Jacky Cheung, all these along with Tony Leung Chiu Wai (who played in a cameo). Despite all these assets the movie started by being a commercial failure (as the director told once, in Korea the attendance even threw things at the screen). The style of Wong Kar-Wai (or the style of Chris Doyle, or both) was simply too new, too unexpected.Years have passed and Wong Kar-Wai (along with Chris Doyle) became well-known worldwide, and each of their movies is now considered as iconic. I wouldn't get tired watching any of their movies as many times as it gets: each time I understand a nuance in more depth.What could be told in a few words about this movie? It's time and love, and it's a meta-story: other stories built within the main story, each of the embedded stories with a life and a poignancy of their own, unfolding without haste, while not impeding on the main story - chapels in a cathedral. You have the sensation of being there, everything has such an immediacy that it's like it happens to you, right there during the screening. There is the main character, a womanizer dreaming to find someday his estranged mother, meanwhile seducing and then getting rid of everything he meets, abusive and careless in all his relations, with men and women alike; there are the girls, seduced and abandoned; there are the other men, witnessing all this and falling for the girls, hopelessly... and it's like you are there, in the skin of each personage, as each of the embedded stories is flowing, as the main story is flowing, you are the womanizer, leaving sentimental carnage on your way, you are each girl, enjoying your erotic accomplishment, rejected, despaired, you are each of the men, empathizing with the girls, trying to help them, longing for them, you are the substitute mother, ambiguous in your feelings for the boy you raised, you are the real mother, not showing anything which is in your heart, not even to yourself.Days of Being Wild is considered as the first part in a loose trilogy dealing with love and time (together with In the Mood for Love and 2046). Actually love and time remained the preoccupation also in the movies following this so-called trilogy: think for instance at The Hand, WKW's episode from Eros, made in 2004 - and the preoccupation remains also in My Blueberry Nights (which is also a meta-story, by the way).All these movies mirroring love and time in countless ways. Time marked by the passing of histories of love replacing the passing of years, down to implosion: stories of seduction, stories of desire, stories of love just imagined, stories of longing, stories of despair. Love trying to destroy the reality of time: "I've heard that there's a kind of bird without legs that can only fly and fly, and sleep in the wind when it is tired; the bird only lands once in its life... that's when it dies." Time as illusion, love as illusion - time has lost any significance, because it was replaced by histories of love - while love exploded and lost any meaning from the very beginning - reality as illusion: "the fact is that the bird hasn't gone anywhere; it was dead from the beginning."

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.

Days of Being Wild is the one of Wong Kar Wai's films in his portfolio which introduces and usually hypnotizes them under his genius. It also is the film that truly made Wong Kar Wai the filmmaker he is today with the respect he deserves. The film features many of his usual themes of alienation and separation though, unlike his other films, it marries Western and Eastern film-making to create a hybrid of cinematic perfection.Wong's story telling is usually a beautiful and emotion story broken into pieces and left for the viewer to figure out where they fit in the grand scheme of things. Days of Being Wild departs from that in a way where the story is presented linear though reminiscent of his usual style. While the story follows one character living out their life it will branch off to follow another character for a substantial amount of time and none of the stories lack emotional depth because of it. In fact, Wong's direction of his actors allows each departure to be a showcase of their acting talent as they live as there characters in their own little episodes. This presents a pragmatism which hints back to Wong's usual style.Many of the "episodes" intertwine which tells us something of what Wong is saying. Though the stories aren't very eventful, they are absolutely real and like in the real world, lives intertwine everyday, without even knowing their social relevance. Where Wong's idea of an overcrowded world filled with lonely people usually sends them searching for companionship, this film has them collide whether out of fate or coincidence. That even though the world is impossibly large and there are millions of people in it, it isn't a big as we think.The story builds and builds until a violent climax which leaves the film with a shadow of unease about it. The crushed montage of events leading to the final scene leave you breathless, wanting more. The film's lasting appeal will leave anyone thinking. No wonder this is one of the more popular Wong Kar Wai film, where his other films are beautiful and real, Days of Being Wild is entertaining like an American film with an underlying Wong Kar Wai feel.