DAYS OF BEING WILD is Wong Kar-wai’s first collaboration with master cinematographer Christopher Doyle
DAYS OF BEING WILD (A FEI JING JUEN) (Wong Kar-wai, 1990)
Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave. at 36th St., Astoria
Sunday, August 4, free with museum admission, 5:30
718-777-6800
www.movingimage.us
Wong Kar-wai’s second film, Days of Being Wild, following the surprising success of his debut feature, As Tears Go By, was a popular failure, as Hong Kong audiences were not yet ready for his introspective, character-driven, nonlinear style. (However, it did win five Hong Kong Film Awards, including Best Picture and Best Actor.) Days is Wong’s first film with master cinematographer Christopher Doyle, who has since shot all of Wong’s work, including Chungking Express, Fallen Angels, Happy Together, and In the Mood for Love. The late Leslie Cheung, who jumped out a hotel window in 2003, stars as Yuddy, a disaffected, beautiful youth who lures in women and then, after they fall in love with him, verbally mistreats them and cheats on them. Among his conquests are the gorgeous Su-Lizhen (Maggie Cheung), often shot in magnificent close-up, and the trampy Mimi (Carina Lau), who is jealous of Su, who takes comfort in telling her tale of woe to local police officer Tide (Andy Lau). Meanwhile, Yuddy, who was raised by a former prostitute, is obsessed with finding his birth mother, two facts that just might be part of the reason he treats women as he does. Set in 1960, the film’s leitmotif involves time and memory, with clocks ticking loudly and lots of long, lingering looks. The story goes a bit haywire in the latter sections, although the ending is a gem. (Look for Tony Leung there.) Days of Being Wild is screening August 4 at 5:30 as part of the Museum of the Moving Image series “Wong Kar-wai,” which continues with such other works by the Hong Kong Second Wave auteur as My Blueberry Nights, As Tears Go By, In the Mood for Love, 2046, and his latest, The Grandmaster, for a special “Fist and Sword” event with Wong present.