Days of being wild

In his first hypnotic backward glance at Hong Kong in 1960, Wong Kar Wai creates a post-modern LA RONDE set in a fluorescent labyrinth of cool desperation and unfulfilled need. Against the echoing rhythms of period rumbas, Days of Being Wild tracks a half dozen characters through their individual searches for intimate connection. Collaborating for the first time with cinematographer Christopher Doyle, Wong Kar Wai’s restless visual imagination decorates this dreamlike fable with characteristic muted extravagance. DAYS OF BEING WILD offers an intoxicating cocktail of lush nostalgia and bitter alienation equaled only by Wong Kar Wai’s subsequent films.

Star crossed Asian film icon Leslie Cheung plays Luddy, a devastatingly handsome Hong Kong lothario who seduces and forsakes women without compunction. Abandoned at birth, Luddy’s self-destructive search for love is really a Quixotic quest for a feeling of permanence and a sense of identity. When Luddy beguiles lovely shop girl Su Lizen, he unknowingly sets in motion a sequence of broken hearts and unremembered promises that climaxes in naked obsession, inadvertent self-discovery and shocking violence.

In possibly her most seminal performance, Maggie Cheung invests Su Lizen with ethereal beauty and street level vulnerability. With a supporting cast of Hong Kong cinema notables, including Andy Lau as Su’s policeman confessor, and frequent Wong collaborator Tony Leung, Days of Being Wild’s visionary audacity and deep romantic conviction sustains and rewards multiple viewings. — Kino films