November 19, 2004

Wong Kar Wai's Days of Being Wild

Originally posted by arts_cinecultist from Gothamist, reBlogged by ts

daysbeingwild.jpgThough the wait for the new Wong Kar Wai 2046 may seem interminable to his fans like Gothamist, to tide us over Kino has rereleased a new 35 mm print of one of his earlier works, Days of Being Wild. Screening at the Film Forum for the next week, this is a must-see Hong Kong classic, which won 5 HK Film Awards on it’s original release in 1991.

Leslie Cheung plays the womanizing cad, Yuddy, who seduces the delectible Maggie Cheung while she works in a snack shop and then when their affair is over never looks back. She finds some solace from Andy Lau’s cop character, Tide, though they never seem to be able to connect either. Plus, there’s the singer, Leung Fung-Ying (Carina Lau) who thinks Yuddy might be the marrying kind. Silly girl. In Wong’s work, the more unhappy the panoply of characters, the better the mood he can evoke with Christopher Doyle’s superb cinematography and his characters’ enigmatic voice-overs. This is the best kind of art cinema — it touches you with its imagery and feeling that you wouldn’t expect from just going to the movies.

See the trailer for the film or think about buying the Wong Kar Wai DVD box set for every cinephile on your holiday present list. Also, if you have some free time and are a bit of an obsessive WKW fan, the 2046 website is a gorgeous piece of flash-tastic design. Though, we still have no idea what it’s going to be about, it looks spectacular.