Heartbreak Tango: Days Of Being Wild

Days of Being Wild is generally considered to be Wong Kar-wai's first masterpiece. Despite being critically acclaimed-it was a box office failure. Stephen Teo in his book on Wong Kar-wai explains that this is a kind of a tribute to Cantonese genre movie called "Ah Fei" (something like rebellious youths) that was popular after A Rebel Without A Cause. The setting is in the 60s and the characters dress American, Yuddy (Leslie Chung) drives an American car, and they eat cheese burgers and fries and drink cokes. As in many Wong films there is a second subplot about unrequited love between maggie Cheung and a cop played by Andy Lau. As with all, Wong films it is very much about the atmosphere/mood and characters rather than story. I find it interesting that Teo evokes T.S. Eliot's poetry and Giorgio De Chirico art as counterparts to Wong's spiritual wasteland-but not sure if I buy that. Teo's assertion that Wong drew inspiration from Manuel Puig's novel about a seductive consumptive who seduces several women in his hometown before succumbing to the disease in Heartbreak Tango is more likely.

There is a great romantic scene when Yuddy is courting So Lai-chen (Maggie Cheung) and tells here that he will always remember her as his one minute friend after making her look at his watch at 3 pm on April 16th 1960. Thus time becomes a sort of theme even after he leaves her for Lulu (Carina Lau). I find this deposition of a relationship of a wild girl tamed by the alpha male very believable and true to life. The cinematography, editing, and use of music in this film are exceptional and will become trademarks of the films of Wong. This marks the first collaboration between Wong and the talented cinematographer Chris Doyle. There is a recurring scene that suggest tropical torpor of Philippines forest of coconut oil and palm trees awash in aquamarine tint, swaying in the wind accompanied by the musical coda "Always In My Heart" made famous by the Brazilian Indian duo, Los Indios Tabajaras. Patrick Tam who did the editing chores here, was also a frequent collaborator as film editor in subsequent films. Wong was planning on making a companion film and the final scene was to act as a prologue for his next film and depicts Tony Leung meticulously preparing for a night out on the town. Unfortunately that film never got made.

Comments

[ted]

Actually, he did make the sequel, "In the Mood For Love."

I'm a huge WKW fan. He is one of the reasons I lived in Hong Kong for a short time...

[MC]

Technically that project may have been inspired by "Days Of Being Wild," but it didn't happen in the way that he had originally wanted to do it. He started "The Ashes of Time" and then made "Chungking Express" while editing that and "Fallen Angels" and "Happy Together" were made before "In The Mood For Love"-so I am sure that the project changed over time. So I don't see it as a conventional sequel like "Fallen Angels" is for "Chungking Express."

I am also a huge Wong Kar-wai fan and have wanted to re-visit Hong Kong because of Kar-wai. I haven't been there since before the hand over during my first year on JET when I went there in the Spring of 1998 I believe.