Review: My mother hates Wong Kar-Wai. My mother loathes Wong Kar-Wai. Every since she saw "Ashes of Time", she couldn't help but despise his movies. Through that one film, she avoided "Happy Together", "Fallen Angels", "Chung-King Express", "In the Mood for Love", and "Days of Being Wild." Her complaint is all his films end up being too artsy. That all his films lack cinematic substance, but only posses substance in which the viewer can allocate to it. Most of all, she hates them because they are artsy for the sake of being artsy and none else. She's right.

If she had seen "Days of Being Wild" then she would've tripped over the sofa and somehow fallen on her face. This film pretty much has no plot. I had a hard time writing a worthwhile summary for the "story" section due to this lack of a plot. However, that is the beauty of Wong Kar-Wai. "Days of Being Wild" was his second directorial effort. In this film, he begins to craft his trademarks that now bestow each of his films with brilliance. I'm not saying that this film isn't brilliant, because I find that is very so is. He just hadn't found that knack to win over a majority of the audience and still keep the emotional impact that he would later be so well known for. Commercially, this film was a disaster. It flopped in the Asian market. The reason to blame for the flop is because Wong alienates a majority of his audience with his dialogue-driven film. He was an artist slowly perfecting his skill.

The bulk of the story focuses on relationships and each character's existentialist point of views. Every action that is taken, every crime that is committed, a right or wrong is never established. They lay in their own emotional wasteland and indulge themselves in their own depression and sorrows. The days of happiness has been clouded by the more recent days of depression. The beauty of the film, like most of Wong Kar-Wai's films, lies in the relationships. The way Wong Kar-Wai captures each characters relationship to the other is done so in an almost perversely voyeuristic way. This isn't so much of a "watching of a film" as it is a "opportunity to peek into other people's lives." Each character does things simply because they can. It won't move along the plot, it won't change the film greatly, it won't come back at another point, it just happens. Life just happens. This aspect of the film could very well alienate a good portion of movie-goers out there. But for those who can sit through it, the experience is rewarding. With a intricate plot sacrificed, all attention to put onto the emotional lives of each character. All their actions not only affect one another, but it also affects the audience. You can either completely submerge yourself into the film and love it, or you can ignore it and become terribly bored with it. That's the biggest gamble any director could take. However, Wong preserves his art beautifully and delivers us yet another powerful and enriched drama.

Let me take this time and commemorate Leslie Cheung. It's in films like this that you see the greatness that we lost. His performance is flawless. He shines with brilliance, executing the recklessness and cruelty that Yuddy possesses with such ease. The character's disappointments, happiness, love, hate; all painted on a beautiful canvas that is Leslie. In a scene that captures the spirit of his character, Yuddy dances solo to a record in his crummy apartment with his eyes closed. For a few short minutes, his character forgets all the turmoil and troubles in his life and escapes reality and subjects himself into a world that could not exist, but one that he so longed for. Leslie was the backbone to this gorgeous movie. With moving performances by Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, and Rebecca Pan, the whole cast becomes characters that we cannot help but feel emotionally attached to. You just want the best to happen to each and every character. You want to see them be happy, achieve their goals, find their love, and live life beautifully. You feel like each character is alive, each character is real. That is the greatest gift that any director could offer in a film.

Visually, this film is stunning. Accompanied by Christopher Doyle, 1961 Hong Kong becomes the lifeless stage that these characters perform on. The simplicity of each camera motion wraps around the complexity in which it captures. No facial expression is ignored, no dialogue is wasted. Everything contributes to the overall film. It just keeps feeding it and feeding it to achieve its cause. The effect is laid in your own hands and mind. Even the unexpected and outlandish end to the film contributes to the overall cause. I could go on another paragraph about the eccentric end, but I don't want to ruin such a great effect that it could possibly have on you. When you see the end, you can't help but smile. Every move this actor makes in his few short minutes on screen have a poetic elegance to it. He does nothing, yet, somehow manages to do everything. I guarantee you that you will be caught off-guard and baffled. What you do with the ending is up to you. You can allocate your own meaning to the ending, or you can take the director's explanation for the ending, but either path you take, you have been thrown deeper into the world that Wong Kar-Wai has created even when the film is over.