It was 1990 when the director of As Tears Go By (1988) released his star-studded second feature. Much of that excitement came from the commercial and critical success of As Tears Go By, Wong Kar-wai’s kinetic yet tender gangster romance starring Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung and Jacky Cheung, and with Carina Lau, Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung joining his new film, bringing together some of the brightest stars in the Hong Kong film industry, expectations were understandably high.

The arthouse approach of Days of Being Wild caught Hong Kong viewers off guard, as few expected an incomplete, non-linear narrative, ambiguous themes or an ending in which Tony Leung appears only in a single long take. Audiences expecting something closer to the more familiar genre territory of As Tears Go By were instead confronted with a narrative and style they were neither expecting nor accustomed to, which contributed to the film’s disappointing performance at the box office.

Days of Being Wild tells the story of people whose fixation on someone or something leaves them stubbornly holding on, trapped somewhere between despair and yearning: Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) and Leung Fung-ying (Carina Lau) are both romantically obsessed with Yuddy (Leslie Cheung); Zeb (Jacky Cheung) longs for Leung; Yuddy is determined to find his biological mother; and Tide (Andy Lau) remains committed to taking care of his mother. Some leave Hong Kong in pursuit of what they cannot let go of, others are finally freed from their obligations and move on, while some remain with their desires unresolved. Much of the film unfolds during rainy Hong Kong nights, inside claustrophobic and dimly lit spaces, where the characters seem physically trapped in the same darkness that surrounds their thoughts.

The film’s Chinese title translates as The True Story of Ah Fei, with “Ah Fei” being a Chinese slang term for a rebellious young man or playboy with few attachments. Yuddy, the film’s “Ah Fei”, describes himself as a “legless bird” that keeps wandering among women, unable to settle, and his behaviour appears closely tied to the abandonment he experienced at the hands of his biological mother; perhaps afraid of being left behind again, he refuses to open himself fully to meaningful relationships. While he remains detached from his romantic relationships, he shares an antagonistic yet inseparable bond with his adoptive mother, and although neither openly admits their love for the other and their conversations are often bitter, she remains Yuddy’s one real attachment. Loneliness and alienation are present in every character, turning Hong Kong into a place inhabited by solitary people who briefly find one another before inevitably facing another separation and another hurt.

Days of Being Wild is frequently shot with short focal lengths in tight interiors, with damp aquamarines, jade greens and yellows dominating its palette, accompanied by fluid handheld camerawork and slow, gliding movements. Looking back, Wong Kar-wai’s sudden change in style is not as surprising as it might have appeared in 1990, because As Tears Go By had already shown traces of what would become familiar throughout his work: stuttering, motion-smeared images, urban landscapes shaped by mood and contrasted with ambiguous glimpses of nature, carefully choreographed long takes and, above all, his fascination with loneliness, longing and grief in the city. Days of Being Wild was the first film in which that vision fully came together.

Now considered a classic of both Hong Kong and arthouse cinema, Days of Being Wild is once again awaited by Hong Kong audiences ahead of its region-wide 4K restoration release in September, although the circumstances could hardly be more different from those surrounding its original release. A younger generation of Wong Kar-wai fans, as well as admirers of its remarkable cast, will now have the chance to experience a film that captures something of the atmosphere and cinema of Hong Kong in the early 1990s on the big screen. This time around, audiences may well leave the cinema with satisfaction rather than the disappointment that greeted the film 36 years ago.

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Written by Jade Wong

Featured image courtesy of Summer IFF

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