The Films of Wong Kar-Wai: Days of Being Wild

Hong Kong, 1990
Directed by Wong Kar-Wai 

 Wong Kar-Wai is arguably the most popular, internationally acclaimed and influential Hong Kong director of all-time. He is known for his distinctive style, driven by music and color, and for his films' consistent themes of romantic yearning and memory. Wong's debut film was the 1988 gangster melodrama As Tears Go By, starring Maggie Cheung and Andy Lau. It's an entertaining, well-crafted movie, with hints of the stylistic verve and melancholy romanticism that would become Wong's trademarks, but on the whole is mostly typical of its genre. His second film, Days of Being Wild, is the first to fully display Wong's unique personality as an artist.

Set in Hong Kong in the early 1960s, which vividly comes to life through small details - bright red Coca-Cola coolers, form-fitting print dresses and bob hairstyles, Western cafes, lounge and latin music. Days of Being Wild immediately draws you into an immersive sense of time and place. You can almost feel the humidity radiating off the screen, the oppressive heaviness of tropical nights. In this languid and lush atmosphere, a romantic roundelay unfolds among an ensemble of Hong Kong's most iconic actors. At the center of it all is Yuddy, played by the late Leslie Cheung, a troubled, detached young man. He was adopted by a high-class escort (Rebecca Pan), who refuses to tell him who his biological mother is. Yuddy is a womanizer, seducing the quiet Su Lizhen (Maggie Cheung) and showgirl Mimi (Carina Lau), before dumping both when they become too attached for his liking. And during their worst times of heartbreak both women are pined for by other men - policeman Tide (Andy Lau) becomes friends with Su Lizhen, and Mimi is pursued by Zeb (Jacky Cheung), a friend of Yuddy who is jealous of his influence over women.

On paper, the web of relationships in Days of Being Wild sounds like a tangled soap opera; however, Wong structures his film like a series of interwoven stories. The story of one relationship flows into another story, each one like free-standing but connected movements in a symphony, always circling back to Yuddy. Leslie Cheung's performance as Yuddy feels iconic. He's often been called the James Dean of Hong Kong because of his good looks and his troubled-but-cool persona - in fact, Days of Being Wild's title was taken from the Cantonese title of Dean's Rebel Without a Cause. But unlike Dean's handsome misfit in Rebel, Yuddy is not a heroic character but a tragically misguided and destructive one. He is both protective of and cruel to his adopted mother, a manipulative woman who is hardly perfect, but cares for him in her own flawed way. He enjoys the thrill of seducing women but has no interest in them beyond that. Twice in the film his narration tells the story of a bird: "I've heard there is a kind of bird with no legs. All it can do is fly and fly. When it gets tired, it sleeps on the wind. This bird can only land once in its whole life. That's the moment it dies." Clearly he pictures himself as the bird - a vagabond and free spirit, coolly detached from everyone and everything. Late in the film he tells the story to Andy Lau's character, who mocks Yuddy's tragically romantic self-mythologizing. "You think you're some kind of bird?" Yuddy may be a loner but for all his posturing he's really just an angry kid who feels rejected by the world. He envisions a separate life where he was not given up by his family in the Philippines, one where he truly belongs somewhere. Yuddy's 'cool and charismatic' act is magnetic enough that it's clear why people are drawn to him, yet it's the silent moments where Leslie Cheung shows his vulnerability that make him engaging.

What connects all the characters in Days of Being Wild is their search for belonging. Yuddy wants to find his biological mother in the Philippines, his mother wants a man to support her, Su Lizhen and Mimi want Yuddy and Zeb wants to be him, Tide wants Su Lizhen and becomes a sailor just to wander and find his place. Several of the characters have relocated from somewhere else, like the Philippines or Macau. Days of Being Wild captures the dislocation that many must have felt in Hong Kong in this era, where so many people had to relocate after the huge upheavals of World War II and the Chinese Civil War. A sense of yearning hangs over Days of Being Wild as thickly as the tropical humidity.

Wong Kar-Wai takes all his characters' dissatisfaction and melancholy and tells it with the wistful, bittersweet romanticism of a good pop song about heartbreak. The smooth camerawork, intimate close-ups and gorgeous soundtrack give Days of Being Wild a hypnotic quality. Considering that it's only Wong Kar-Wai's second film, Days of Being Wild is remarkably confident, a beautifully crafted gem and early example of his brilliance as a filmmaker.