Days of Being Wild is a 1990 Hong Kong drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-Wai. Starring some of the best-known actors and actresses in Hong Kong, including Leslie Cheung, Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Carina Lau, Jacky Cheung and Tony Leung, the film marks the first collaboration between Wong and cinematographer Christopher Doyle, with whom he has since made six more films.
It forms the first part of an informal trilogy, together with In the Mood for Love (2000) and 2046 (2004). called York in one subtitled version
- Andy Lau as Tide (), Policeman 6117, who becomes a friend and confidant of Su Li-zhen and later, after the death of his mother, he becomes a sailor and goes to the Philippines
- Maggie Cheung as Su Lizhen (), who grew up in Macau and is the ex-girlfriend of Yuddy
- Carina Lau as Leung Fung-ying (), Mimi/Lulu (), the girlfriend of Yuddy
- Rebecca Pan as Rebecca, a former prostitute who raises Yuddy, has a love-and-hate relationship with Yuddy, because she refuses to reveal the identity of Yuddy's biological mother
- Jacky Cheung as Zeb (), Yuddy's friend since childhood; Yuddy used to live above Zeb's family's garage as a kid; Zeb fancies Mimi/Lulu
- Danilo Antunes as Rebecca's lover, who only goes for her money
- Hung Mei-mei as the Amah
- Ling Ling-hung as Nurse
- Tita Muñoz as Yuddy's Mother
- Alicia Alonzo as Housekeeper
- Elena Lim So as Hotel Manager
- Maritoni Fernandez as Hotel Maid
- Angela Ponos as Prostitute
- Nonong Talbo as Train Conductor
- Tony Leung Chiu-wai as Gambler
Music
- Los Indios Tabajaras, "Always in My Heart"
- Xavier Cugat, "Perfidia", "María Elena", "Jungle Drums", "My Shawl", "Siboney"
- Leslie Cheung performed the song 何去何從之阿飛正傳 loosely translated as 'Choice' or 'The True Story of Ah Fei' as the film's theme song and it is also found in his album Beloved (寵愛).
- 梅豔芳 (Anita Mui) – 是這樣的 – the Cantonese cover of the theme song and is featured at the end of the film during the credits.
Box office
Days of Being Wild grossed HK$9,751,942 in its Hong Kong run, a number that became typical for Wong Kar Wai's films. With the starry cast, this figure was considered a disappointment. Still, the film was successful enough to warrant a parody (The Days of Being Dumb, which also featured Tony Leung and Jacky Cheung), and now routinely tops Hong Kong critics' lists of the best local productions.
Reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 91% based on 32 reviews, with an average rating of 7.70/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Days of Being Wild uses a young man's struggle to come to terms with a family secret as the foundation for a beautifully filmed drama with a darkly dreamy allure". On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 93 out of 100 based on 21 critic reviews, indicating "universal acclaim".
The film ranked third on the Hong Kong Film Awards Association (HKFAA)'s 2005 list of The Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures. It placed 37th on the "Asian Cinema 100 List" at the 20th Busan International Film Festival in 2015.
The South Korean director and critic Park Chan-wook called Days of Being Wild "an enigmatic and trancelike fantasy" set in the early 1960s. He wrote that it is a metaphor for the return of the British colony of Hong Kong to China, which was planned for 1997. The return of Hong Kong caused deep fears, as many Hong Kongers feared that the relative liberties that existed under British rule would end under the rule of the People's Republic of China. Park noted that much of the film is set at night and that many scenes are dimly lit, creating a dark mood. Likewise, Park noted that much of the Days of Being Wild takes place in claustrophobic rooms and trains, which he saw as a metaphor for the characters' limited futures. He noted that all the characters look backward to the past rather than forward to the future. Yuddy is obsessed with finding his mother he never knew; Li-zhen is equally obsessed with remembering 3 pm 16 April 1960, the moment she met Yuddy; Tide cannot forget his short-lived quasi-romance with Li-zhen; Fung-ying can not give up her love for Yuddy; and Zeb holds on to his friendship with Yuddy despite the way he treats him. In a similar way, all the characters end the film on an unhappy note. Yuddy's mother rejects him and his trip to the Philippines leads to his murder; Fung-ying goes to the Philippines to find Yuddy, unaware of his death; Zeb is rejected by Fung-ying; and Tide and Li-zhen are unable to reconnect. Park argued that the way that the characters cannot look forward to a better future and are instead obsessed with the lost world of the past reflected the sense of despair at the heart of the film, suggesting that Hong Kong had its best days in the 1960s and has no bright future in its planned return to China.
The American critic Jonathan Rosenbaum wrote of Days of Being Wild: "Wong Kar-wai’s idiosyncratic style first became apparent in this gorgeously moody second feature (1990), whose romantic vision of 1960 Hong Kong as a network of unfulfilled longings would later echo through In the Mood for Love...As critic Tony Rayns has noted, it’s 'the first film to rhyme nostalgia for a half-imaginary past with future shock'". Rosenbaum noted that the similarity between Yuddy and the characters played by James Dean, and that when Dean's last film, Rebel Without a Cause (1955), was released in Hong Kong, its title in Cantonese was Days of Being Wild. Rosenbaum noted that the "puzzling coda" of an ending with an young man preparing going out was meant to be the start of a planned sequel, which was never made.
Home media
The film debuted on the Blu-ray format for the first time in the United States in 2021 in a collection of 7 Wong Kar-wai films by the Criterion Collection.
Awards and nominations
{| class="wikitable" style="font-size:95%;" ;
! colspan="4" style="background: LightSteelBlue;" | Awards and nominations
|-
! Ceremony
! Category
! Recipient
! Outcome
|-
|rowspan=9|10th Hong Kong Film Awards
|Best Film
|Days of Being Wild
|
|-
|Best Director
|Wong Kar-Wai
|
|-
|Best Screenplay
|Wong Kar-wai
|
|-
|Best Actor
|Leslie Cheung
|
|-
|Best Actress
|Carina Lau
|
|-
|Best Supporting Actress
|Rebecca Pan
|
|-
|Best Cinematography
|Christopher Doyle
|
|-
|Best Art Direction
|William Chang
|
|-
|Best Film Editing
|Patrick Tam
|
|-
|37th Asia Pacific Film Festival
|Best Actor
|Leslie Cheung
|
|-
|2nd Golden Bauhinia Awards
|Best Hong Kong film of the last 10 years
|Days of Being Wild
|
|-
|rowspan=2|24th Hong Kong Film Awards
|Best 100 Chinese Motion Pictures (#3)
|Days of Being Wild
|
|-
|Top 100 Favorite movies of Chinese Cinema (#2)
|Days of Being Wild
|
|-
|48th Golden Horse Awards
|100 Greatest Chinese-Language Films (#4)
|Days of Being Wild
|
|-
|}
See also
- Leslie Cheung filmography
- Andy Lau filmography
- Jacky Cheung filmography
- Cinema of Hong Kong
- Christopher Doyle
- List of movies set in Hong Kong
- List of Hong Kong films
- Alan Tang
Notes
References
External links
- Promotional website for US region