Days of Being Wild
|
List Price: Our Price: $15.49 You Save: $14.46 (48%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $5.97 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Buy this DVD movie at online store in your country
Canada
Canada
Movie Reviews of Days of Being Wild
Movie Review: They're following the wrong character!
Summary: 3 Stars
This was a good film from one of the best modern directors. The cinematography is, of course, superb (what else would you expect from Wong Kar-Wai and Christopher Doyle?) and the acting is all quite good. If it doesn't have quite the energy and aesthetic beauty of some of his later films, well, that can be attributed to the fact that it's only his second film as director and he was still finding his feet.
Still, I found the film a somewhat frustrating experience for one primary reason: It focuses on the wrong character. Leslie Cheung's violence and poor treatment of women apparently resulting from his troubled relationship with his adoptive mother really weren't all that interesting. Far more intriguing was the subplot of the cop who wants to be a sailor. His scenes walking through the dark, lonely, rainy streets (first alone, then with a girl, then alone again) are the most involving and effective in all the film. As the narrative returned to Leslie Cheung and his mommy issues, I couldn't help but feel a sense of disappointment (and creeping boredom.) Though the cop does return later in the narrative, it was too little to late.
Movie Review: not enjoyable for non-intellectuals
Summary: 2 Stars
I have just read a lengthy review of this movie hailing it as an existential masterpiece. What's wrong with me? I didn't like it at all and found it all but unintelligible. Perhaps I'm just not intellectual enough. All I want from a movie is a good plot, good actors, good photography, a story I can understand and characters I can get involved with. Is that too much to ask?
Here we have a hero who treats the two women in his life like crap. His problem apparently stems from his adoptive mother who took him for the money and refuses to reveal the identity of his birth mother. Eventually, after a lot of yack, she does so but when the protagonist travels to meet her, he is rejected. Suddenly, after all this, there is a shoot-out in a restaurant and another one on a train (why this happens, don't ask me because I totally didn't get it) and everyone dies. End of story.
I did like the noirish atmosphere surrounding this movie, most of which seems to happen in the pouring rain, but the "hero" seems to be a case of arrested development who can't stop combing his greasy hair. Why two attractive women fall so hard for him I couldn't say. Perhaps they have masochistic tendencies. Perhaps I did too, sticking this out to its totally unsatisfying end.