TONYLEUNG.INFO
Discuss Tony Leung with fellow fans!
 
Welcome to the Discussion Board

 FAQFAQ   SearchSearch   MemberlistMemberlist    ProfileProfile    Log inLog in   RegisterRegister 
  Log in to check your private messages Log in to check your private messages   
Click here to go to Archival Tony Board (2003-2012)

Days of Being Wild - Sight & Sound

 
Post new topic   Reply to topic    www.tonyleung.info Forum Index -> Tony Leung Articles
View previous topic :: View next topic  
Author Message
Sandy
Site Admin


Joined: 19 Dec 2002
Posts: 1424

PostPosted: Mon Sep 16, 2013 10:59 pm    Post subject: Days of Being Wild - Sight & Sound Reply with quote

DAYS OF BEING WILD.
Authors: Evans, David
Source: Sight & Sound. Jan 2013, Vol. 23 Issue 1, p128-128. 1p.



ENDINGS…
Tony Leung's enigmatic cameo at the very end of Wong Kar-Wai's second film marks a turning-point in the director's career

A man sits on a bed in a cramped, underlit apartment, buffing his nails. Dressed in waistcoat and tie, a cigarette dangling from his lip, he cuts a handsome, slightly rakish figure. After a few moments he rises, lifts a jacket from a hanger in the corner of the room, puts it on. Crossing to a desk, he collects various items: two packets of cigarettes, a deck of cards, a large wad of cash. He carefully folds a handkerchief and tucks it into his breast pocket. Finally he combs his hair, checks his watch, turns off the light and leaves the room.

So ends Wong Kar-Wai's gorgeous second film Days of Being Wild(Ahfei Zhenjuang, 1990). Consisting of a single shot, and backed by the languorous cha-cha of Xavier Cugat's 'Jungle Drums', this closing sequence is utterly compelling -- and not a little confusing. The well-dressed man, played by Tony Leung, has not previously been introduced in the film, and his identity is obscure.

Set largely in Hong Kong in the 1960s, Days of Being Wild follows Yuddy (Leslie Cheung), an 'Ahfei', or James Dean-style rebel. Yuddy spends his nights listlessly wandering the city, breaking the hearts of his lovers and the bones of his enemies. He was raised in an adoptive home, and much of his ennui seems to stem from the absence of his biological mother. Towards the end of the film he tracks her down to a palatial estate in the Philippines, only to be sent away, and this rejection prompts a self-destructive bout of drinking and violence. After Yuddy's death, Wong ties up a few narrative loose ends before unveiling Leung's curious cameo.

As Stephen Teo writes in his excellent book on Wong for the BFI's World Directors series, the ending was originally intended as a sort of teaser trailer for a mooted sequel, which was to centre on Leung's character. But that project fell through, and thus Days of Being Wild concludes with the vestigial trace of a film that was never made. As it stands, it makes for an ambiguous denouement. It might be seen to open out and generalise the main narrative, by suggesting that Yuddy is not the only brilliantined bad boy sauntering around 1960s Hong Kong. But the scene is also sealed off from the rest of the film, a self-enclosed unit like the garret Leung inhabits, and in that sense it anticipates the fragmented, episodic storytelling that was to characterise Wong's later work.

Another way of looking at it is simply as a showcase for one of the great performers in world cinema. As Robert Towne has put it, a fine screen actor is "ruthlessly efficient" and will "convey a staggering amount of information before he ever opens his mouth". Here Leung somehow manages to conjure an entire character out of a few precise and silent movements: the sureness with which he handles the deck of cards suggests an experienced gambler; the poise with which he slicks back his hair points to a preoccupation with the era's matinee idols (there are shades of Alain Delon). One even detects some menace in this all too fastidious primping -- a hint of concealed violence beneath the groomed surface. Thanks to Leung's performance, a scene that might have been little more than an incongruous coda becomes an exquisite and resonant vignette, and arguably the highlight of the whole film. Rarely has an actor done so much with so little.

Like most of the big Hong Kong stars of his generation, Leung has made his fair share of commercial dross -- as if Tokyo Raiders (2000) wasn't bad enough, he went back for the sequel Seoul Raiders (2005) too. But his talent has been teased out by the likes Tran Anh Hung in Cyclo (1995) and Hou Hsiao-Hsien in both A City of Sadness (1989) and Flowers of Shanghai (1998). As the sadistic quisling in Ang Lee's Lust, Caution (2007), Leung is quite breathtakingly good.

But most of the actor's finest moments have come in tandem with Wong, and Days of Being Wild was the first product of an actor-director collaboration that has yielded five further films (the forthcoming Yip Man biopic The Grandmasters will be their seventh together), of which at least three are masterpieces. Both the sprightly diptych Chungking Express (1994) and the downbeat romance Happy Together (1997) are unimaginable without Leung's gentle, melancholic charm, and few other actors could have matched as he did Maggie Cheung's beautifully subtle performance in In the Mood for Love(2000).

In hindsight, then, perhaps we should view that mysterious scene in Days of Being Wild not as an ending, but as a glorious beginning.
Back to top
View user's profile
Display posts from previous:   
Post new topic   Reply to topic    www.tonyleung.info Forum Index -> Tony Leung Articles All times are GMT - 8 Hours
Page 1 of 1

 
Jump to:  
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum


Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group