2014 Hong Kong Cinema

The San Francisco Film Society presented the 2014 Hong Kong Cinema series from November 14 to 16 at the Vogue Theater.  There were 8 films in the series and I saw 5.  I had already seen one of the films (The Golden Era) and another film did not appeal to me (The White Haired Witch of Lunar Kingdom).  The film which I would like to have seen but my schedule did not permit was Uncertain Relationships Society and even that seemed aimed at younger demographic than me.

From Vegas to Macau starring Chow Yun-fat, Nicholas Tse & Chapman To; directed by Wong Jing; Mandarin & Cantonese with subtitles; (2014)
Chungking Express starring Takeshi Kaneshiro, Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai  & Faye Wong; directed by Wong Kar-wai; Cantonese with subtitles; (1994)
The Midnight After starring Simon Yam & Suet Lam; directed by Fruit Chan; Cantonese with subtitles; (2014) - Official Facebook
Aberdeen starring Louis Koo, Gigi Leung, Miriam Yeung & Eric Tsang; directed by Pang Ho-cheung; Cantonese with subtitles; (2014)
Overheard 3 starring Sean Lau, Louis Koo & Daniel Wu; directed by Alan Mak & Felix Chong; Mandarin & Cantonese with subtitles; (2014)

The series was mixed bag for me.  I greatly enjoyed two films while the other three left me in various states of boredom.

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SFFS programmed a 20th anniversary screening of Chungking Express which I had not previously seen.  With Chungking Express, I have now seen 8 of Wong's 10 feature directorial efforts.  The two missing links are My Blueberry Nights (Wong's only English language film from 2007) and As Tears Go By (Wong's 1988 directorial debut).

It's not very original for me to say I greatly enjoyed one of the most celebrated films of the past two decades but that is the fact.  Chungking Express is an unabashed romantic comedy or at least 90%.  Regardless, it has more quirky humor than his other films.

The film is divided into two parts which (upon first viewing) have nothing to do with each other.

The film starts with Takeshi Kaneshiro as a HK cop who is despondent over breaking up with his girlfriend.  He gives the separation 30 days; if at the end of that time, they have not reconciled, he will move on.  He marks the days off by purchasing canned pineapples (one per day) with an expiration date identical to the 30 day deadline (May 1 if I recall correctly).  Meanwhile, Brigitte Lin plays a drug smuggler who constantly wears sunglasses and a blonde wig.  When the Indian immigrants she hires to mule her smack rip her off, she is in deep trouble.  The two of them crisscross HK and each other until a fateful meeting in a bar leads to a one night stand.  As a postscript, Lin's character shoots a man (a white guy to boot) to apparently take care of her problem.

Although the 1st half of the film has its moments, it was the 2nd half of the film which burnished Chungking Express' reputation.  Another HK cop (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) is also depressed about breaking up with his girlfriend.  He stops in at a all-night restaurant to get coffee and meets the owner's niece and new employee Faye (Faye Wong).  With her pixie cut, insouciant manner & expressive face, Wong is the breakout star in what was her first lead acting role.

I don't think they ever mentioned names on screen although IMDB lists character names.  In the film, I recall that Kaneshiro & Leung were referred to by their characters' badge numbers.  I don't recall Lin's character ever being addressed by name.  Faye Wong's character is called Faye.

Anyway, Tony Leung's ex-girlfriend (an airline stewardess) stops by the restaurant to leave a note for him.  Everyone in the restaurant steams open the note to read it.  More importantly, she leaves his apartment keys with the note.  Leung is not anxious to read the note so he keeps putting off picking it up.  Leung is also transferred to the dayshift.  When Faye sees Leung on duty, she rushes to his apartment with the keys and cleans, explores, buys new goldfish, fantasizes and generally acts in an outrageous manner which would be called stalking today but was oddly endearing in 1994 HK.  All the while, Leung senses something is off at home.  It isn't until he comes home early that he literally bumps in Faye coming out his apartment.

The second half of Chungking Express was delightful and as enjoyable as any movie experience I've had in a long time.  Faye Wong even sings a memorable Cantonese cover version of the Cranberries' Dream.  Unlike many films, I thought Chungking Express lived up to its reputation and is still fresh after 20 years.

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I was also impressed with Pang Ho-cheung's Aberdeen.  I have to admit that my working knowledge of HK geography is embarrassing.  I couldn't identify Kowloon, the New Territories, Aberdeen, Repulse Bay, etc. on a map.  Aberdeen (aka Little Hong Kong) is a town on the south side of Hong Kong Island.  The film is set in Aberdeen although the setting is only relevant in one scene which I can remember.

Aberdeen is a slice of life film about three generations of the Cheng family.  Pang regular Miriam Yeung plays elder sister Wai Ching, a tour guide for old British fortifications.  Her husband Yau (Eric Tsang) is a doctor.  Louis Koo is Tao, her younger brother is a motivational speaker.  His wife, Ceci (Gigi Leung) is a fashion model & actress.  Their daughter Chloe is a precocious girl.  Wai Ching & Tao's father  (Ng Man Tat) is a widower and Taoist priest who has taken up with bar hostess (Carrie Ng).

Each family member faces their own challenges.  Wai Ching has unresolved issues with her late mother that she cannot get past.  Her husband Yau is having an affair with a nurse in his office.  Ceci is struggling with her age, lack of work and the pressures of the casting couch.  Tao is growing increasingly concerned about his daughter; worried that her weight & appearance will work against her in the future and also feeling guilt about a young girl he bullied for those very reasons during his youth.  Dong (the patriarch) mourns not just the loss of his wife but the loss of fishing which has been his family's way of life for generations.

Pang successfully juggles these disparate threads.  Whereas there was an element of the juvenile in his previous films, Aberdeen deals with universal issues that adults face.  It's not about guys making porn movies, people coping with a cigarette sales ban in HK or the self-detracting behavior of 20something women in China.  Instead, people get old, people have to deal with dead loved ones, people have to confront their own transgressions, etc.  These issues elevate Aberdeen to something memorable.  I won't say Aberdeen has gravitas but it is Pang's most more mature work to date.  It shows a leap in ambition from his previous films.  By ratcheting down the humor and focusing on the bittersweet lives on the Cheng family, Pang has made the best movie of his career so far or at least of the half dozen or so films I have seen.

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From Vegas to Macau boasted an all-star cast and was described in the program guide as "genre-twisting."  I thought it was an action-comedy.  As I was leaving the theater, a couple was walking directly in front of me.  The man said to the woman, "I don't get Chinese humor."  Me neither.  From Vegas to Macau (aka The Man from Macau) relied on too many plot twists and broad humor.  It's one of those films where you see a car drive through a wall & explode.  Then the action rewinds and you see the real reason the car through the wall & exploded.  Another thing I notice about HK films I don't like is that they overly rely on technology to advance the plot.  In this case, Chow Yun-fat had an X-ray sensor attached to his fingernail which then sent the image to his brain via some cybernetics.  This was so he could cheat at cards.  He also had a deck of gold playing cards that he could toss with lethal accuracy.

Fruit Chan's The Midnight After was genre-twisting.  A bus full of people drive through a tunnel and when they come out, everyone else in HK has disappeared.  I don't recall the reason ever being explained.  There are hallucination of guys in Hazmat suits.  Some people turn into sand or dirt.  By the end, it rains blood.  To be honest, I don't know what I saw.  At times the film bored, at other times it was frustratingly vague and on the occasions it caught my attention, the film quickly lost it.

Overheard 3 is the third in a popular series of films.  I have not seen Overheard or Overheard 2.  Overheard 3 had something to do with the New Territories & how residents could inherit the right to build homes.  There are gangsters that want to build there.  The meat of the 131 minute film is that Louis Koo has just gotten out of prison (I presume this was covered in Overheard 2) after taking the rap for murder.  The four Luk brothers are gangsters & owe Koo a debt of gratitude.  Koo, with the help of hacker (Daniel Wu), is out to take the Luk brothers down.  The slips them a Mickey Finn, installs spyware on their cellphones and then manipulates them into turning on each other.  Perhaps something was lost in the translation but the complex criminal & interpersonal relationships, deceptions & betrayals & high tech surveillance just couldn't generate interest from me.  Frankly, these Chinese action films seem to be stuck in a rut.  It seems like I've seen a bushel full of these types of films which leave me mild at best.  They almost all have some memorable scenes or character but very few of them keep my attention throughout the film.

How Many Ip Man Films Does It Take?

The title was fashioned after a popular commercial of my childhood which asked the rhetorical questions phrased as a literal one, "How many licks does it take to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop?"  How many Ip Man biopics does it take to saturate the market?

By my count, I have seen have seen three films based on Ip Man's life in the past few years.  I added two to that total in September alone.  I saw both films at the 4 Star.

The Grandmaster starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai & Zhang Ziyi; directed by Kar Wai Wong, Mandarin, Cantonese & Japanese with subtitles; (2013) - Official Website
Ip Man: The Final Fight starring Anthony Wong; directed by Herman Yau; Cantonese with subtitles; (2013) - Official Website

The Grandmaster was supposed to be a different kind of kung fu film.  Directed by Kar Wai Wong who is known for unhurried explorations of forbidden longing.  Tony Leung plays Ip Man in The Grandmaster.  His impossible love is Zhang Ziyi who plays the daughter of a kung fu rival.  After an impromptu match between the two (which Ip Man "loses"), it seems a romance is likely but WWII gets in the way.  Gong (Zhang) in the north is separated by the Japanese Army from Man in the south of of China.  We watch Gong confront her late father's protege over his collaboration with the Japanese.  The most memorable scene involves a duel between Gong and Ma San (Zhang Jin), in the snow, on a train platform, while a train speeds past the platform.  Suffering grievous injuries during the fight, Gong is unable to fight with Man in Hong Kong when the meet after the war.

Covering some ground I've seen before (particularly evocative of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon), Leung and Zhang's interplay mixes martial arts and romantic attraction.  Their skills and philosophies during the fight reveal their strength of character and only serves to intensify their appeal to each other.

The Grandmaster was edited down by 15 minutes from the international film festival version which probably detracted from the experience.  Frankly, writing nearly two months after seeing it, I remember the fight sequences more than the interaction between Leung and Zhang.  Both Leung and Zhang are movie stars of the highest order.  By that I mean, they have screen presence galore.  You can't take your eyes off them when they are on screen.

Ip Man: The Final Fight focuses on his later life in Hong Kong when age and money troubles are taking their toll on him.  Trying to maintain his dignity, Ip Man struggles with separation from his wife (and eventually widower status) and pecuniary matters such as having to teach kung fu to make a living.

In many ways, I preferred Ip Man: The Final Fight to The Grandmaster.  Ip Man was presented as more flawed in The Final Fight.  His students have their own lives - one is a corrupt cop, another fights in death matches for money, one of his female students resents Ip Man's girlfriend after his wife dies, etc.  Through it all, Ip Man tries to persevere with some measure of his honor intact.

Anthony Wong, whom I associate most with Johnny To films, plays Ip Man with a quiet reserve.   Zhou Chu-Chu as a nightclub singer/heroin addict/Ip Man's girl is memorable.

Both of these films were worthwhile and there is much to admire and enjoy about them.  I wish I had time to write more about them.

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The 4 Star is hosting the annual Chinese American Film Festival from November 13 to 20.  Three of the films are being screen free of admission charge on November 12.  A few of the films look interesting.

2012 Not Necessarily Noir

I mentioned that I had recommended Body Double and Something Wild to Elliot Lavine during one of his previous Roxie series.  I spoke with Lavine during the last month's Not Necessarily Noir 3 (NNN3) festival at the Roxie.  He was a bit cagey when I mentioned our conversation to him.  He said "I remember that conversation."  He didn't say "I took your programming advice" or even "I'm glad you recommended those films" but was noncommittal.  He acknowledged the conversation if not the "cause and effect."

NNN3 ran from October 19 to 31 at the Roxie.  I saw 14 of the 26 films screened.

Of the 12 films I missed, I had seen six of them on the big screen within the last few years.   A seventh film, From Dusk Till Dawn, has had heavy rotation on cable TV.  I've seen parts of From Dusk Till Dawn at least two dozen times.  The seven films I passed on due to familiarity were:  Reservoir Dogs (dir. Quentin Tarantino, 1992), Cockfighter (dir. Monte Hellman, 1974), The Burglars (1971), Eyes of Laura Mars (dir. Irving Kershner, 1978), Sugar Hill (1974), From Dusk till Dawn (dir. Robert Rodriguez, 1996) and Near Dark (dir. Kathryn Bigelow, 1987).

The five films I passed on due to scheduling conflicts or fatigue were:  Day of the Wolves, Peur Sur la Ville, Manhunter, White of the Eye and Ganja & Hess.  I remember reading Red Dragon, the Thomas Harris novel Manhunter was based on.  I can still recall some of the plot including the serial killer's obsession with William Blake's paintings.  I particularly regret missing Day of the Wolves.

I noticed that Lavine was absent quite a bit.  He typically introduces the films but he was absent from many of the screenings I attended.  As Lavine noted, NNN3 had the misfortune of competing the San Francisco Giants playoff run which ended in a Word Series title.  On seven of the 13 days, NNN3 competed against Giants playoff games.  I definitely noticed that attendance was off compared to previous festivals.

I was in the Roxie watching Who'll Stop the Rain when the Giants clinched the Series.  I could hear the cheering on Valencia Street when the final out was recorded.  When the movie ended about an hour after that, the streets around the Roxie were crowded with revellers celebrating the win and police cars were escorting a makeshift victory parade.

The 14 films I saw were:

Hard Boiled starring Chow Yun-fat & Tony Leung Chiu Wai; directed by John Woo; Cantonese with subtitles; (1992)
To Live and Die in LA starring William Petersen & Willem Dafoe; directed by William Friedkin; (1985)
One False Move starring Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams & Billy Bob Thornton; directed by Carl Franklin; (1992)
Charley Varrick starring Walter Matthau & Joe Don Baker; direcited by Don Siegel; (1973)
Miami Blues starring Alec Baldwin, Fred Ward & Jennifer Jason Leigh; directed by George Armitage; (1990)
Darker Than Amber starring Rod Taylor; directed by Robert Clouse; (1970)
Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia starring Warren Oates; directed by Sam Peckinpah; (1974)
Body Double starring Craig Wasson, Melanie Griffith & Gregg Henry; directed by Brian De Palma; (1984)
Kiss Kiss Bang Bang starring Robert Downey Jr. & Val Kilmer; directed by Shane Black; (2005) - Official Website
Something Wild starring Jeff Daniels, Melanie Griffith & Ray Liotta; directed by Jonathan Demme; (1986)
Cisco Pike starring Kris Kristofferson, Harry Dean Stanton & Gene Hackman; directed by Bill L. Norton; (1972)
Who'll Stop the Rain starring Nick Nolte & Tuesday Weld; directed by Karel Reisz; (1978)
Night of the Following Day starring Marlon Brando, Richard Boone & Rita Moreno; directed by Hubert Cornfield; (1968)
After Dark, My Sweet starring Jason Patric, Rachel Ward & Bruce Dern; directed by James Foley; (1990)

The print of Who'll Stop the Rain listed the film title as Dog Soldiers.

There were quite a few pleasant surprises in the series.  Prior to the series, I had seen Body Double, Something Wild, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang and To Live & Die in LA.  After Dark, My Sweet looked familiar but while watching it I was not able to recall or predict the plot.

I'm going to save Body Double & Something Wild for their own posts.  There was a time in my life when those two films and Blade Runner formed the triumvirate of influential films in my life.  It's been at least 10 years since I saw any of those film in they entirety in one sitting.  I was very anxious about seeing Body Double & Something Wild after perhaps 15 to 20 years since seeing them.

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To Live and Die in LA is one of those films I kind of remember from my teenage years.  I recall Wang Chung did the soundtrack and the title track had heavy airplay on MTV.  I remember an intense car chase scene.  I remember a line by John Tuturro - "And the check is in the mail, and I love you, and I promise not to come in your mouth..."

I was expecting Live & Die to be stylish but I was surprised at much I was drawn into the plot.  Willem Dafoe is a counterfeiter who is ruthless in murdering anyone who gets in his way including Secret Service Agent Richard Chance's (William Petersen) partner.  Change is an adrenalin junkie and cowboy cop who becomes obsessed with arresting Eric Masters (Dafoe).  As Chance resorts to criminal behavior (which results in the death of an undercover FBI agent), the line between cop & criminal is blurred.

Petersen comes on a little too strong but I guess the character requires an outsized performance.  Dafoe is very creepy as Masters.  John Pankow as Chance's tenderfoot partner shows quite a range of acting.  The ending was also shocking because it went against the typically Hollywood playbook.

Kiss Kiss Bang Bang features Robert Downey Jr. at his snarkiest.  Clever and very funny, KKBB is comedy masquerading as a neo-noir.  Downey plays a small-time thief pretending to be a method actor who teams up a Gay Perry (Val Kilmer), a homosexual private eye.  Filled with Hollywood references and strong comedic chemistry between Downey & Kilmer, KKBB is an under-appreciated film.

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Hard Boiled is an HK action film with Chow Yun-fat as a cop and Tony Leung Chiu Wai as an undercover cop trying to bring down gangster Anthony Wong.  Featuring John Woo's trademark ballet of violence, Hard Boiled ends with extended finale which takes place in hospital.  For my tastes, the explosions and running battles were emphasized too.  I recall Woo's best films had more character development.  I'm thinking of A Better Tomorrow, The Killer and Face/Off.  Hard Boiled isn't bad as much as it suffers in comparison to Woo's (and Chow Yun-fat's) best works.

Darker Than Amber was also disappointing.  I never got into the film which is a tale of murder involving a prostitution ring.  The highlight of the film is fight scene between Taylor and William Smith.  While I was watching the scene, I was surprised at how realistic it was.  It was step above the normal 1970s fight sequence.  I later learned that the fight scene is infamous because the two actor were really fighting - real blood & real missing teeth.  Lavine, who introduced the film, made sure to mention the print he was screening had the original fight which has been edited down in many prints.

Cisco Pike & Who'll Stop the Rain seemed like 1970s time capsules which was distracting.  It wasn't just the clothes but the post-Vietnam Was disillusionment that seemed foreign to me.

After Dark, My Sweet which is well regarded by many seemed bogged down in Patric's performance & the ending seemed to come out of nowhere.  It's one of those films where they take time and care to establish the characters and then at the end, they change the characters' motivations to resolve the plot.  Maybe I missed something.  It was the last film I saw in the series & I remember I was anxious to get home that night.

Night of the Following Day was a kidnap for ransom caper involving Marlon Brando, Richard Boone & Rita Moreno as the kidnappers of  a teenage heiress.  Richard Boone is a great villain.  I vividly recall his performances from two of John Wayne's later films - Big Jake and Wayne's final film, The Shootist.  Night of the Following Day didn't really distinguish itself.

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Charley Varrick was a nice surprise..  Featuring the always reliable Walter Matthau as a small-time bank robber who has inadvertently rips off the Mob.  John Vernon (another reliably great villain) plays the mob banker and Joe Don Baker is the hitman out to retrieve the money and kill Varrick (Matthau).  Charley Varrick is a nice caper film.

One False Move was also a surprise.  I had never heard of the film (which was co-written by Billy Bob Thornton).  Billy Bob, Michael Beach & Cynda Williams play a trio who pull off a particularly violent drug robbery.  Billy Bob is coked up, Beach is calculatingly ruthless and Williams is kind of along for the ride.  The three drive from LA to the small Arkansas town that Billy Boy & Williams grew up in.  Bill Paxton plays the sheriff of that town & he and Williams share a secret.  Billy Bob, in his first screenplay, explores small town life and race relations.  What starts off as noir, ends in tale of redemption.  The film is very well made and explores the interactions within two trios - the criminal trio and the second trio consist of Paxton & two LA cops in Arkansas waiting for the first trio.  The trio of cops offer their commentary on small town life and urban view towards rural life.  Paxton is outstanding as Sheriff Hurricane Dixon but the rest of the cast is quite good as well.

Miami Blues was a film I had never heard of before the festival.  Part comedy, part noir, Miami Blues stars a young Alec Baldwin as a goofy psychopath who upon arriving in Miami hooks up with a naive prostitute (an unrecognizable Jennifer Jason Leigh).  Baldwin & Leigh immediately set up house but Detective Moseley (Fred Ward) comes around investigating the murder of a Hare Krishna which was committed by Baldwin.  Later that night, Frenger (Baldwin) assaults Moseley and takes his gun & badge.    Trying to go legit for Susie's (Leigh) sake, Frenger uses the badge & gun to break up robberies  by robbing the robber or shaking down the victim he saves.

Moseley eventually tracks them down and he & Frenger have a showdown after a darkly comedic interlude involving Frenger, a pawn shop owner and a machete.  Baldwin shines as the off-kilter killer.  He has a certain glow about him as if he is loving every minute of the shoot.  As a time marker, Miami Blues was released about a month after The Hunt for Red October.

Those three films (Charley Varrick, One False Move & Miami Blues) made NNN3 worthwile for me.  They were completely unknown to me and thoroughly enjoyable.  A fourth film also made the top of my list but I was aware of it before the series.  Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia is well known due to its title and director (Sam Peckinpah).  Peckinpah's low-budget follow-up to the commercially disappointing Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Alfredo Garcia is mostly a psychological profile of Bennie (Warren Oates), a American expat in Mexico making a living playing Guantanamera on his piano (I know that's Cuban not Mexican).  Alfredo Garcia is guy who impregnated El Jefe's daughter and he has put a bounty on his decapitated head.  The word goes out and two Americans (Robert Webber & Gig Young) start looking for Garcia.  They cross paths with Bennie who pretends he doesn't know Garcia.  In fact, he is a regular in the bar Bennie plays piano in.

Bennie finds out that Elita (Isela Vega), his prostitute girlfriend, knows where he is buried.  Garcia died in a car accident recently.  Eager to collect the bounty, Bennie and Elita set off to dig up the corpse, decapitate it and collect the money.  Bennie approaches this grisly task with a nonchalance which is interesting.  The trip will change his life forever as he has contend with biker rapists, robbers who steal the head and kill Elita, Garcia's family, the two Americans and eventually El Jefe.  Bennie undergoes a profound metamorphosis as result of his tribulations.  It's a nightmare road trip on acid as Bennie begins to talk with Garcia's rotting head (kept in a burlap bag).

Before, I said Cisco Pike & Who'll Stop the Rain were distracting because its time setting was so prevalent.  Alfredo Garcia looks like a 1970s film (Oates made a lot of films with Monte Hellman that looked similar), but the themes in Alfredo Garcia translate better to present day.

Wong Kar Wai's 1960s Trilogy

Way back in April, I saw Wong Kar Wai's loose trilogy as a triple feature at the Castro Theater.  I didn't forget about the films.  I was just unsure what to write as my opinion of the three films varies greatly.

Days of Being Wild starring Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau & Carina Lau; cameo by Tony Leung Chiu-Wai; Cantonese with subtitles; (1990) - Official Website
In the Mood for Love starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai & Maggie Cheung; Cantonese with subtitles; (2000) - Official Website
2046 starring Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Zhang Ziyi, Faye Wong, Carina Lau, Gong Li & Takuya Kimura; Cantonese and some Japanese with subtitles; (2004) - Official Website

All three films were directed by Wong Kar Wai.  Christopher Doyle was the cinematographer on all three films as well.

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The films showed a career arc.  Days of Being Wild, Wong's second film as director, was interesting but hinted at Wong's potential.  In the Mood for Love was a masterpiece.  2046 was self-indulgent.

Days of Being Wild did not focus Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) as the other two films did.  Leung makes a cameo at the end of the film but the main character is Yuddy played by the late Leslie Cheung.  Yuddy is a "love 'em and leave 'em" type in 1960s Hong Kong.  At the beginning of the film, he romancing Su Li Zhen (Maggie Cheung, looking different somehow), a cashier in a concession stand.  Their's is an intense, lusty relationship which Yuddy breaks off.  That leave Li Zhen emotionally crushed although she eventually forms a friendship with Tide, a cop (Andy Lau). 

Yuddy's next conquest is Mimi (Carina Lau), a glamorous cabaret singer who suffers the same fate as Li Zhen.  Yuddy's friend Zeb (Jacky Cheung) is secretly in love with Mimi.  When Yuddy decides to go to the Philippines to search for his birth mother, Zeb gets his chance with Mimi.

In the Philippines, the wealthy Yuddy is living in a flophouse in the Chinatown section where he encounters Tide who has quit his police job.  At this point, the plot becomes a little fuzzy.  I'm not sure if it was my memory or Wong's unstructured style.  Yuddy does reunite with his Filipino mother with unsatisfactory results.  While taking a train with Tide, Yuddy is shot.  I can't the reason or if it was a random incident.  Although he survives for quite some time, the film ends with Yuddy dying as a result of his wounds.

There were a number of themes in Days of Being Wild that I caught.  One is the timing of romance.  Tide and Li Zhen may have been a couple if they had met before Li Zhen painful breakup with Yuddy.  Mimi & Zeb may turn out to be a couple because they had encountered Yuddy in the recent past.  So much of life is not quite fate but sequential for lack of a better word. 

Unrequited love is a major theme.  Much of Yuddy's behavior stems from his strained relationship with his aunt/foster mother (Rebecca Pan), a former prostitute.  They both want the love of the other but circumstances keep them emotionally separated.  What is more unrequited than a mother giving her son away...to a prostitute no less!

Combined with Doyle's cinematography and the 1960s music, Days of Being Wild is a contemplative film which evokes a mood and specific time and place.

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The trilogy was screened in chronological order.  After seeing Days of Being Wild, I was greatly anticipating In the Mood for Love, a critically acclaimed film I had long wanted to see.

A major character in In the Mood for Love is Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung).  I didn't realize until late in the film that Mrs. Chan is the same character as Su Li Zhen in Days of Being Wild.  Mrs. Chan is so different than the lovelorn Li Zhen of Days of Being Wild that it didn't register with me.  After the screening, while looking at the credits, I realized that Rebecca Pan was in both films (looking unrecognizable between the two films).  I don't believe Pan is playing the same character but it wouldn't surprise me. 

In the Mood for Love has a more structured plot than the other films in the trilogy.  Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) and his wife (who is never seen on screen) rent a room in a boardinghouse run by Mrs. Suen (Pan).  One of their neighbors is Mrs. Chan and her husband (who is never seen on screen).  Mr. Chow is a journalist while Mrs. Chan is a secretary.  I don't recall their spouses' jobs but the spouses are absent for long stretches of time.

Mr. Chow & Mrs. Chan begin to suspect their spouses are having an affair with each other.  Taking solace in each other's company, the two form a platonic friendship.  Chow wants to wrote a kung fu serial for his newspaper which Chan is a fan of.  They collaboration raised the suspicions of their neighbors as Mrs. Suen subtly warns Mrs. Chow.  In fact, the warning was not about having an affair but allowing neighbors to think you are having an affair.

Chow rents a (garishly painted) room far from the Suen boardinghouse for the two to work together away from wagging tongues.  Their relationship intensifies during this period as both are deeply dissatisfied by their lives.  It still remain platonic as their circumstances dictate.  Not only are they married to other people but after condemning their respective spouses, they would be hypocritical to engage in the same behavior.

As the serial nears completion, Chow announces that he is leaving Hong Kong for a new job in Singapore.  He asks Chan to go with him (what about his wife?).  After initial hesitancy and delay, Chang decides to take his offer but after rushing to the room, she finds Chow has already left.

A year later, Chan (what about her husband?) goes to Singapore and calls him on the phone but remains silent.  She even talks the landlady into letting her into his apartment but again doesn't wait for him. 

Several years later, Chan (apparently divorced or separated) returns to the Suen boardinghouse.  Mrs. Suen is about to move to the US.  Chan agrees to rent her apartment.  At yete a future point, Chow returns to the boardinghouse and asks the new owner about Mrs. Suen and is informed she has moved and that a woman and her son live in the unit.  Chow leaves, not knowing the woman in Suen's apartment is Chow.  The film ends with Chow in Angkor Wat with Chow whispering into a tree hole and covering the hole with mud which is a old custom Chow had recounted earlier about how secrets could be shared.

In the Mood for Love was riveting.  First of all, it was beautiful to look at.  Maggie Cheung wore a stunning and endless array of cheongsam.  My words can't do justice to the colors and designs of these dresses nor the flaterring effect they had on Maggie Cheung's form.  She must have worn at least 30 cheongsam in the film; each more attractive then the last.

Wong & Doyle, also made use of slow motion and the claustrophic HK neighborhoods.  Chan & Chow repeatedly go up and down these stairs leading to a noodle joint with steam rising up.  They miss each other by moments even though they dine at the same place.

Finally, the soundtrack featured Nat King Cole's "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás" as a leitmotif to great effect.

In the Mood for Love is a tremendous film - a great love story about a love that never was.  Poignant, elegiac and immensely engaging, I wanted the pair to find love with each other but Wong teasingly denied me that satisfaction.

§§§

As I settled in for 2046, I wasn't sure what to expect.  I noticed that Chow rented room 2046 in In the Mood for Love. 

2046 has multiple stories within it which make it hard to discern the common threads.  One story involves Chow's novel set in 2046 and a man who falls in love with an android on his train.  To give this story arc resonance, actors Tak Kimura (the man) and Faye Wong (the android) play a Japanese businessman and the landlord's daughter in the hotel where Chow lives.  In fact, all the character in the fictitious future world are played by actors who have other roles in the film.

To cope with his unconsummated relationship with Chan, Chow has transformed himself into a ladies man (like Yuddy in Days of Being Wild).  He even encounters Mimi/Lulu (Carina Lau) who lives in room 2046.  When Chow returns to the hotel a few days later, he inquires about renting 2046.  The landlord tells him it is not available because Mimi was stabbed in the room by a jealous boyfriend (Jacky Cheung as presumably Zeb). 

From this room, Chow observes the sequential residents of 2046.  First is a  Wang Jing Wen (Faye Wong) who forbidden relationship with a Japanese man causes a nervous breakdown.  Next is Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi), the woman a nightclub owner and upscale prostitute who dresses like Mrs. Chan but is more overt and liberated in her sexuality.  I could go on but there are more threads in this film than Egyptian cotton.

Chow encounters another woman named Su Li Zhen (Gong Li) in Singapore.  These these women as well as Wang Jing Wen's younger sister provide a contrast in feminine sensuality for Chow to react to.  The effect of so many characters was overwhelming. 

Wong put his themes into overdrive in 2046 to the point that I couldn't really follow the film.  Worse, with so many characters, I couldn't empathize with any of them.  Chow as the playboy was much less compelling as Chow the forlorn lover.

So I wasn't so impressed with 2046 but I'd like to watch it again.  In fact, I'd like to see the entire trilogy again.  There are so many interconnected characters that I'm certain I missed many of the connections.  However, if I had to choose just one film of the three, I'd choose In the Mood for Love.