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MOVIES / ON DVD / DAYS OF BEING WILD
Days of Being Wild

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Days of Being Wild (1990)

90%
67%
84%
N/A
N/A
N/A
90 %
Reviews Counted: 29 Fresh: 26  Rotten:3 Average Rating: 7.7/10

How does the Tomatometer work?

The Tomatometer measures the percentage of positive reviews from Approved Tomatometer Critics for a certain movie.[-]

Runtime: 89 mins

Synopsis: DAYS OF BEING WILD is the film that started it all for auteur art film director Wong Kar Wai, exhibiting many of the preoccupations and devices that would characterize his work throughout his career until the present time. The precise, almost melodic slowness of the pacing is reflective of the... DAYS OF BEING WILD is the film that started it all for auteur art film director Wong Kar Wai, exhibiting many of the preoccupations and devices that would characterize his work throughout his career until the present time. The precise, almost melodic slowness of the pacing is reflective of the existential conundrum in which the characters are mired, offsetting the random, fleeting nature of the glimpses of love they are afforded. The first film in Wong's oeuvre that is a product of his happy alliance with cinematographer Christopher Doyle, it is a film of chance, the persistence and terrifying weight of time and memory, and the fortuitous accident that passes for love. Leslie Cheung stars as Yuddy, a vain, sexually predatory orphan whose mother abandoned him with her prostitute sister when he was very young; today, he lackadaisically searches for his birth mother while living his layabout lifestyle funded by his put-upon aunt. He approaches Lai (Maggie Cheung), a snack bar clerk, who rejects him but is haunted by Yuddy's classic line that they were friends for exactly one minute on that exact date; although realizing that he will never care for her she continues to pine for him, turning for solace to a cop (Andy Lau) who duly falls in love with her. Yuddy moves on to Mimi (Carina Lau), a beautiful cabaret dancer who is ultimately unable to maintain her tough facade when she falls for Yuddy; her vulnerability draws in Yuddy's best friend (Jackie Cheung), who idolizes him and is rejected by Mimi. The soap-opera quality of this web of love serves to illustrate the uncontrollable nature of emotions and the fact that they are governed by coincidence, underscoring the rather bleak existentialism of the film. However, the humanity depicted in the actors' stunning performances, and the dreamlike nature of the sequences that effect the impression of memory, redeem the seemingly unredeemable characters. [More]

Genre: Foreign Films

Starring: Leslie Cheung, Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Jacky Cheung, Alex Man

Director: Kar-Wai Wong

DVD Info

Release:

Jul 10, 2005

[DVD Details]

Reviews

 
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1 - 20 (sorted by date; UK critics are listed first)
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Full Review | comment Comment
01/26/06
Time Out
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N/R

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11/11/03
Channel 4 Film
Top Critic Icon Top Critic
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A-

A dark moody period piece about unrequited love.

Full Review | comment Comment
12/19/06
Dennis Schwartz
Ozus' World Movie Reviews
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N/A

Twelve years after first seeing Days of Being Wild, I’m finally developing some fondness for it.

Full Review | comment Comment
07/31/05
Andy Klein
Los Angeles CityBeat
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4/5

No review available.

comment Comment
06/19/05
Emanuel Levy
EmanuelLevy.Com
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N/A

The ‘60s were a time of alienation and sadness, which I suppose Wong was trying to reflect here. But he’s chosen characters so monumentally self-destructive that it’s difficult to care about them.

Full Review | comment Comment
03/12/05
Jean Lowerison
San Diego Metropolitan
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N/A

Unless the film is pure homage, the film lacks authenticity

Full Review | comment Comment
03/10/05
John Esther
Pasadena Weekly
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N/A

Wong has a reputation for slow-moving mood pieces in which very little happens, but that's not the case here.

Full Review | comment Comment
03/03/05
Luke Y. Thompson
New Times
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N/A

Wong's always-striking visual style uses floating, neon colors and extreme angles to emphasize disconnected souls.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/28/05
Jeffrey M. Anderson
Combustible Celluloid
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4/4

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Full Review | comment Comment
02/26/05
Stephen Cole
Globe and Mail
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4/4

Needless to say a must-see for Wongcolytes, Days of Being Wild is also an excellent entry point for people who haven't yet caught this most exotic and habit-forming of cinematic bugs.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/25/05
Geoff Pevere
Toronto Star
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4/4

Every shot is perfectly composed and compelling, with light and shadow manipulated to maximum effect.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/25/05
Carla Meyer
San Francisco Chronicle
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2.5/4

It now seems like a promising apprentice work, almost a blueprint for the writer-director's most acclaimed and famous film, In the Mood for Love.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/18/05
John Hartl
Seattle Times
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4/4

There are images in Days that can make your heart stop for no other reason than that they're perfect.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/18/05
Ty Burr
Boston Globe
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B+

The languorous atmosphere of longing, disconnection and emotional isolation is hypnotic.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/17/05
Sean Axmaker
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
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N/A

It may have been released in the olden days of 1991, but Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild remains pulsatingly contemporary.

Full Review | comment Comment
02/03/05
Desson Thomson
Washington Post
N/R

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Full Review | comment Comment
01/25/05
Rumsey Taylor
Not Coming to a Theater Near You
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4/4

A triumph of movie pop poetics.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/13/05
Michael Wilmington
Chicago Tribune
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4/5

A heady mix of sex, obsession, alienation and angst.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/07/05
Tim Cogshell
Boxoffice Magazine
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N/A

Feels exciting, in part, because you are watching an auteur lay the groundwork -- with an assortment of clocks, watches and meticulously detailed moments -- for ideas and moods he will obsessively follow in later films.

Full Review | comment Comment
01/06/05
Kim Morgan
L.A. Weekly
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