Days of Being Wild

1990 drama

Rating: 14/20

Plot: I don't feel like doing a plot synopsis at this time.

With a bachelor-pad music score and a camera capturing all this neon sleaze, this movie almost drips a coolness. It just almost drips it though. It's kind of like the cool has congealed and covers the thing, leaving anybody who handles it to feel pretty sticky afterward. I had trouble connecting to this world and these characters, maybe more because the world that Kar-Wai Wong creates is inhabited only by the characters in his story. And maybe because that story doesn't congeal nearly as much as the cool. The unlikable protagonist's motivations never felt clear to me, probably intentional with all the references to birds with no legs who are sleeping on the wind.

There are lots of references to time in this movie. Lots of clocks and watches and characters having conversations about time. A special minute is brought up early and then recalled later.

I really loved one great tracking shot through a building with this rumba music. I also thought there were some nice poignant moments, especially one shot with a security guard who disappears as he walks away from a phone booth to become a sailor.