"Days of Being Wild" And we will forever pass each other, and our unrequited love will continue

Christopher Doyle's camera and William Chan's art support the beautiful Hong Kong sealed in our memories.

The scenery of Hong Kong in the 1960s presented in ``Days of Being Wild'' is devoid of people other than the characters, giving it a quiet and somewhat cold atmosphere. Sue wanders the slopes at night, unable to shake off her feelings for Yodi, and her interactions with the police officer (Andy Lau), who has been worrying about her ever since he took her into his care, and who has been gently walking by her side at night, is always in the dark and unpopular. in.

In filming this film, Wong Kar-wai, who was born in 1958, said he chose to film scenes of Hong Kong that he remembered from his childhood, rather than reenacting the 1960s. Perhaps that's why the landscape of Hong Kong, where love is precipitated, is composed of cold colors and feels somehow heavy.

However, in contrast, from time to time, lush green jungle landscapes are inserted in an impressive manner. This later overlaps with the scenes of Yodi heading to the Philippines to visit her birth mother in the tropical jungle, but Christopher Doyle leaves a vivid impression in each scene and supports the aesthetically introspective world view. camera and art by William Chan.

Originally from Australia, Doyle became a sailor and left Sydney at the age of 18. After working several jobs, he learned Chinese, and used the connections he had cultivated there to become involved in filmmaking in Hong Kong. Doyle, who was born without roots and who saw the landscapes of cities around the world while working as a sailor, has a foreigner's gaze creeping into the Hong Kong he portrays, revealing the interestingness of this land that Hong Kongers are unaware of.

On the other hand, William Cheung is a multi-talented art director who is in charge of costumes, art, graphics, and sometimes editing and music.In particular, he says that his mother used to have a seamstress make Chinese clothes on a daily basis, and he is a woman who was cultivated there. She excels in creating costumes that highlight her beauty. In this work, we see the high-class tourists, Yodi's bowling shirt and Mimi's body-conscious mini-dress, showing how they spend all their time having fun, and widening the gap between them and the plain appearance of Sue and the police officer, who work steadily.

"Days of Being Wild" © 1990 East Asia Films Distribution Limited and eSun.com Limited. All Rights Reserved.

By the way, in the movie, the Queen's Cafe in the north corner appears to be a restaurant frequented by Yodi, Mimi, and Yodi's best friend (Jackie Chun), who has an unrequited love for Mimi. This Russian restaurant turned cafe is popular for its not-too-sweet milk nougat. During filming, Leslie Cheung, who plays Yodi, fell in love with this restaurant and decided to open a sister restaurant in Causeway Bay with art by William Chong. What he did is well known.

The store that served as the setting for the movie has long since disappeared, but in 2009, the Empress Hotel was revived in the same north corner, not far from there, where the telephone booth where Sue and the police meet in the movie is still there. Although Leslie is gone from this world, the space he loved still lives on in Hong Kong as a place that conveys the atmosphere of the legendary romantic movie.

Text: Yuka Kinbara (Kinbara Yuka)

Movie journalist. Currently writing for many media such as ``Kinema Junpo'', ``Soen'', ``Kettle'', and ``Haha no Tomo''. Her books include ``Broken Girl'' (Film Art Publishing), which examines girlhood and violence in movies. He has also contributed to ``100 American Films of the 1990s'' (Gijutsu Shimbunsha) and ``Asian Film Forest'' (Movie Map of the New Century) (Sakushasha). His works include ``Actors File Satoshi Tsumabuki'', ``Actors File Masatoshi Nagase'' (both published by Kinema Junposha), and ``Legendary Film Art Directors x Yohei Taneda'' (Space Shower Network), for which he was in charge of long interviews and composition.

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"Days of Being Wild"

© 1990 East Asia Films Distribution Limited and eSun.com Limited. All Rights Reserved.

Distribution: Hark

Saturday, February 3, 2018 Released at Bunkamura Le Cinema and other locations nationwide

*Information as of February 2018 article publication.