Screened at The Roxie Theater
“I said I’d never be able to tell which woman I loved the most until the end. I wonder what she’s doing now.”
You can feel the humidity fuming off the screen in Days of Being Wild, permeating into the lungs of its on-and-off stragglers, stifling them in a box that’s paralyzed them into such an unsatisfactory tolerance for durability of said climate. Wong Kar-wai’s second feature-length is demonstrating some serious talent when it comes to a replication of environment to characters, a visual mood board of concentrated emotions for which he will very well become known as a master at.
Given that I watched this after In the Mood for Love (2000) and 2046 (2004), it’s interesting to see him precede two things: f**kbois and who-hurt-you?s Yuddy is like Chow Mo-Wan, without an exposed memory of a one true-love — maybe some mommy issues howbeit — and yet it’s ironic to see Su Li-Zhen come into the picture in the midst of a heedless precursor to who she’d later help create herself. But it says a lot, because you can tell this is an origin story to her for men, which inadvertently inspires another Yuddy for which inspired her. Awe, the circle of love. 2046 is just the day the who-hurt-you? synthesized with the f**kboi to make one mildly enigmatic Yuddy, who by that third movie though, became completely debunked via “final form” Mo-Wan unlike how he is here in this first of the trilogy. I guess it was a duel between the Oedipus complex and another difficult woman made to be that way by a difficult man all along. At last, I’ve completed the puzzle!
Also, Tony Leung’s Thanos introduction. 💀
Verdict: A-
“Days of Being Wild” is now available to stream on The Criterion Channel and HBO Max.
Burning the Celluloid 
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