As Tears Go By
1998
Director: Wong Kar-Wai
Stars: Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, Ronald Wong Pan
In Wong Kar-Wai's first (and most commerically successful) film, he explores the life of a small-time Triad played by Andy Lau. Lau spends his days depending his small piece of turf and helping out his hot-headed sidekick, Jacky Cheung. Things get a bit more complicated when Lau's cousin (Maggie Cheung) comes to stay and some romantic feelings develop.
And that's about it. Like most of Wong's films, this one has a pretty slim plot to it. However, unlike most of Wong's later work, this movie is pretty linear. There are no convoluted inner monologues or circular story lines. And the filming techniques, while having some of the stylistic touches of later films, are not as dense as his others. As such, this might come off to "Wong lite" to his die-hard fans, but I still enjoyed the movie. The characters seem to be a little under-developed and the film loses steam during the romantic bits (both probably due to Wong's "flying paper" style), but I found the core story (the Triad drama) to be quite compelling.
Unlike many over-glamorized gangster movies like Triads: The Inside Story, you really (I assume) get a sense of what it is like to be a small potato in the Triad world. Disputes are not settled in mansions with people wielding two guns, they are settled in dank alleys with baseball bats. You don't use a Benz to get around, you use the bus. This dark worldview had me interested, even when the movie drifted away to the slightly hammy romantic parts (like some of his other movies, Wong tends to overuse musical pieces, in this case a Cantonese version of "Take My Breath Away"). And Andy Lau seemed pretty cool in this movie. I'm not normally a fan of his work, but his minimalist (some say lazy, but I will be nice in this review) style works for the most part, and makes a nice counterpoint to Jacky Cheung's more manic acting.
As Tears Go By might be too quirky for some (or not enough for die-hard Wong fans), but overall, this is a pretty interesting and stylish Triad movie that's worth checking out.
RATING: 7
Note: I would highly advise against the World Video VHS version. The picture and sound quality are horrible, and many scenes have the subtitles cut off due to the center framing.
This DVD is available for purchase at www.hkflix.com
