Days of Being Wild (1990)

A man tries to find out who his real mother is after the woman who raised him tells him the truth.

Director:

Kar-Wai Wong

Writers:

Jeffrey Lau, Kar-Wai Wong

Stars:

Leslie Cheung, Maggie Cheung, Andy Lau

17 wins & 9 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Leslie Cheung	...	Yuddy
Maggie Cheung	...	Su Li-zhen
Andy Lau	...	Tide
Carina Lau	...	Leung Fung-ying
Rebecca Pan	...	Rebecca (as Tik-Wa Poon)
Jacky Cheung	...	Zeb
Tony Chiu-Wai Leung	...	Chow Mo-wan (as Tony Chiu Wai Leung)
Danilo Antunes	...	Rebecca's Lover
Mei-Mei Hung	...	The Amah
Ling-Ling Hung	...	Nurse
Tita Muñoz	...	Yuddy's Mother
Alicia Alonzo	...	Housekeeper
Elena Lim So	...	Hotel Manageress
Maritoni Fernandez	...	Hotel Maid
Angela Ponos	...	Prostitute

Storyline

Set in 1960, the film centres on the young, boyishly handsome Yuddy, who learns from the drunken ex-prostitute who raised him that she is not his real mother. Hoping to hold onto him, she refuses to divulge the name of his real birth mother. The revelation shakes Yuddy to his very core, unleashing a cascade of conflicting emotions. Two women have the bad luck to fall for Yuddy. One is a quiet lass named Su Lizhen who works at a sports arena, while the other is a glitzy showgirl named Mimi. Perhaps due to his unresolved Oedipal issues, he passively lets the two compete for him, unable or unwilling to make a choice. As Lizhen slowly confides her frustration to a cop named Tide, he falls for her. The same is true for Yuddy's friend Zeb, who falls for Mimi. Later, Yuddy learns of his birth mother's whereabouts and heads out to the Philippines.

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Plot Keywords:

philippines | 1960s | spanking | scrubbing the floor | policeman | 

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Genres:

Crime | Drama | Romance

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Certificate:

Not Rated

Did You Know?

Trivia

One of the love scenes in the film took 57 takes to complete.

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Goofs

When Tide checks into the hotel, the hotel manageress hands him the key to Room 206. However, in the next scene, Tide uses the key to enter Room 204. This, however, may not be so much a 'goof' as another recurrence of the number '2046' seen so often in Wong Kar-Wai's films.

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Quotes

Yuddy: I've heard that there's a kind of bird without legs that can only fly and fly, and sleep in the wind when it is tired. The bird only lands once in its life... that's when it dies.

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Connections

Referenced in I Wish I Knew (2010)

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Soundtracks

Always In My Heart
Performed by Los Indios Tabajaras

User Reviews

Oxygen for a heart

It's difficult to find words to describe feelings that appear after watching any WKW's film. Maybe they just don't exist. WKW make movies like others breath and see dreams. He makes me believe that cinema is not technology. He's the greatest director on this planet. No marks, no rewie. Everything will sound too banal. It's like to describe a melody, almost senseless. I like cinema, the entertaining spirit of cinema, i like Indiana Jones or Armaggedon, but WKW films give you something very unique and important.

Just one more remark: it seems to me, sometimes the spirit of Nabokov's prose lives in WKW heroes' rooms.

Details

Official Sites:

Official Site

Country:

Hong Kong

Language:

Cantonese Shanghainese Tagalog English Mandarin

Release Date:

15 December 1990 (Hong Kong)

Also Known As:

Days of Being Wild

Filming Locations:

Hong Kong, China

Box Office

Opening Weekend USA:

$18,090, 21 November 2004

Gross USA:

$146,310

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$3,101,890

Company Credits

Production Co:

In-Gear Film

Technical Specs

Runtime:

100 min

Sound Mix:

Mono

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1