Days Of Being Wild Details

This stylish, intricately structured drama not only harks back to the 1960s, but also explores the fears attending Hong Kong's handover to China. Leslie Cheung excels as a rebel with the cause of tracing his Filipino mother, callously leaving the broken hearts of waitress Maggie Cheung and showgirl Carina Lau in his wake. Two years in production, and strikingly shot by Christopher Doyle, Wong Kar-Wai's second feature was such a flop at the domestic box office that a sequel was abandoned (hence the incomprehensibility of Tony Leung's late-arriving character). However, internationally, it confirmed Wong's reputation as a rising art house star.

A stylish account of the disaffected and rootless young which eschews straightforward narrative for a more complex approach, strong on atmosphere and period re-creation.