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Like the majority of Wong Kar Wai films, the style is deliberately slow and plodding but keeps your attention. Andy Lau really delivers a mean punch in this role. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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Great acting from Andy Lau and Maggie Cheung. Jackie Chueng is his usual over-the-top self. One of the first HK dramas I ever watched. The only problem is the ending: it didn't make much sense. Still an unforgettable film. | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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| Wong Kar Wai's debut film is also his most commercial one to date. It is not as stylized as his following films, but it already shows his visual style--lots of slow motion sequences, blurred visuals, and close-ups are there, but not so overused as in his later works.
The story itself is actually nothing new: Set in the triad world, Andy Lau plays Wah, a low level triad "Big Brother" who has to protect his "Brother" Fly (Jacky Cheung) who is in dept with big boss Tony (Alex Man). Fly wants to step out of Wah's shadow and tries hard to make a name for himself but always gets in trouble, especially with Tony.
When Wah's cousin Ah Ngor (Maggie Cheung) comes to live with him a few days for getting treatment in a hospital for her illness, Wah soon falls in love with the innocent country girl. He realizes that there could be more to life than just go out on the streets every day and getting in fights and when Ah Ngor goes back to Lan Tau he follows her. Spending a few days there,he thinks about let go of the old life and start over with Ah Ngor but when Fly gets again in serious trouble with Tony and even signs for a suicide mission to take out a triad big boss on his way to trial,he wants to help Fly one more time and goes back to Hong Kong. The finale is as predictable as it is absorbing...
What really sets "As Tears Go By" ahead of the other bloodshed dramas of that decade is the superb acting from all the cast, a great music score (even though "A Moment Of Romance) had the better one), and wonderful cinematography by Andrew Lau.
Andy Lau gives a wonderful performance as Wah. Though he can probably play this kind of role in his sleep, he gives depth and fellings to his character.
The most outstanding performance comes from Jacky Cheung as the hot headed Fly. Relatively new in the movie business that time, Jacky Cheung really convinces and plays his role with gusto. The only movies I have seen him giving equal performances are in "Bullet In The Head" two years later and 1994 in "To Live And Die In Tsim Sha Tsui".
Alex Man gives his usual impressive performance as the psychotic Tony, and Maggie Cheung plays her role well altough she has not much to do in the film.
All in all "As Tears Go By" is an absorbing piece of Hong Kong moviemaking that should be seen. |
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Wong Kar Wai's debut film is not as artsy as his later works. In fact, it's a pretty generic gangster film that falls along the lines of many of the heroic bloodshed films that came out around that time. Sure, there are some parts that will make you say, "Hey, I remember that [shot/technique/use of music] from [later work]," but this is far from the film-style extremes of "Chungking Express". Kar Wai's first film takes no risks, as it simply follows the gangster film formula, and in the end is only worth seeing if you're a die hard Kar Wai fan. | | AGREE? | READER COMMENTS | AUTHOR | | Y | totally on the money with this review. | victimblue |
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| Wong Kar-Wai enthusiasts who are expecting a "Chungking Express", an "In The Mood For Love" or even a "Days of Being Wild" may be slightly disappointed with "As Tears Go By", Wong Kar-Wai's 1988 gangster tale starring Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung and Alex Man. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't the whole WKW appeal fire off with his "French New Wave" approach to filmmaking? Barely any of that is here; Even Christopher Doyle, Wong Kar-Wai's most-used cinematographer, is absent from the production. Instead, the camera work is helmed by Lau Wau Keung, who we better know as Andrew Lau (who went on to direct the popular "Young and Dangerous" series and the groundbreaking "Storm Riders"). This is about the earliest of Wong Kar-Wai's work I've yet to see, and it's apparent the he still hasn't found or developed the style that made him famous all over the world.
In some ways, "As Tears Go By" feels more like an early version of Johnny To's "Moment of Romance", which also starred Andy Lau (not to be confused with Andrew "Storm Riders" Lau). Like "Moment of Romance", it's a straight-forward love story that deals with the consequences a tough gangster must face due to his violent and troublesome lifestyle. It's a plot that's been visited numerous times in Hong Kong cinema alone: Gangster falls in love with woman, woman falls in love with gangster, gangster must finish the job, woman begs him to stay, gangster must help his friend, woman tells him it's dangerous, gangster's fate becomes tragic and woman's heart becomes broken and abandoned. But since "As Tears Go By" was made in 1988, you gotta give it some credit. I guess.
As expected from a brilliant director like Wong Kar-Wai, the two lead performances are full of light. Maggie Cheung's natural beauty and emotions are captured to perfection. Andy Lau appears to be more ambitious about his acting than the usual mass of flicks he's put out. As for Jackie Cheung and Alex Man...well, someone should have whispered in their ears and said, "Hey Jackie. Hey Alex. This ain't a Wong Jing film man!". I don't know much about Alex Man, but Jackie Cheung could certainly do better. Just watch John Woo's "Bullet in the Head". Of course, these performance flaws are just my opinion - so if you're the president of the "Jackie Cheung and Alex Man Fan Club", don't hate me.
I have a question...
What the hell was Berlin's 1986 theme song to "Top Gun" doing here? I don't mind cover versions of popular American songs in Hong Kong movies (especially when sung by Faye Wong or Kelly Chen), but to actually take a theme song from another movie!? That's truly corny. Not only that, but the Chinese one they used sounds like it came from a Karaoke bar in Hell! It also doesn't help that they play it at least a few times off and on (just like in "Top Gun") for a good several or so minutes. I'm surprised they didn't use some song from "Grease" or "Officer and a Gentleman" just to have a widely known love song in the movie. I'm probably getting a little carried away, but in all seriousness, a Wong Kar-Wai film is the last place I'd look for a bad remake of a song that belonged to another movie. But then again, "As Tears Go By" isn't exactly a trademark Wong Kar-Wai film.
Worth seeing. |
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A good performance from Andy Lau, but a great one from Jacky Cheung who usually plays clowns. Jacky shows he can play a serious role, and this triad film shows the loyalty these street thugs can have. Maggie Cheung is also never sore on the eyes!!! | | LOG IN TO COMMENT ON THIS REVIEW! |
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| A sort of hyperbolic take on the set-up from Scorcese's MEANSTREETS: a low-level triad "big brother" (Andy Lau) has a hot-tempered "littler brother" (Jacky Cheung) who can't keep out of trouble (gambling debts, insulting rival bosses), and consequently is in constant need of being bailed out by his protector. Andy Lau is super cool, but lacks the ambition to rise in the ranks of the triad societies - and once he meets his cousin (Maggie Cheung) from Kowloon and falls in love with her, he even decides he wants to leave "the life". But it turns out that he has to bail out Jacky one more time, with predictable results... Notable for the repetitious and grueling (but quite inventive!) punishments, beatings and humiliations that the rival triad boys from the same society put each other through, in response to the latest insult received. Two standouts are the "shooting into the other guy's waistband" trick, and the Canto-pop version of Berlin's hit song, "Take My Breath Away." Although there is some incredibly amateurish editing, I found myself somewhat fascinated by this film - it had the feel of an uneven debut piece by a new film-maker, that was flawed in its execution, but showed flashes of promise and ingenuity. (What a way to talk about one of HK's most respected directors, eh?) |
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| Ha-tau (Andy Lau) is a small-time triad leader. Two of his followers are Fly (Jacky Cheung) and Ah-Site (Barry Wong). Fly in so many words is a f*ck-up, always trying to do big things but winds up getting into trouble. Ha-tau detests having to bail out Fly all the time, but he does without hesitation, even at the cost of getting seriously hurt in the process. Tony (Alex Man) is the leader of another gang that Fly is constantly getting in trouble with. At the beginning of the movie, Ah Ngor (Maggie Cheung), who is Ha-tau's cousin from Lantau Island, is quite sick and has come to Kowloon seeking medical treatment. A good part of the movie is devoted to the romance that develops between Ha-tau and Ah Ngor. This was Wong Kar-wai's first movie as a director. We see the traditional trademarks that have become a regular staple in all of his movies - the first-person handheld camera angles, the slow-motion action scenes, the underlit housing, the methodical pacing of the movie. As expected, the ending is typical Wong Kar-wai abstract. This is my favorite of Wong Kar-wai's movies because at least the pace of the movie is somewhat faster and more logical than his other movies later on. This movie was nominated for a slew of awards for 1988 in all the major categories. Jacky Cheung won the Best Supporting Actor award for his Fly portrayal. |
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