‘Even then, he was so serious’: Wong Kar-wai’s films As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild – what Leslie Cheung, Andy Lau, Jacky Cheung, and Wong himself said
- We recall what Wong and his cast, from Andy Lau Tak-wah to Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing, had to say about his first two films, As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild
- The director explains, among other things, why As Tears Go By’s Chinese title references a famous opera despite having nothing to do with that work
Post critics have not always praised Wong Kar-wai’s films, but they have generally accepted that he is a filmmaking genius, and Wong has been interviewed numerous times by the newspaper.
Below, we recall what Wong and his cast had to say about his first two films, As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild.
As Tears Go By (1988)
Wong’s directorial debut is much more of a standard genre work than the films that followed, although it still has touches of his later style.
The brotherly bond that exists between two triads played by Andy Lau Tak-wah and Jacky Cheung Hok-yau is pure John Woo Yu-sum, but Wong said he got the idea for the story before Woo’s gangster classics were made.
As Tears Go By was meant to be part of a trilogy shot in conjunction with Patrick Tam Ka-ming, for whom he had written the triad drama Final Victory, Wong told the Post in 1989.
“As Tears Go By was supposed to be the first part, Final Victory the second and Heroes of the Times, the last,” he said. “We figured out the idea of the series back in 1984, long before the genre of gangland heroism appeared. Slapstick comedies were still the order of the day then.
