With his second film, “Days of Being Wild” (1990), Wong offered up the first true representation of what would become his recognizable style. Set in 1960, the film is centered around Yuddy (Leslie Cheung), a young roue who seduces two women, the quiet and reserved Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) and showgirl Mimi, and then breaks their hearts. His attitude towards women clearly stems from his unresolved feelings towards his adoptive mother, a former prostitute, and when he discovers that his birth mother is still alive, he ventures out to the Philippines to track her down. Essentially dispensing with the narrative concerns of his previous venture, Wong took potentially familiar material and utilized a dreamier approach far more interested in mood and atmosphere than in moving the story from point A to point B. One of the keys to this approach came in the form of cinematographer Christopher Doyle, working with Wong in the first of what would become one of the most fruitful filmmaker/cinematographer collaborations of modern times. Together, they transform the film into something beautiful and unique and while it did not find much commercial favor in its homeland (leading to the cancellation of a potential sequel hinted at during its finale), it was the first real evidence of what Wong was truly capable of.
“Ashes of Time”Throughout his career, Wong’s films have often had long and complicated production schedules that can run for months, even years, and that was certainly the case with his next film, the bizarre wuxia epic (of sorts) “Ashes of Time” (1994). Very loosely inspired by the Jin Yong novel The Legend of the Condor Heroes, the film is centered around an assassin (Ou-yang Feng) who exiles himself to the desert in order to nurse his broken heart while coming across other swordsmen (including Tony Leung and Jacky Cheung) whom he hires to carry out his contracts for him. At least I think that is what it is about—I cannot be sure because this is the one film where Wong’s stylistic approach is so enigmatic that it is often impossible to figure out what is happening at any given moments. (In 2008, he presented a re-edited version, “Ashes of Time Redux,” which is the one presented here, but even that failed to clear up most matters.) That said, while it does not necessarily “work,” as they say, from either a dramatic or action perspective and most viewers, (even fans of Wong will find it to be far too impenetrable), if you just sit back and let it sort of wash over you without any expectations of understanding, it can be a pretty trippy experience with a pronounced, astounding visual style.
In the end, perhaps the best thing about “Ashes of Time” is that the combination of the protracted production and fears of creating another box-office failure inspired Wong to create and produce a second film on an accelerated six-week schedule that would end up hitting theaters a couple of months before the bigger film. That would be an impressive enough feat on its own but the movie, “Chungking Express” (1994), would prove to be both his big international breakthrough and the most sheerly enjoyable of all of his films. Set in Hong Kong, the movie tells two separate stories that both feature lovelorn policeman and a snack bar as a key location. In the first, Qiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is dumped by his girlfriend on April 1 and resolves to wait a full month before accepting her absence, going so far as to scour the stores each day for canned pineapple (her favorite food) with a May 1 expiration date. One night, while drowning his sorrows at a bar, he crosses paths with a mysterious woman (Brigitte Lin), one on the run from gangsters after a drug smuggling operation goes sour, and they spend the night together in a nearby hotel. In the second, another policeman, known only as Cop 663 (Tony Leung), is dealing with his recent breakup with a flight attendant when he turns up at the snack bar and catches the eye of new employee Faye (Faye Wong). When the flight attendant drops off a letter to Cop 663 containing his apartment keys, Faye uses them to sneak into his apartment to straighten up the place in an effort to get closer to him, albeit at a distance.