‘Curry & Pepper’: Tangerines

An enthusiastic and self-indulgent journal about my discovery of and infatuation with Hong Kong cinema.

This summer time I went again residence to Northeast China for the primary time in two years. The three and a half months didn’t do a lot to ease my homesickness, and I didn’t wish to fly off once more. As a measure of emotional fortification, I made plans to rewatch Wong Kar-Wai’s Days of Being Wild (阿飛正傳) on the aircraft. Watching that film for the second and a half time, in that specific mind-set, I had a mini-epiphany: there’s one thing humorous happening with tangerines. 

Wong Kar-Wai is a kind of administrators that I hesitate to publicly admire. There was a time when all I knew about Hong Kong cinema was Tony Leung, and it didn’t trouble me that the entire world was speaking about Within the Temper for Love. However now, having spent this summer time immersed within the Nineteen Nineties, having gone by way of all the flicks my mother and father’ era grew up watching on pirated DVDs (and fairly just a few frankly unhealthy ones that my dad would poke enjoyable at me for) and having sat down with the intent of one way or the other documenting that pleasant time-traveling — I discover myself going again to Wong Kar-Wai. Sure, I do know, however what am I going to do with out him?

There’s much more to say on that. However for the second, image a road so greenish-dark at night time you surprise if it’s shot in a studio, but it surely in all probability isn’t. I don’t keep in mind if it’s raining. Andy Lau, a night-patrolman, is consuming a tangerine. Maggie Cheung walks as much as him to borrow some bus fare. He’s eyeing her, she’s interested by Ah-Fei. Right here Leslie Cheung is absolutely the hero, and everyone else a stand-in. Within the nights that comply with, he would spend a whole lot of time ready for her name at that one designated cellphone sales space. Watching that, it struck me that in another time and place, Andy Lau can be consuming a tangerine. 

As Tears Go By (旺角卡門) is Wong Kar-Wai’s first film, and my shut second-favorite to Days. The official launch ends with an exquisite and horrible scene: as soon as once more Andy Lau, shot within the head, lies there, eyes looking for a life he may have had as a substitute if the life as an abused gangster didn’t suck him in first. There was initially a follow-up scene wherein he didn’t die however misplaced his senses. Maggie Cheung visits him, sitting throughout a desk, and feeds him a tangerine. The juice dribbles over his shirt, smearing on his fingers and palm, and he’s forgotten all about her.

Tears got here out in 1988, and Days in 1990. Andy Lau didn’t have to attend a very long time to be rescued from the blue-toned As Tears Go By, or the fever-orange outtake hospital room that had the texture of a music video, earlier than being reincarnated within the tropical-green Days of Being Wild. It’s at all times tempting to image Wong Kar-Wai’s handful of films as one huge dream world. So I discover myself interested by how Andy Lau couldn’t end the tangerine Maggie Cheung handed him, and the following time they meet he’s consuming one once more, however she now not cares.