Ended on 5/15/2008
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AS TEARS GO BY -
(unrated)
1988 - China - Cantonese (with English subtitles) - 102 minutes - Kino International
Directed by: Wong Kar-Wai
Featuring: Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Jacky Cheung,
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showtimes and tickets
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 Though as gritty as any 80’s Hong Kong gangster picture, AS TEARS GO BY is a watershed film heralding one of the most auspicious directorial debuts in international cinema. Wong Kar-Wai’s visually stunning, tough and romantic 1988 first feature deftly smuggles the director’s now celebrated genius into an incendiary "Heroic Bloodshed" street opera of the John Woo mold.
Already stretched to breaking in a loyalty tug of war between Triad bosses and his loose cannon partner, Wah (Andy Lau - FULLTIME KILLER, DAYS OF BEING WILD), a rising star in the HK underworld, finds himself saddled with beautiful, ailing country cousin Ngor. As an escalating test of wills with a stubborn debtor explodes into bloodshed and a mob turncoat instigates a ruthless police crackdown, Wah’s growing fascination with Ngor becomes his last chance for escape from a violent past and a dubious future.
Cast in comic eye candy roles prior to AS TEARS GO BY, Maggie Cheung (IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE) cites Ngor, her first of many collaborations with Wong Kar-Wai, as the character that truly began her dramatic career. Under Wong Kar-Wai’s direction, Jacky Cheung (DAYS OF BEING WILD) earned the 1988 Hong Kong Film Awards Best Actor Award for his portrayal of Wah’s guilt-ridden, out of control partner Fly. Balancing epiphanous imagery with experimentation and realism with brazen romanticism, Wong Kar-Wai’s AS TEARS GO BY offers a tantalizing glimpse into the nascent brilliance of one of the most influential filmmaking talents of the last twenty years.
"A rich and kinetic portrait of the Hong Kong underworld and its system of pseudo-familial relationships and obligations."
--Leo Goldsmith, Not Coming to a Theater Near You
"Shows a master in the making...(Kar-Wai) takes a generic mob story and imbues it with the visual and aural flourishes that made him famous."
--V.A. Musetto, New York Post
"The director's trademark set pieces, based on mega close-ups of tiny details and a strategic form of step-printed, smeared, slow-motion violence, are already present. So too is his characteristically mournful atmosphere—a fusion of smoke, neon, and fetishized pop."
--J. Hoberman, The Village Voice
"The minute you see that opening shot of neon-blue TV monitors, you sense that a major player has stepped into the fold."
--David Fear, Time Out New York
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