As Tears Go By

Wong Kar-Wai's debut director, As Tears Go By is a Scorsese-style gangster film that takes place on the streets of Mongkok, in Hong Kong. Andy Lau plays a low-level mob official, torn between a blossoming romance with his cousin (Maggie Cheung, in the first of many collaborations with the filmmaker) and his loyalty to his impulsive partner in crime (Jacky Cheung), whose attempts reckless attempts to gain recognition result in a cycle of violence that seems to have no end. The author's introduction to what would become his unmistakable visual style, the film made waves in Cannes due to the uniqueness of its impressionistic settings and profane romanticism. As Nathan Leen wrote in the New York Times, As Tears Go By is “a Wong Kar-Wai film from the first frame to the last, […] a work that finds its purpose in a tone (the dream fatalism), a texture (the impressionist grunge), and in a pose (so, so cool)”.