RIFLE RANGE BOY

2046 (Cantonese; 2004) Writer, Director: Wong Kar-Wai Our life is like a moving speed-train. We catch glimpses of experiences that excite us and poof, it is gone. We yearn to immortalise the pleasant encounter's memory, but unfortunately, it is not always possible. The journey itself is so unpredictable that the last delightful experience may not be the best, the best may yet be on the horizon. Or maybe, that was it! Oh, life is so uncertain.  Are all memories traces of tears and is nostalgia a bad thing? Does living in the memory of the past a wrong thing? Things that we learn in the past are the guiding lights for future battles, but somehow sometimes we still feel we accidentally let something slip by too prematurely or inadvertently. Regrets we may have a few.  For these, the writer creates a fictitious world/city/future where memories are permanent and can be re-captured. Nobody knew for sure if such a place existed but, nobody who went there ever returned. That is, excep...

In the Mood for Love (Cantonese; 2000) Director: Wong Kar-wai This film must surely be a fruit of a labour of love. It is such a joyful experience to watch as the viewers are cradled back to a Shanghainese community's claustrophobic surroundings in 1962 Hong Kong. It is a story of a close-knit group tenant, specifically of two couples, in an apartment building. Two spouses who are often left alone by their busy working partners end up developing feelings for each other. The busy partners in real fact are embroiled in an affair, between themselves. The scorned spouses discover a common interest, create a platonic relationship but soon realise it is romantic. They resist the temptations to be as low as their partners, despite the circumstances of time and the lure of their biological attractions. The theme of this story segues nicely into a discussion I had with my friends recently. What is this thing about marriage? Is it a mere a public declaration of a property much like when Vasc...

Days of Being Wild (1990) Director: Wong Kar-Wai What is the thing that keeps a person plunge deep into a relationship so toxic and still longs to be embroiled in a never-ending imbroglio of heartaches and melancholy? Is it just physical attraction or a sense of achievement, a kind of trophy? Is it some kind of masochism or playing victim to gain attention? Is this the same power of love that made King Edward VII abdicate his crown for a divorcee with two living ex-husbands? Is it merely a hormonal surge at the spring of one's youth or a debt that needed to be settled if relationships bring in baggage and its encumbrances? Something that springs up quite so suddenly may fizzle out just as quick when the fluff disappears. Then what? Do it all again? But then, by then, there would come too many webs of entanglement and spoils of love that are just too difficult to detach. It appears that it is a play of time. Invariably, with the passage of time, the ludicrousness of all these may ap...