As Tears Go By

A Hong Kong remake of Mean Streets (with emphasis on the violence and the love story, but nothing on Catholicism), this was the first feature from Wong Kar-Wai, recently [1995] established as the great romantic of the Asian avant-garde. It's more generic than either the gorgeous Days of Being Wild or Chungking Express, and less interesting, but it's clearly the work of a gifted film-maker, highly atmospheric with a number of exciting set-pieces (there's a deliriously kitschy romantic montage set to the Mandarin cover of Berlin's 'Take My Breath Away'). If it fails, ultimately, it's because the relationship between the rational gangster Lau and the impetuous Jacky Cheung never really rings true. A cut above the usual HK action melodrama all the same.