Wong gok ka moon (As Tears Go By)

Wong Kar-wai's already brilliantly orchestrated debut, stylised in the spirit of a new era and a different culture, transposes Martin Scorsese's Mean Streets to Mongkok. Andy Lau and Jackie Cheung as young members of a gangster syndicate, the impulsive younger one drags the older one into a cauldron of violence. Wong skilfully stages the resulting confrontations: the camera loses itself in kinetic slow-motion streaks during accelerated movements, while the rhythmic cut-up aesthetic anticipates Wong's global successes such as Chungking Express, especially in a parallel love story (with Maggie Cheung) against the backdrop of metropolitan alienation. In the middle of the film, there is a sequence masterfully set to Canto-Pop in which the two lovers search for each other and miss each other several times - when they finally find each other: a kiss for which the screen shines in white for a single moment. (Christoph Huber)

Photo: Austrian Film Museum