As Tears Go By (Digitally Remastered) DVD Region All

Andy Lau (Actor) | Wong Kar Wai (Director) | Jacky Cheung (Actor) | Maggie Cheung Man Yuk (Actor)

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Customer Review of "As Tears Go By (Digitally Remastered) "

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Average Customer Rating for this Edition: Customer Review Rated Bad 6 - 6 out of 10 (1)
Average Customer Rating for All Editions of this Product: Customer Review Rated Bad 9 - 9.1 out of 10 (11)

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Kevin Kennedy
See all my reviews

July 25, 2009

Disappointing debut Customer Review Rated Bad 6 - 6 out of 10

"As Tears Go By" definitely feels like a debut feature from first-time director Wong Kar Wai. Its lensing tends toward the pretentious, its editing is choppy, its script is overblown, and its actors (particularly Jacky Cheung) perform with all the subtlety of a sledgehammer. (Only Maggie Cheung manages to escape the overacting bug.) Andy Lau stars as Ha Tau, a triad "big brother" who appears to lead the world's smallest gang and does almost nothing as a gangster other than to get the useless Fly (Jacky Cheung) out of endless scrapes.

Out of the blue Ha Tau's cousin Ah Ngor (Maggie Cheung), whom Ha Tau had never before met, moves into Ha Tau's dumpy Kowloon apartment. Ah Ngor lives on Lantau Island, but suffers from a lung condition and needs to see a doctor whose office is near Ha Tau's place. (Oddly, Ah Ngor's lung condition does not deter her from smoking and, although she wears a surgical mask in order to not spread germs, she lets her cousin drink out of the same water bottle on which she has put her mouth!) Ah Ngor and Ha Tau immediately are attracted to each other; is it only me who is made squeamish by this romance between first cousins?

Fly's behavior becomes increasingly irresponsible and soon leads to a confrontation with a rival gang. Both Ha Tau and Fly are beaten to a pulp. (Ha Tau repeatedly is beaten in the chest with a baseball bat, but, surprisingly, when he awakes next morning Ha Tau not only has no broken ribs, he doesn't even have any bruises on his body! What a quick healer!) Ha Tau and Fly have one final meeting, then Fly runs off on his own to commit one last "glorious" act. Miraculously, although Ha Tau has no idea where Fly has gone, Ha Tau somehow stumbles upon the very place at which Fly is committing his infamous act. (What a coincidence!)

While "As Tears Go By" has the most conventional narrative of Wong Kar Wai's movies, therein lies its biggest flaw. There is nothing here we haven't seen before and haven't seen done better. For me, the movie's lack of originality and overblown theatrics made it seem almost interminable. "As Tears Go By" is more interesting as an historical artefact than as an actual movie.