'spoiler' I don't get the ending.
Why did Tony Leung appear in the end? What was his role?
shareThere was supposed to be a sequel made, and indeed Wong Kar-Wai shot a lot of it....but because of the relative commercial failure of Days of Being Wild, the investors pulled their finances out, and the film never saw the light of day.
According to legend, the sequel would have starred Tony Leung's character, surrounded by all of the same characters in Days of Being Wild, and would have continued along simlar themes. As it happens, In The Mood For Love is a sort of sequel and 2046 will complete the 'trilogy', but I would really have loved to have seen the movie that WKW envisaged. Oh well....:)
Hey there,
I suppose the answer you're looking for is what the ending with Tony Leung meant in the context of Days of Being Wild.
From what I understand, throughout the movie, we're shown how the callous behaviour of Leslie Cheung's character has negative repercussions on all of the other characters. By carelessly 'loving and leaving' his women (maggie cheung and carina lau) he's left in his wake a trail of broken hearts from Andy Lau's policeman character to his best friend.
So after we find out that Leslie has died, the last shot with Tony Leung serves as a prologue to remind us that even though he's gone, somewhere else there is someone else just like him ready to go out and do the same thing over again... Tony's character is just like Leslie's but merely in a different place.
I hope that clears it up..
Interesting....Thanks
sharei've heard the theory that this is the prelude to tony's character as a gambler in 2046. he's getting ready to go out and gamble. worth consideration, but ultimately hard to place in the face of wkw's fragmented chronology.
shareYou’re right about the “fragmented chronology”, the continuity is a bit off, but then this “trilogy” took nearly ten years to finish, so much would have changed along the way – 2046 changed a lot even in post production. If I remember correctly, DOBW was set in 1960. That’s two years before ITMFL, so the final scene, if we are to believe it’s the same character, would have been a flash forward to when Chow had moved to Singapore at the end of ITMFL. That’s when he meets Lulu for the first time (1964 according to 2046) and tells her about his relationship with Su Litzen. Its easy to understand how Chow and Lulu formed a bond through both being broken hearted. I’d like to think it’s the same Su Litzen played by Maggie Chung in DOBW, but her character in ITMFL was quite different. Its not out of the question that in the two years between the films she had married a wealthy man who could afford to buy her all those lavish dresses. That doesn’t explain why they were living in relatively cheap looking accommodation though, but I don’t know enough about HK culture in the 60’s to comment.
Missed connections are central to all three films, so its really no surprise that WKW leaves it up to the individual viewer to join the dots and form their own interpretation of the story that is unfolding before them. My personal feeling is that the character appeared to show that the story is never over and just as one heart breaker bites the dust, another emerges to take his place.
Excellent take on the ending...
share[deleted]
That was my conclusion too. Tony picking up from where Leslie left off. Leslie was so good in the movie. I feel he is not appreciated enough.
shareAh ha! I hate sound to say this, but...oh, it's kind of shameful but I sometimes I have a little trouble telling Asian people apart. (Which is entirely my fault for not spending enough time absorbing Asian culture). It usually takes a second's worth of thought before I can pick up on a couple defining features and remember who is who. I watched that scene THREE times, trying my best to figure out who in the heck that guy was, thinking I had seen him earlier but just didn't recognize him.
share[deleted]
Ah ha! I hate sound to say this, but...oh, it's kind of shameful but I sometimes I have a little trouble telling Asian people apart. (Which is entirely my fault for not spending enough time absorbing Asian culture). It usually takes a second's worth of thought before I can pick up on a couple defining features and remember who is who. I watched that scene THREE times, trying my best to figure out who in the heck that guy was, thinking I had seen him earlier but just didn't recognize him.
No shame in admitting that, I was lost too! With me, I cue on actors' hair, so if they all have similar hair color & style I get easily confused. I have a brain the size of a walnut.
In the DVD commentary for "House of Flying Daggers", director Zhang talks about how it's common for western audiences to get confused with Asian actors so he adds little cues like showing one character always eating peanuts. It's supposed to tip the audience: that's the peanut guy. He adds that Asian audiences have a tough time telling American actors apart. Haha, so I guess Matt Damon should try eating peanuts so they don't confuse him with Leonardo Di Caprio. share
coool, tnx alot dude
The key to immortality is first living a life worth remembering - Bruce Lee
On top of that, i read that the reason they didnt finish filming the sequal was carina lau got kidnapped and she was distraught, and since she is tony leung's girlfriend in real life, they decided to just stop production. thats what it says on wikipedia anyway.
In 1990, during the filming of Days of Being Wild, Carina was abducted and topless photos of her snapped.
Originally, Wong Kar Wai said, there were plans for "Days of Being Wild" I and II, and the sequence featuring Tony Leung was meant to be the opening scene of the second movie. But two things happened, both mundane and dramatic. The mundane one was that "Days of Being Wild" didn't do well in Hong Kong, so the producers said, "No Part 2." The dramatic one occurred during filming and involved a mysterious act of violence that fans of Tony and his longtime companion, Carina Lau, still buzz about in Internet chat rooms.
"I was doing the shoot," Tony said, "and a friend came and told me, 'Your girlfriend has just been kidnapped.' And I told Kar-wai I couldn't do any more, I had to go find her." The thugs who grabbed Carina set her free several hours later, and it is now believed that the man behind the kidnapping is a show business entrepreneur with whom Carina was having a financial dispute. Tony said she has never wanted to talk about what happened in those missing hours with anyone, including him. "I told her that was fine, I had no right to ask," he said. "I was just glad to have her home safe." He then told Kar Wai that he didn't want to go back to work anytime soon. "A human being is more important than a movie," he said.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tony_Leung_Chiu_Wai#Relationship_with_Carina_Lau
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Hm, so In the Mood for Love was not the originally intended sequel for DOBW... Well, then, the final scene makes a little more sense. My first feeling about the scene was that, while Su Li-Zhen shows her availability for a new visit to the completely unforseeable and highly hazardous lands of the love (see the previous phone-ringing scene), Chow Mo-Wan comes up, ready to take his place in the Heartborken Club (I DARE you to say that Wong Kar-Wai hasn't founded one ! Just look at ALL his characters! - not that I don't like it). 'Course, Su-Li-Zhen thought she called for Tide, but, well, she got something else instead (or: she calls for a nice guy & protection, and she gets her husband, but something's still lurking in the shadows, ready to take her by surprise).
My problem was that the Chow Mo-Wan we see at the end of DOBW is not the Chow Mo-Wan from IMFL, but the Chow Mo-Wan from 2046. Maybe it's a flash-forward indeed, but then, he's got an excuse for being a giggolo, which is, looking for his lost love, while Yuddy is simply being reckless and inconsiderate (right, unhappy childhood and all, but it's still a differemt situation). So he's not just "another heartbreaker", not a true follower of Yuddy. It could be the CM-W from between DOBW and IMFL, since in 2046 he seemed such a natural at being Clark Gable, it makes one think he'd had some practice before; but then, he settles down a little too fast and a little too unnoticed, and becomes, sort of suddenly, the quiet and decent guy in IMFL.
So, now, if the scene was meant for something that didn't work as planned, I'm a little more at peace .