Just perfect...

Entertaining from beginning to end, it maintains the spirit of the franchise while establishing it's own seal with a fun cast

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

A film of deceptively outspoken contemporary relevance, this is cinema at its most alert, alarming and alive.

Wong Kar-Wai shot at the "Heroic Bloodshed" ...It's a miss

"As Tears Go By", which was the directorial debut of director Kar-Wai Wong, doesn't look like a movie that was filmed by a rookie at directing. On the contrary, the movie is filled with director's personal style, which includes fast editing and slow motion with blurred images.Sometimes, the editing of "As Tears Go By" was so fast that I felt like it had jumped to another part of the story, which is quite different from other movies I've watched, and confused me a little bit. However, there were still some great scenes that were made by fast editing, which excellently enhances the emotions and thoughts of the characters and the plots.When filming the action scenes, director Kar-Wai Wong used slow motion with blurred images, which I think is a genius idea to express the mess in actions, and in characters' minds as well. Nonetheless, when it came to the crucial parts of the plots, the picture became clear, revealing not only to the characters in the movie but also to us watching it what really happened.The acting in "As Tears Go By" is also brilliant, especially Jacky Cheung starring as Fly, and Maggie Cheung as Ngor. The point that this movie touches me the most is the brotherhood between Wah and Fly. Thanks to Jacky Cheung's great performance, I literally felt the rage, disappoint, sadness and many other kinds of emotion from Fly. Moreover, Ngor is another character that amazed me. Although she looked calm on the outside, her expression gave me a feeling that deep inside, there were more than that. And finally Maggie Cheung let the audience go inside her heart and delivered a performance I will never forget.

As Tears Go By is the pure 'Ah Fei' offering from Wong Kar-wai. Stephen Teo writes that you take one part Scorcese's "Mean Streets," and you add one part Jarmusch's "Stranger than Paradise" (Teo 16) and you have one heck of a Triad film. A triad sibling Wah (Andy Lau) has his little brother Fly's (Jackie Cheung) back. Fly is constantly in trouble. Added to the mix is Wah's cousin Ngor (Maggie Cheung) who needing a place to stay while getting a checkup at the local hospital stays in his flat. The Wah and Ngor mysteriously fall in love - sort of that charm of the bad boy business. However, in order to get anything on with Ngor, Wah needs to settle up for the ill will accumulated by Fly. That is the short of it. Being Wong Kar-wai's first film - it is understandable that he has not really developed his oeuvre. Andy Lau, convincingly played a triad brother, reminds one of the dysfunctional characters that Wong cultivates. One would not know it if one's entry into the labyrinth of Wong Kar-wai is through this movie but I guess this movie lays the framework for his adherence to genre in an effort to belong. Maggie Cheung is stunning. She will eventually develop into the forlorn lover in later movies like "Days of Being Wild" and "In the Mood for Love" and Jackie Cheung, plays the never do well 'Ah Fei' who is destined to bite it. Difficult to get too deep here but according to Stephen Teo we really do not see the promise that Wong Kar-wai eventually delivers. I have to disagree. I think, to some extent, we do see the promise that Wong-Kar-wai brings to cinema - the dark brooding characters who all too often defy time and identity are beginning to show themselves in this movie. The trick is to move forward from here to open new spaces of consideration in a movie world so eager to adhere to codes and rules that exemplify genre or worse formula. Kudos all around.Miguel Llora

This is Wong Kar Wai's debut feature, his first jump from scriptwriting to film-making, and in the wonderful career of WKW seems to serve only as a tester round for the studio to judge if he's capable of directing. Yes Wong was capable of directing, but the film seems a huge leap from the classics he would start to make from 1990's 'Days of Being Wild'. 'As Tears Go By' tells a routine gangster story, seemingly influenced by Scorsese's 'Mean Streets', with what would become Wong's trademark style. It is wonderfully photographed by future director Andrew Lau (who also co-photographed Wong's 'Chungking Express'), but the plotting seems lazy and contrived, Hong Kong films have told gangster stories like this many a time, which only leaves the style to elevate it above the rest. There is no problem with the acting of course and the always reliable Jacky Cheung makes the most of a crazy role made to measure, whilst Maggie Cheung and Andy Lau also turn in good performances, whilst also marking territory for they're characters relationships in 'Days Of Being Wild'. Wong's famous use of repetition of music is also applied here, but my God this time we wish it didn't, and 'As Tears Go By' is guilt showcasing one of the worst soundtracks I've heard. Whilst 'As Tears Go By' is not really considered a Wong Kar Wai film like all his future films, it definitely serves it's purpose as a forerunner to Wong's future style of film-making, and is a noble attempt at trying to pushing 80's HK heroic bloodshed in a different direction. Recommend only for the Wong completest, this might not serve as a great introduction to the skill and seduction of Wong's later masterpieces.