烈火青春 「Lie huo qing chun」
Release Date: November 26th, 1982
Duration: 96 mins.
Director: Patrick Tam, Terry Tong
Writer: Joyce Chan, Hoon-Chung Chan, Kang-Chien Chiu (Screenplay),
Starring:
Nomad is an experience that emphasises the sensuous as it luxuriates in the erotic potential of Hong Kong youths circa 1982. A languorous summertime atmosphere is evoked by the slow pacing, dazzling colours, and beautiful actors portraying young adults embracing each other physically and emotionally in a variety of settings as viewers get a snapshot of the island city in its halcyon days.
The film concerns a quartet of characters who meet by chance and end up sticking together as they test class and sexual boundaries. Louis (Leslie Cheung) and Kathy (Pat Ha) come from a rich family with connections to Japan. Tomato (Cecilia Yip) and Pong (Kent Tong) are working class and become the paramours of Louis and Kathy respectively. The four hang out, make love, and share their dreams and most of the film’s duration is spent observing them do this in various parts of the city.
What there is of a plot beyond coupling and looking cool concerns Japan and its influence, both in the resentment Pong holds against the country for its actions in World War II and with Kathy whose ex-boyfriend, Shinsuke, is a deserter from the United Red Army. It is this that gives the film its explosive and disturbing conclusion – one that made me laugh out loud at its outrageousness.
The director is Patrick Tam, one of the leading lights of the Hong Kong New Wave. He emerged amongst the likes of Ann Hui and Tsui Hark in the 1970s and 80s and his works could be described as the experimental genre films – think the slasher Love Massacre (1981). He would go on to mentor some of the current top talent of Hong Kong cinema, including Wong Kar-Wai for whom he acted as editor on Days of Being Wild (1990) and Ashes of Time (1994). Nomad easily merits mention with the works of Wong and even seems like an influence, not least because the aforementioned films all feature Leslie Cheung and aching romance and tragedy that exudes from each beautifully shot scene.
Here, vividly acted characters exist in well-drawn environments. The locations are simple and yet have so much character due to colours and set dressing and so you get a feel for the class contrasts of the characters and their internal lives. The cramped grey concrete apartments that Tong inhabits with his large family are compared to the spacious apartments overlooking the sea that Louis and Kathy have while Tomato lives out of her suitcase. You see the more functional side of the city with hotels for couples to get some privacy in and anonymous car parks and the sight of food and its quantity adds further flavour. You watch the influence of Japan that the hip young characters embrace via J-pop and kabuki while other foreign influences on people in the former crown colony take the form of David Bowie.
The most vividly conveyed moment is a stylish montage set on a beach-front villa. Dreamlike in its deployment of imagery and slow transitions and gliding camerawork, it features incredibly romantic music playing while images of characters languidly laying in the sun in various states of undress and embrace float by on the screen. More visceral are the moments of lust in public spaces like a tram capture that animal passion one feels when they have met their perfect partner and keeping hands off each other proves impossible. Amidst all of this, Tam displays tongue-in-cheek humour that evokes a laugh as lovemaking gets interrupted or you notice a poster exhorting “good clean fun” hanging on a wall above a couple in the throes of lust.
If you come for the plot you may end up disappointed but if you come for the experience of being in love, being cool and sexy, the youthful searching for freedom and expression, and for a recreation of Hong Kong in the 80s, then Nomad is perfect and easy to get lost in.
Nomad played on Friday, July 21st, 15:45 at the Walter Reade Theater, Film at Lincoln Center and on Sunday, July 23rd, 16:00 at the Barrymore Film Center, Barrymore Film Center.