Lie huo qing chun

this is the earliest and most representative hong kong new wave movie. directed by patrick tan, nomad is unfinished and with many questions left behind. screenplay is hesitating and irresolute and structure is broken. but up to now, not a single hong kong movie can be more successful in exploring the hong kong young people's nihilism. for those young people in the movie, youthfulness is for a kind of wasteful consumption, being a growth up is falling down into the hole of nonsense. this kind of relaxed, unconcerned, or even annoying attitude made leslie cheung the new sexual representational speaker for the chinese speaking community.

Tan Jiaming's uninhibited style has been established since the early stage. The first half focuses on the feelings of men and women. The youth breath is ahead of the times. You can also see the green Zhang Guorong and the more green Ye Tong kissing. The second half introduces the "Red Army" and national entanglement, and the style suddenly becomes angry and free. The bloody battle at the end is completely released. To some extent, it is more like an experiment with a mixture of various elements. The greatest contribution may be the discovery of Xia Wenxi.

This film was said to be one of the very few films able to hit the bull's eye on the youth culture in Hong Kong, ranging from their hair styles to their life philosophies, during the 80's. It generated a great deal of controversy in a mainly Confuscious Hong Kong society, where the people and the community know of the problems but instead employ an one eye open, one eye close attitude and prefer to keep them shredded in darkness and secrecy while making everything look nice and peachy on the surface, when it was first released with the film's shocking and brutal honesty on the lifestyle of the youth. Its portrayal of the youths as being a very promiscuous and sexually open group who goes through life with a "live for today, die tomorrow" attitude while having no goals and directions challenged the thinking of Hong Kong society by bringing out the problems with the youths; meanwhile, the many "streamy" love scenes(no nudity; many were just scenes and shots of the actors and actresses scantily clad and in provocative positions; the one scene where it was close to a standard love making scene was too dark to see and could only see the arms and face; nothing compared to western cinema) and the amount of skin the actors and actresses revealed challenged Hong Kong films society which was rather conservative.

I really liked the way they were able to reflect both the youth and the parent's reaction and attitude towards their lifestyle. However, the writers were trying to do too much. They tried to generate some excitement and climax by putting a international assassination plot into the story, but it just made the film became more of a silly soap opera and it lost focus from the main theme, a reflection on youth society. The cast was rather impressive, which featured some recognizable names even in 2005 and although only Leslie Cheung became a breakout star, the other main actors and actresses became reliable performers; the performances, on the other hand, were believable and natural but nothing spectacular and rather green. Overall, it would be recommended for only film buffs or Leslie Cheung fans. There was nothing exciting about this movie, as even the love scenes were boring.