My Heart Is That Eternal Rose (1989)
A lot of visual texture in this film. Every scene is drenched in a soft light, often in ambient neon colors. When it is green, everything is really green. It is an interesting mix of Hong Kong cinema, clearly following the tradition of stylized violence with freeze frames and slowmotion. But also a sad melodramatic melancholic romance and lingering cinematography from Cristopher Doyle who clearly establishes here what he later applied to perfection with Wong Kar-Wai. The Triad plot with all the criminal feuds and broken loyalties isn’t the main event here, just a foundation for telling a tragic love story of two people unable to escape their confined roles. Where the film falls a bit flat for me is in the romance, as the attraction and the state of mind of the characters never fully came across the screen, which Wong Kar-Wai handles to perfection.
Rating: 3