my blueberry nights: WKW revisited

I used to be a very loyal fan of WKW movies. I saw each of his movie at least twice in the cinema, I bought all of his DVDs and soundtracks, I also bought 2 books about his movies written by 魏紹恩 and the other published by 三聯書店. I loved all his past movies despite that there were some negative feedbacks from my friends during that time. I always query why people keep on blaming his works hard to understand in the past, to me they are all very simple stories filled with emotions.

I have to admit that his last work "2046" was no longer a masterpiece of his, though it was not a bad movie at all. I find him trying really hard to link up the stories together, but not as fluent and smooth as before. I was not particularly moved by the relationships between Tony Leung and the other characters. After this movie and the short film "Hand", WKW takes a long rest and "My Blueberry Nights" is his new work within almost 4 years.

Many critics have said that this new work looks very much alike his past movies. To me it's a mixture of his most favorite motifs and there are some new elements inside, like the stories between Norah Jones and those faces she met during her spiritual journey away from her painful memories. However the most touching moments are still those captivating scenes in the tiny rest hosted by Jude Law, i.e, the part that most people link up with his past movies. I treat this part as some old boys gathering where we get the chance to revisit the traces of some good old friends of mine. I don't care whether they had brought anything new, I just want to recapture those good memories between us.

The other 2 stories between the couples and the gambling girl aren't that brilliant, at least not as good as the blueberry story between Norah Jones and Jude Law. The characters and the things happening are quite cliche, not much sparkling moments exist. Compared with Norah, the characters sometimes overact too much, the tears sheding scenes cannot touch me as well.

Of course, this is still a classical WKW movie after these years, filled with our most familiar WKW styled music, rich colour, monologues, photography, everything you can name of. I still enjoy this movie, like seeing a long lost friend wearing the same bittersweet smile, holding a cigarette, lying besides the fainted light inside the jazz bar.