Nomad is a hybrid difficult to identify. Not simply because it may appear as a mediation of the first work by Tam, The Sword, and of the ambitions of his second work, Love Massacre, but also because it is a controversial movie. The difficult third movie of this emerging director springs from a solidly commercial preamble and grows within a current trend, the youth movies carried on by Clifford Choi, who, in the same year hits the box offices with the carefree Teenage Dreamers, produced by Shaw Brothers. While the premise is enough mainstream, soon the movie reaches wrongfooting conclusions, of uncommon violence. It is not, then, simply a treaty on youngster's drift in a Hong Kong disturbed, in cinematographic sense, by the New Wave phenomenon; it is an unconditional declaration of love towards the Cantonese culture and its roots on the big screen. A post-modern parallelism that blends two roads and dazes audience and critics.
One should not be sidetracked by the nominations to the Hong Kong Film Awards, which, by all means, were never followed by a prize, neither by the followup reevaluation: Nomad did not receive the applause it deserved. And still, the bases are those of a product designed to be a winner. Dennis Yu puts together a troupe with an excellent background. In particular, Violet Lam's fascinating music, a screenplay signed by, among others, Joyce Chan and Eddie Fong, the artistic direction by William Chang e John Hau, the elliptic editing by Cheung Kwok-kuen, the photography by Bill Wong, David Chung and Peter Ngor. The casting is not inferior, which gives a group of teens a lot more than fifteen minutes of celebrity. Today, everybody knows who the late lamented Leslie Cheung was; and the magnetic charm of Cecilia Yip stole many hearts. Less famous, but pivotal points of reference, are the magnificent Pat Ha, nominated with Yip as best actresses making their first appearance of the season, and Ken Tong's rustic charm.
First: Tam abandons the realism, or rather transforms it, adapting it from the esthetic point of view to a more frivolous context. The New Wave, after Nomad, changes its appearance, and becomes for the first time Nouvelle Vague, aware of its artistic value and, at the same time, social ponder. The first signs of step-framing peak, silent slowdowns, dirty documentary-style photography, insisted monochromatic games. The care to formality becomes an essential element, constant support to narration, complementary piece of a schizophrenic and neon-colored mosaic. Tam adopts the stylistic elements of advertising, as it happened before in some episodes of the TV series Seven Women, and materialism changes into contemplation. Perfect prototype is the decision of having a girl kissed in a shop-window, almost as if she were a body for sale, without a soul. Or, at the same time, to have the two lovers meet in a restaurant, he looking lost and she nasty girl her own way, that to show her identity of mature woman 1 wants to pay the bill herself even if the money is not hers. Culture is a façade: owning a book does not mean having read it; learn a language does not mean understanding its innermost meaning. Hedonism, negation of transcendent and cynicism proceed hand in hand and they are the starting complement for flesh marketing: sex and blood. The second point, then, cannot be but eroticism. Nomad is a story about repressed longings, in which the everyday life slips slowly, among boredom, sensuality and nihilism, and dozes off between embarrassments and obsessions. The nude scenes and the crude violence kicked up a great fuss and ensured the highest level of viewers' discretion rating. Unfortunately today as a home video are available only cut versions of the movie that, even if it had been cut by censure, it is still an uncomfortable topic of discussion. At the end, the day of reckoning comes. Eros and thanatos unite arm in arm as the splatter appears to soil – or clean up? – a declaration of intents from any possible hope (of a happy ending).
The subversive, and also very ironic, thesis, is that the average person from Hong Kong does not have an individual personality, is weak and malleable. Cinema, television and the media in general ask new questions. The answer of younger generations is twofold: on one side there is the xenomania, lived with a certain ignorance and not without superficiality; on the other, the shadow of a past that of course becomes current again, when it confronts itself with current trends.
The question, «When you pursue Japanese chic, can you also bear the Japanese sword?» 2, is not one of Tam's inventions, but it is a recurring unknown entity about a ever-divided civilization between opposite worlds which are equally imperfect. The sidearm drama is paradoxically introduced by an English sentence, «No fight!», that sounds redundant and ridiculous at the same time as it is uttered. The Japanese female soldier, since her appearance with the connotation of a disturbing lesbian, is transformed in a sexual monster. If taken lightly, every culture can be risky. The lesson is valid today too, where in the place of the Rising Sun there are South Korean fictions, where trendy products such as Hello Kitty or Pukka are hits, where Fruit Chan, Stanley Kwan (here assistant director) and Wong Kar-wai are prophets.
The intellectual fight is not only between Japan and China, neither between West and Orient, but more in general, between old and new generations. The parallel editing highlights the distance between David Bowie and the kabuki3 movements, the traditional Chinese theatre and classical music (Beethoven's «Fifth Symphony»). Key scene: Pong, who makes all his relatives get out of the house to be alone with his girlfriend, paying them tickets to the movies. Mother is puzzled, the movie is in English, therefore she is certain she won't be able to understand it and wonders why, with so many Chinese movies available one would choose a foreign one. The daughter, pragmatic, reassures her and to the question «Give me a reason to watch it», seraphic answers: «It is long enough, and even if it was bad, we have a place to stay for three hours». Obviously, the evening for the bully is a disaster, the grandfather comes home, as an unexpected guest, and he invites over a group of his friends to play mahjong. Once again, folklore beats progress: the little revenge of sex consumed on the top floor of a very British double-decker bus is of little comfort.
At this point, it is possible to belie those who consider Nomad a work that looks outside national borders with teary eyes. On the contrary, it epitomizes the recent past represented from its counterpart movie on the big screen. Tam willingly divides into four one basic concept born in the Sixties, that of «a fei» 4, which constructs a figure of young rebel, halfway between Marlon Brando, James Dean and a street hooligan, to depict in the vigor of his vitality. On one side, Leslie Cheung, singpop icon 5 who can be a hit as a young girls' idol; and on the other Ken Tong, taxi driver and lifeguard by chance, forerunner of populist charm of Andy Lau.
But Tam softens the tones in a fatherly way. The absence of relevant adult characters plays a key role in the characters' feeling of abandonment and of being out of their element, cuddled only by the camera. So that the role of the «a fei» is turned upside down, to lose any negative aspect and filters from its predecessors generosity, curiosity, charisma, enthusiasm, willingness to (over)do. If in Joys and Sorrows of Youth by Chor Yuen, 1969, the drug is a bitter reality, here Leslie Cheung only pretends to be snorting trichloroethylene. References are apparent: Teddy Girls by Lung Kong, 1969; Girl Wanders Around by Yeung Kuen, 1970; Social Characters by Chan Wan, 1969; The Prodigal, again by Chor Yuen, 1969; Waste Not Our Youth by Ng Dan, 1967.
The quartet of adolescents is played by the directorship according to a mathematical scheme, ABBC, where the two contrasting opposites, placed at the limit, are Pat Ha (the sophisticated dame) and Ken Tong (the «gu wak», the average man a bit rough), while at the centre there are two meteors of equal value, halfway between discrepant cultures that mediate an intellectual contrast. It is not by chance, and it is here that the moral dilemma finds its resolution, only these last are those who survive, perfect creatures, advanced, adaptable and capable not to be fooled by (fake) myths and somebody else's influences, real Cantonese exiled in their own country but, at the same time, national icons of a country in constant ferment.
Notes
1. Confront in this respect Mary Wong's essay in this book.
2. Refer to Mary Wong’s essay, p. 37.
3. There is a telling an exchange of sentences in this context: «But the kabuki is still fashionable?» Obvious answer: «Beautiful things never go out of style».
4. Rex Wong, «Looking for Rebels in Sixties Cantonese Movies», in Law Kar ed., The Restless Breed: Cantonese Stars of the Sixties, Hong Kong, Hong Kong International Film Festival, pp. 92-94.
5. He will come back as the same character, aged of about ten years , in Days of Being Wild by Wong Kar-wai, 1990, almost a homage to Nomad. Certainly a lot more truthful than its official remake, Rumble Ages, shot by James Yuen in 1998, that little has to share with the original as far as technique and feelings and that looks like a rough copy of Young and Dangerous populated by youngsters seeking an author.