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The Wayward Cloud

 

  Written and Directed by Tsai Ming-Liang

Taiwan-France 2005 / Drama / Erotic / 116 min / Color / Dolby 5.1 / 1.85: 1 Widescreen Anamorphic / NTSC /  In Chinese with Optional Thai and English Subtitles

Lee Kang-Sheng, Chen Shiang-Chyi , Lu Yi-ching , Yang Juei-mei , Yozakura Sumomo.

Films by the renowned Taiwanese director Tsai Ming Liang often convey a deep, heartfelt, humane, and most of the time erotic emotion. His latest feature The Wayward Cloud, controversial for the eroticism it encompasses, picks up where What Time is it There? left off. The film returns again to the bizarre misadventures of Hsiao-Kang (Lee Kang Sheng), who appears in almost every movie by Tsai. Hsiao-Kang has retired from his watch sales position in What Time is it There? to pursue a part-time career in the pornography industry as an actor, but finding it difficult to fulfill his desires and compensate for his loneliness...
Unlike all of Tsai's previous films where water seems flooding all over the place, The Wayward Cloud is set in the midst of a drought where strangely, the government is promoting watermelon juice as a substitute to water. Tsai's previous obsession with water as a symbolic reference to sexual activities becomes more impassioned when substituted for watermelon juice. The film builds upon Tsai's usual preoccupations using interaction, eroticism, alienation, minimal dialogue, and voyeurism to create the film. Musical vignettes of classical Taiwanese songs have established an imaginative dimension for the film. The Wayward Cloud was recently awarded the Silver Bear, the FIPRESCI and the Alfred Bauer Award at the 2005 Berlin Film Festival.