The Wayward Cloud

This is Tsai's most hilarious work, going beyond his usual brand of deadpan comedy. In a lot of ways this could considered his masterpiece. It's the culmination of all his work up to that point, the water/watermelon metaphors are fascinating, the musical sequences are beautiful, and the climax is shocking without being gratuitous.

"Tsai uses the vernacular of pornography against itself: every image is empty, obvious, posed." - Keith Uhlich

hmmm, yeah! the decade's best musical romance!

Viewed October 21, 2020. Tsai's funniest film, but also one of his most intense portraits of isolation.

Wow, um, that was incredibly dark and depressing, so I'm not sure where the comment "This is Tsai's most hilarious work" comes from. It's certainly amusing at first, especially the watermelon metaphors and the musical numbers, but the world Tsai creates weighs heavy on the soul. The water shortage alludes to future environmental conflicts, and its depiction of post-apocalyptic sex as a soulless act devoid of joy is bleak as hell.

i'm yet to see love being portrayed with such complexity as it is in the eastern part of the world - wayward cloud is perhaps the epitome of this thought.

Bizarre and audacious. Love it.

I can never look at watermelons the same way again.

I feel like a prude saying that all the sex parts don't work for me. It's not that they're offensive or even badly done, they just don't speak to me. What little I do get out of them as commentary on closeness and isolation would work better for me in almost any other context. I appreciated the visuals quite a bit, and the little moments that weren't directly sex related had a nice mix of humanity and humour. The pacing was, relative to other Tsai, brisk too, helped by the musical interludes.

Hot and nasty all at once, Tsai Ming-liang's latest is a blend of hardcore porn, wordless interplay and Bollywood homage.

My least favorite Tsai film. Too much use of fairly obvious symbols that removes much of the mystery and poetry I've come to expect from him.

Lacks some of the emotional impact of other films of Tsai's, but it's very funny, very peculiar and as always Tsai captures human behaviour so beautifully and truthfully. The musical sequences are incredibly entertaining and work surprisingly well alongside the slower more introspective scenes that make up most of the film.

Plenty of beautiful shots, nudity, musical numbers - what more can you ask from a movie?

No, no, no. While I appreciate the point he's trying to make and the direction, I also think Tsai could have shown things in such a subtler way. There are beautiful scenes of attempts at connection, but Tsai indulges in a grotesque that he doesn't need.

My least favorite Tsai. The musical bits just don't quite work, and the film as a whole lacks the subtlety of Tsai's other films.

Don't really know what to say.

Extremely uneven, when some parts are touching and outstanding, whiles others are stretching and ruining the atmosphere.

The themes (obsessions, really) - watermelon, drought, porn - combine to give this an amazingly languid, sticky, sickly atmosphere. The heat and thirst drift right through the screen, positing the musical numbers as fever dreams, and for the most part (especially the lizard number, but not the bathroom one, which felt incongruous) they really advance the film and characters. The porn is truly skewed and hilarious, a perfect juxtaposition to the slow, tentative build between the wonderful leads.

Pornographic Grease.

As with Goodbye Dragon Inn, I couldn't quite connect with the events of The Wayward Cloud. There were many great sequences, but it didn't coalesce into anything that could hold my attention. I respect and commend Tsai for always doing exactly what he wants to do, but him and me are not always on the same page.

I nearly collapsed from boredom. And few things are worse than boring surrealism.

Maybe it's not that bad.. I don't know.. I know that I hated it though.

Star Rating: ★★★★★

Too slow, but melon fingering and cheesy songs were cool.

An avant-garde porn comedy--with virtually no dialogue and musical numbers in between the scenes. Not sure what it all means, but it was fun.