Introduced by film scholar and programmer Sam Ho
 
Dir. Wong Kar-wai. 1988, 102 mins. 35mm. With Andy Lau, Maggie Cheung, Jackie Cheung. Wong’s impressive debut As Tears Go By is a gangster film with all the brazen audacity of its characters. Filled with his characteristic themes of alienation and longing, the story follows gangster and drifter Ah Wah as he tries to protect his friend Fly from slipping into fatal danger with a large gang and falls in love with youthful and vibrant Ah-Ngor. Although often critically eclipsed by his later works, it is an early masterpiece. “Drenched in romanticism, it has one of the great music montages in Hong Kong film,” writes David Bordwell, “and a finale that you feel lifting from genre formula to pictorial poetry.”

Sam Ho is a film critic, curator, and researcher. Based in Hong Kong and the United States, he specializes in the study of Hong Kong cinema but had also written extensively and curated programs on other aspects of cinema. He served as programmer at the Hong Kong Film Archive from 2005 to 2012 and had taught at the Chinese University of Hong Kong and the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts.

Tickets for Friday evening screenings: $12 ($9 for senior citizens and students / free for Museum members) and includes admission to the Museum's galleries, which are open until 8:00 p.m.