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Patrick Tam (director), Nomad (ηη«ιζ₯), 1982. 157 min.
This review contains spoilers.
I really didnβt see the final scene coming. On a beach, a forlorn and undeveloped character named Tomato (Cecilia Yip) is thought to be dead, her body trapped under a dinghy. She kicks off the dinghy and quickly, and with a defiant look, uses a harpoon gun to shoot and kill a member of the Japanese Red Army. The JRA member (a minor character who up until then had masqueraded as a gallery assistant) had just, in several minutes of unprovoked and impressive ideological fury, used a katana to kill all of Tomatoβs friends, other than her boyfriend Louis (Leslie Cheung).[1] Tomato and Louis then stiffly walk towards each other and embrace as waves lap the shore.
The film up until then had been for the most part a raunchy comedy, but the final scene was stock action movie material.
I had never seen Nomad before, and didnβt know much about it. I vaguely knew that its director, Patrick Tam, was one of the lights of the Hong Kong New Wave that preceded the more internationally popular Hong Kong cinema of the late 1980s and early 90sβa director rumoured to be on the bloody side of things, especially when compared to New Wave directors of great compassion such as Ann Hui. Tam had visually influenced a young Wong Kar-wai, probably Hong Kongβs best-known film export, and Nomad in particular provided an early breakout role for Cheung, as well as attention for the rest of its excellent cast. It would also receive eight nominations for the Hong Kong Film Awards. I was fortunate to catch a 4K restoration and directorβs cut of it at the 2023 Asian Film Festival in New York.
The βnomadβ of the title is the namesake of a large three-mast ship owned by the father of rich girl Kathy (Pat Ha). Kathy has two boyfriendsβone, Pong, a working class hustler, lifeguard, and taxi driver (Kent Tong), and the other, rich kid rebel Shinsuke (Yung Sai-Kit). Shinsuke is the son of an Imperial Japanese Army officer who had been in Nanjing, the bloodiest single episode in Japanβs colonisation of China; Shinsuke is also a member of the fanatical Japanese Red Army, known in real life for its bombings, kidnappings, and bloody purges. That is, until he decides to leaveβat Kathyβs request, and against the rules of the JRA. Kathy has lent him her absent fatherβs boat, with the plan that they will escape on it together and sail to the Middle East.
Itβs worth keeping in mind that the English-language title, Nomad, implies escape. The Chinese-language title, γηη«ιζ₯γβwhich Iβd translate as βYouth on Fireββcalls to mind violence, passion, and restlessness. And as restlessness can be considered a characteristic of a nomadic existence, in this film, pacific waters and revolutionary violence are close to each other. It is also worth keeping in mind that the Hong Kong of the cultural explosion of the late 70s and 80s was beset by violence, bookended by deadly bombings (blamed on communists) in 1967 and then by riots (blamed on drunken youths) in 1981. Nomad features both groups of people. For immediately preceding the violence at the end of the film is naivety.
The four main characters (Tomato, Louis, Kathy, and Pong) are hanging out on a near-deserted island, goofing off, having sex, andβif Iβm interpreting this rightβdoing art projects (it looks like that Kathy, at least, has become a photographer). Kathy and Louis are clearly slumming it, and Tomato and Pong are there for the camaraderie and good times. In the film it seems like they are there a while, aimlessly enjoying themselves until the arrival of Shinsuke on the Nomad ushers in the horror of the final scene.
Aside from the ending, the film is funny and sexy but with occasional dark undertones. Pong refuses to talk to Shinsuke because he is Japanese. Shinsuke threatens Pong with a katana. Pongβs father, a slum loan shark, forgives one of his delinquent debtors, saying βArenβt we all Chinese?β The simmering national identity of the film enriches it.
Likewise for the visuals. There are meditative shots of lightbulbs at bus stationsβexactly the kind of thing that Wong Kar-wai would later make into his signature styleβbut the visual feeling is closer to colourful collage. In addition to the action movie scene of the ending, there are many straightforward and naturalistic scenes that burst with colour and strong contrasts, making Nomad as visually attractive for its scenery as it is for its cast. But focusing too much on the visuals sublates the politics and, more importantly, the desperate horniness that permeates almost all aspects of the film. This is demonstrated perfectly by Kathy, who, after sleeping with Shinsuke, tells him that sheβs tired of thinking about the worldβsheβs leaving him for Pong, who doesnβt think much at all, and with whom itβs βonly sexβ.
The underlying class conflict is split evenly among the characters. There is, on the one hand, the Kathy-Pong axis. But both characters are fully confident and seem in control of their worlds, being even blithe about their status. On the other hand, Tomato seems to be homeless, her only tie to the outside world being her mamaβs-boy ex-boyfriend (who memorably wears a t-shirt with her picture and βTomatoβ printed on it), and who needs to pathetically rely on the kindness of others. Louis is Kathyβs cousin. His mother is dead, and he is staying with Kathy and her family, sulking in luxury. Shinsuke, marked by his Japaneseness as well as his outright rejection of his class background, is an outlier and an intruder.
A few scenes that might illustrate these contrasts:
- Pong is trying to make ends meet by holding multiple jobs, while also negotiating with the family of the girl his 12-year-old brother got pregnant. He meets Kathy when she steals his swimming trunks at the pool. Later on, believing Louis and Kathy to be a couple, he confronts Louis to win Kathyβs attention. Having thoroughly humiliated Louis in a fight, and showing him to be overly effeminate, Pong leaves with Kathy.
- Louis goes to a bar to nurse his wounded pride and by chance meets Tomato, who is comically juggling phone calls from different boyfriends on the barβs two public phones. She has nowhere to goβshe has just been thrown out of another boyfriendβs apartmentβand has an overstuffed suitcase, with things literally popping out of it. They spend the night together.
- Louis tells Kathy he likes huffing lighter fluid, and that βall the young people in Japan are doing itβ. Disgusted, Kathy squirts his fluid into the bathtub in his en suite bathroom and proceeds to set it alight. Quickly, she follows up with a funny sort of kabuki dance, to Louisβs curiosity. He asks if she learned the dance in order to please Shinsuke.
Writing all this out makes me realise just how odd and sui generis Nomad is. The division between the first two-thirds of the film and the rest is starkβitβs the kind of thing that would be shot down for inconsistency in a film class. Although the problems in the film are real ones (drugs, class, the legacy of Japanese imperialism, art), they are portrayed in an absurd fashion. For example, the scene where Tomato is lounging deckside with Kathyβs hot stepmother in bathing suits as they study Japanese together. But education is important; you need to study to get ahead in life.
If you look up Nomad online, youβll see many summaries that say itβs an important portrayal of directionless youth. A few will also mention the political angle which undergirds much of the film (though the violent politics of the end is really an invitation to think back over the last two hours you spent watching it, not an invitation to think seriously about ethics). But as I sat in the Barrymore Film Center watching the film with around twenty other people, I found myself wondering what brought all of us thereβan interest in Hong Kong cinema? Were we fans of Leslie Cheung? Was there nothing else to do that Sunday afternoon? I was jealous of the Cantonese-speaking group sitting directly behind me who laughed uproariously at jokes that seemed puerile at best in their English-language subtitles. But as the film went on, I also found my barriers dropping, and I wondered why I couldnβt get with the programme earlier. Why couldnβt I laugh at some very bad jokes?
But there always has to be at least one person who hates a good time. After its initial success, Nomad was suddenly pulled from cinemas and most distribution circuits. Complaints had been made to the right people, and, under the British colonial system, decisions could be made readily and without reference to the market forces which were already rewarding the film.[2] Someone had apparently gone to the cinema and come away thinking there was too much sex. The censored version that subsequently became available was not nearly as remarkable.
So this brief and somewhat scattered essay will end with some of the sex in the film. Much of the sex is impliedβpeople on a bed about to have sex (presumably) or people putting their clothes on after having had sex (presumably). The scene that apparently triggered moral fury is also the filmβs bestβdoubly marking the shame of its censorship. Pong has invited Kathy over to his familyβs apartment on a date, and he works hard to make sure his family are out that evening. Despite all his efforts, as soon as Kathy comes over, his younger brother immediately play pranks. Just as Pong is about to bed Kathyβin his actual bunk bedβhis father comes home with a rowdy group of men to drink and gamble. Kathy and Pong sneak out and go down to the street, where they wait for a bus. A double-decker picks them up. On the upper level they flirt and kiss with genuine affection; the remaining passenger is indignant. Itβs erotic and, coupled with the fear of getting caught, exciting. The action is complemented by dreamy mid-tone city-night visuals.
After the passenger leaves, the camera closes in on Pongβs unzipped jeans.[3] The film is telling the viewer how to feel, like in a melodrama: Your pants are unzipped because youβre about to have sex on a public bus. Kathy walks over to Pong and straddles him. After some ambiguous pants-on lovemaking, their stop comes up. Pong picks Kathy up, her legs still wrapped around him, and they walk down to wait at the exit. Disembarking, the final shot of the scene is them still in same position and walking along a lonely grey wall strewn with dark shadows.
[1] One character, Shinsuke, a JRA deserter, is forced at swordpoint into seppuku.
[2] Morally uptight though they may have been, they still werenβt quite as uptight as Hong Kongβs current rulers.
[3] This is specific to the directorβs cut.
How to cite: Turner, Matt. βDie With Your Pants Down: Patrick Tam’s Nomad.β Cha: An Asian Literary Journal, 22 Nov. 2023, chajournal.blog/2023/11/22/nomad/.
Matt Turner is the author of the full poetry collections Slab Pases (BlazeVox, 2022), Wave 9: Collages (Flying Islands, 2020) and Not Moving (Broken Sleep, 2019), in addition to the prose chapbooks City/Anti-City (Vitamin, 2022) and Be Your Dog (Economy, 2022). He is co-translator, with Weng Haiying, of work by Yan Jun, Ou Ning, Hu Jiujiu and others. He lives in New York City, where he works as a translator and copy editor. [All contributions by Matt Turner.]
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