听 
n/aOn one hand, The Wayward Cloud is a tender urban romance, punctuated with vibrant 50s-style song and dance numbers. On the other, it features extended bouts of unflinchingly simulated pornography, sudden injections of black physical humour, and nary a word of script. It's the madcap finale to a loose trilogy from Taiwanese director Tsi Ming-Liang, and whilst emphatically not to all tastes, fans of the obscene, the experimental and the outrageous should make every effort to get along.
Set in a modern city against a major drought and a national obsession with watermelons 鈥 bear with me 鈥 it's the story of a quiet girl, Shiang-Chyi, who meets a boy, Hsiao-Kang, in a park outside her high-rise apartment block. With the only line in the movie, she recognises that he once sold her a watch, from which a gentle intimacy grows. Unknown to her, though, he is now working, only a few floors up, as a porn star 鈥 a secret that cannot stay hidden forever.
"GIANT DANCING PENISES"
Relentless nudity, interminable faux-porn gruntings, and that striking muteness combine for a pervasive sense of voyeurism. We watch entranced as the characters tiptoe through one another's lonely lives 鈥 until we are shunted awake by the musical interludes. Comic and lavishly produced, these sequences 鈥 one featuring giant dancing penises, another sees Hsaio-Kang as a merman 鈥 shatter the dingy, dramatic dripfeed, give voice to the characters' inner feelings, and keep things impressively weird right up to the eye-watering climax.
The Wayward Cloud is out in the UK on 16th November 2007.
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