"The Wayward Cloud" opens with a scene of sex with a watermelon though neither the melon nor the sex look particularly appetizing. We are in Taiwan and there's a heatwave which might explain the copious amounts of nudity as well as the watermelons if not the behavior of the characters. Ming-Liang Tsai's film, (it appears it follows on from earlier work but this is the first of his films I've seen), doesn't really have much of a plot and very little in the way of dialogue and what 'plot' there is doesn't really make a lot of sense, (the bloke who metamorphoses into a sea-creature in a large tank and breaks into song is only the first of several very camp musical numbers). Unfortunately this picture, which lasts close to two hours, is aimed very much at an art-house audience who like their sex movies to be vague and abstract rather than simply down and dirty, (even the money-shot is basically abstract). Of course, you could be forgiven for thinking that the very explicit sex scenes have, within them, a sense of comedy or at least are meant to be 'tongue-in-cheek', (no pun intended), and that the musical interludes are aimed at a largely gay audience. Either way, "The Wayward Cloud" isn't going to wow them in Middle America or down at the multiplexes but it's sufficiently pretentious and sufficiently weird to be at least interesting. I may have been perplexed but I was certainly never bored.

The Wayward Cloud is a frustrating film to watch. Infuriatingly enigmatic, it treats each shot like a work of art. You get the impression that the composition of each shot has been designed and prepared with a degree of exquisite care that borders on obsession; Expressing how far cinema has progressed since the very first films were cranked out in the nineteenth century and mimicking their construction, the camera here hardly ever moves – apart from during the camp and colourful musical numbers. Ambient noise is kept to a minimum and barely a word is spoken. This curious but effective device forces the audience to focus their attention on visual stimuli alone so that, even as the story progresses at a snail-like pace we feel ourselves becoming immersed. Unfortunately, for me at least, this immersion begins to unravel somewhere around the hour mark. I began to feel as if the film was challenging me to keep watching while becoming more difficult as the minutes dragged so that the mere act of watching became a battle of wills.Had the content of this film not been as sexual as it is it would no doubt been even more obscure to Western audiences. As it is, there's an abundance of female nudity and an act of sexual abuse on an unconscious (or possibly dead) woman that is so repugnant that, while it may speak volumes about the degradation to which pornography subjects both men and women (the users and the used) it is so over-zealous in the manner in which it chooses to make its point as to effectively render it ineffective. Of course the worst and most enthusiastic participants of the explosion in available pornographic content will seek this film out for all the wrong reasons and watch it with their sticky finger on the fast-forward button of the remote.For all its problems, the film is definitely a stayer, and the more you think about it the more sense certain aspects of it seem to make. Ironically, for a film in which so little happens, the viewer would probably be proportionately rewarded by watching a second or even third time. For me, however, once was enough

From the very inventive start to the wicked, tense climax, "Wayward Cloud" is an allegory of longing, frustration and tongue in cheek solutions. Deliciously slow at times, intercepts with frenetic musical scenes in Technicolor splendor, and contrasts with gritty-down-right-dirty voyeuristic insights into pornographic industry; this was the stuff Barney tried to create with 10 times the budget in his Cremaster Cycles (and none of the wit)The use of 60's Chinese Pop, choreography with enough cheese to put any Madonna's clip to shame offered a break from the relentless heat and the hilarious sex scenes, their seemingly unconnectedness served to heightened the restless state of wander that the characters seem to float in. In this drought, water isn't the only thing that's running scarce. Water melons will never be seen in the same light!!!

I saw this film at the Toronto International Film Festival, and it was the most memorable film of the fest--more so than other great films screening like Capote or Brokeback Mountain and for sure, your run of the mill, Hollywood films like Elizabethtown, In her Shoes, Walk the Line, etc. Wayward Cloud is a daring film about love, sex and isolation, and it's set in an almost apocolyptic time when watermelon has become the source of water, food and fetish! The film is amazingly original.Definitely, the "real time" shots which are often utilized in Taiwanese film, can try your patience, but indeed there is a "zone" for Tsai Ming Liang's films and once you get there, all the images are mesmerizing--watching a woman walk up a flight of stairs, etc. And the sex scenes (which are plenty b/c the film deals with porn) further highlights our voyeuristic "mesmerization" reflected in the style of the film.Short of writing a spoiler, please please see this film (if it is distributed in your area)...the last shot is the most disgusting and most beautiful thing ever...you'll have to see for yourself.