Critics reviews

Minimally plotted, circuitous and deeply strange, it is a film that springs some wholly unexpected and/or demented image on us at least every couple of minutes... [The] musical sequences have a curious, otherworldly rhythm, as if acted out in slow motion then speeded back up to regular pace in the edit. They are totally nuts, but will still leave you unprepared for the riskiness – the brazen, eye-widening shock value – of the set piece Tsai inflicts at the end.

Hinged on the secrecy and privacy of Hsiao-Kang, it generates a comedy and a tragedy of unknownness at the same time, together exploring ‘the joys and sorrows of being alone and of being with someone else', a quintessential quality of film musical (Rosenbaum, 1996). Indeed, although without stylized movements, the sequence acquires a ‘musical' quality—it goes for the spirit, if not the letter, of choreography.

[Tsai’s] long takes infuse the film with poetical lyricism, allowing the characters to develop naturally as they begin to bridge their terrible isolation.

This film pushes Tsai into heretofore unseen realms of visual flourish and experimentation. The Wayward Cloudfeels like Tsai’s least perfect film . . . and also his boldest.