"If rebellion usually implies breaking off from the bonds of a system and moving in a new direction, even if it involves a certain destructiveness, in Wong's film there is no way of breaking off from the series. All affective binds are double binds that inhibit movement, and so destructiveness gets largely internalized" (Abbas, 51)

"Genre is still important, but it is used in a risky way: to raise expectations that are not fulfilled." Abbas 50

"Not only is there no glorification of rebellion and action, there is very little of either rebellion or action to be seen in the film at all" (Abbas, 50)

"All three films refute a unitary narrative space through non-chronological editing and... reframing of tense and layers of performance (Mood), subverting 'progressive' linear character objectives (Days), and all three films employ refrains of music that folds 'unitary' time-space" (Crompton, 55)

"...given there is no direct plot continuity between the films and the two Li-zhens have quite different personas, it is more appropriate to view the films as alternate iterations, two materializations among many possibilities--a refrain in fact" (Crompton, 54)

"Yuddy is further displaced as a central character by the intersecting narratives between Su Li-zhen and the Policeman, and Zeb and Mimi. Yuddy is utterly replaced in the final moments of the film when a brand new character appears (Tony Leung) slicking back his hair in the mirror, almost identical in manner and persona to Yuddy" (Crompton, 54)

"Mood [takes]... it to the extreme, relentlessly repeating romantic disunion to epic effect, while never providing indication that if they got it together things would be swell. If they became lovers this whirlpool would only continue--as it does in Days" (Crompton, 54)

"Avoiding counterproductive attempts to rupture the naturalization of historicist narratives through a wholesale shock aesthetic, traditionally directed at commercialized genres, these films disrupt problematic cultural narratives through their reiteration of genre itself. That is to say, these films are avant-garde in their considerable shifts in film form in context with the dominant commercial genres they engage" (Crompton, 54)