A new director’s cut, 4K restoration in select cinemas allows us to appreciate this strange, meandering tale about a group of listless young people from Hong Kong’s blossoming upper middle class, and how their encumbent obsession with Japan and Japanese culture ends up getting them all… well… killed. One hot, endless summer, the friends work odd jobs, tot up their tans, explore their sexuality, and get mercilessly ripped to shreds in a samurai sword fight.

Nomad was one of the early successes for a young Leslie Cheung, who would go on to become a Hong Kong icon. Directed by Patrick Tam, the film is now seen as a classic of Hong Kong’s ‘new wave’ of cinema; abandoning period costume and kung fu for something contemporary, youthful, and inimitably Hong Kong.

The film’s theme of sexual liberation — including a scene where two lovers (Kent Tong, Pat Ha) have sex on the upper deck of a late-night, passenger-less tram — was a cause of furore (and excellent publicity). Complaints flooded the local censorship bureau, and the sex scenes were axed. Now, the film returns to the screen in its original uncensored, director-authorised version.

Modern audiences may look past the film’s pretty visuals and pretty cast, and struggle with what could be described as a directionless jumble of random scenes in contrasting styles. Despite fast pacing, this is not the kind of film that really makes sense until right at the end, when everything finally comes together. Fatally.

Screened by Focus Hong Kong at the British Film Institute (BFI).