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Summary: what a difference a day makes
Review: Chungking Express is a high-energy exploration of human emotion. It is a story of love, obsession, and longing told in a frenetic, woozily modern, aesthetic blur. A very free-spirited film, it sends an invitation to the viewer to venture into the everyday actions and infatuations of others. Its an invitation hand-written with traces of glitter within it, an invitation with a profoundly philosophical quote next to a sticker, and an invitation that is utterly irresistible in every single way.
At its core, it follows two characters and their romantic, friendly, and tangential relationships connected together through a deli. In the first story, Cop 223 finds himself single again, desperately missing his love, May. His daily rituals include constantly checking his phone messages, jogging instead of crying, and buying a can of pineapple with an expiration date of April 1st every single day. He meets a drug pusher who he desperately tries to converse with, despite her resistance. Drunk, she finally allows him to rattle off his story of longing and they soon find themselves in a beautiful hotel where she passes out and he eats all night, munching on fries, watching old movies, and cleaning her shoes.
Faye, a delicate force of enigmatic magnetism, serves food in her cousin's deli and immediately forms a crush on Officer 633. Officer 633 has been dating a flight attendant and receives a letter from her at the eatery, ending up in the hands of Faye. In efforts to deliver him the letter, she obtains the address of his flat.
Each day, as he polices the streets, she cleans his apartment while blasting The Mamas and The Papas and bringing him goldfish. She forms an infatuation with him, without his knowledge, and when he arrives home each night, not realizing the life that inhabits his apartment each afternoon, he meanders about his apartment, lonely, talking to towels and soap.
Chungking Express is an innovative film, a truly modern exercise of straightforward storytelling with whimsical composition techniques. Full of beautifully aesthetic shots of sparkling compact disks and glittering aquariums, canted angles and shots through rainy windows, this film is a free spirit of technicality. Even as the film spends time in contemplation, or in scenes of banality that somehow represent all that matters in life, it feels as quick as it was shot. Woozy cameras that move as if they're on the sea, and cuts within the same setup make the film feel printed with the fingertip of a master artist that has somehow retained a zest for life, an efficiency of work and a passion for all that is new. Here, it feels as if Kar-Wai's improvisations are earnest; glimpses of positivity and graceful eccentricity in a world otherwise cynical and boring.
Everything within the frame of this film seems so gracefully immaculate its hard to view it and not feel automatically nostalgic for the world it represents. Its difficult to view it without fondness of heart, without experiencing sincere emotion for the plight of these characters, regardless of how trivial their longing would otherwise seem. A fun, cute, and fresh film, its humor and exuberance are beautifully contrasted to a charming melancholy, to the solemnly bittersweet, making for a glorious movie of true heart. Infused with cultural icons and references, teeming with modernity and breathy energy, Chungking Express is a successfully artful attempt at harnessing the complexities of everyday life, and a completely straightforward film that is somehow endlessly aesthetic.
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Summary: QUENTIN TARANTINO ! ! !
Review: How dare Quentin Tarantino put his own name and face larger than the title of the movie ! ! ! even worse - Wong Kar Wai's name is written so small you need a maginfying glass to read it ! ! ! That says it all ! I re-bought the movie in Britian where there is respect for the artist himself and a decent cover. minus Tarantino !
Tanantino spoils the sensitivity of a true genious director. His interview is shocking !
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Summary: You're not daydreaming. You're sleepwalking.
Review: Like a sweet dream half-remembered, "Chungking Express" wavers on the back of your consciousness, seducing you into its semi-fantasy/semi-honest world of the chance of romance, and the necessity of proximity (0.01 of a centimeter is the distance of attraction) to filling an empty heart. It is appropriate that "California Dreaming" is the background for much of the film, because dreaming is what the characters do, moving sluggishly through a life not quite real.
It is difficult to know what to make of the film at first. There are two stories, interspersed with each other in through the film, both love stories involving policemen, a deli shop, and women whom they would love. Unlike "Pulp Fiction," they do not meet up at the end, and the strangers remain strangers. There is no neat package. Rather, like Banana Yoshimoto's novels, they are linked thematically, with the same tale being told with different cast members, to see how each person finds their own ending, regardless of the beginning. While Yoshimoto is Japanese, and Kar Wai is Chinese, there is a similarity in Asian story-telling evident in "Chungking Express."
As to this DVD, while it is great to see Quentin Tarantino bring Kar Wai's films to a wider audience, I find his commentary a bit annoying and self-serving. Taratino makes some great flicks, and Kar Wai is an obvious influence on him, but he doesn't have the personality to comment on something so sweet and subtle as "Chungking Express." This is just a personal observation, however, and others may disagree.
Director Kar Wai Wong is a rising star of cinema, seeping to the public consciousness slowly and surely, becoming less of a "Hong Kong Director" and more of an important contributor to modern film. "Chungking Express" is a fine introduction to his work, showcasing his subtle love stories, use of atmosphere and disorientating techniques, such as multiple-languages and film manipulation. Anyone who has seen "Lost in Translation," "Amelie" or "Kill Bill" will find his films familiar.
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Summary: Two Tales: Love, Death and Desire in Kowloon
Review: Located in the heart of mainland Hong Kong, the Chungking Mansions loom huge and ramshackle over Nathan Road. Wags and scoundrels haunt its gates, along with a ragged assortment of Indian touts, whores and long-term transient workers from Africa. Restaurants, tailors, psychics and a whole host of other occupations - some undoubtably illegal - infest the bottom floors in tiny, grimy compartments. Chungking is also the backpacker ghetto of Kowloon: guesthouses offer rooms as cheap as $10 a night, and the loose, chaotic atmosphere is appealing to the more adventurous traveler. When I visited Hong Kong for a week in 2002, there was no other realistic option, for finance concerns and the `lust for life' drive, than the infamous Chungking: intrigue seemed to lurk around every corner. While staying there, my guesthouse manager suggested I rent and watch the *Chungking Express*, a 1994 film by Won Kar Wai, loosely connected around the building. I never got around to it...until three years later...and in a way I'm glad I waited to watch this delicious romp about love, obsession and betrayal, for it sparked the nostalgia cylinders and left me in that awed, giddy state that only the best of films can do.
Made on the quick by Won Kar Wai as a means of rejuvenating his creative energy, *Chungking Mansions* originally consisted of three interlocking stories, but one met the axe (to resurface as its own film) to give proper attention (i.e. running time) to those that remained. Of the two stories, only the first has any relation with the Chungking Mansions: a hard-luck dame scours the sleazy corridors for drug-mules, and I must say that the general ambience of the Mansions is faithfully captured. The second story occurs in Kowloon and on the Island, and is connected to the first by one chance encounter (~a brilliant means of transitioning chapters) and the underlying themes of loneliness, disconnection and desire.
In the first tale, undercover cop He Zhiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) broods over the disintegration of his relationship with `May,' pining for his lost love with a rather unrealistic `period of absence' scheme and, after a time, seeking comfort from any chance encounter. "I'll fall in love with the next woman I see," Zhiwu vows in a fit of desperation; and who should come along but Brigette Lin, a mysterious figure whom we've already seen in dire straights in the bowels of Chungking. This story has the visual glamour of noir - red-lit bars, blur-motion fragments of violence, a femme fatale betrayed and subsequently `saved' by the gentleman Zhiwu - yet the dialoge really makes it stand above more typical entries into the genre, especially Zhiwu's internal narration, which ranges from clueless to insightful to downright hilarious. Slight but charming, with enough visceral action and mystery to keep the pace from flagging.
The second story is by far my favorite of the two, and most audiences agree on this, taking into consideration critical acclaim and the reviews on this page; it is easy to see why. A cop (Tony Leung) stops at the same deli every day for his coffee and chef salad, where he meets and slowly develops a relationship with Faye (Faye Wong), a not-quite-sane nymphet who promptly falls in love with him. Acquiring a key to his apartment, Faye begins to sneak in and rearrange her secret love's living quarters while he is gone. Leave it to the Chinese to make stalker-obsession cute and poignant! Yet it works, due in large part to the natural sounding and psychologically keen dialogue of the script, and therein made effective by the acting of the two leads. Faye Wong, perhaps the biggest pop/rock star in China, makes her screen debut here, and what a debut! It is practically impossible to not fall a little in love with her furtive, wild-at-heart character. Wong articulates more with a mere look or throwaway gesture about the titanic struggle of repressed desire than most professional actors seem capable of. Tony Leung, a veteran of Hong Kong's silver screen, shines as usual as the lonesome, half-oblivious cop, and his energy with Wong feels right, so natural. This is very important in the later climax of the film, when the director stretches the tension to a breaking point and even manages to milk some well-earned trauma from these circling, faraway (so close) lonely souls.
Watching *Chungking Express* brought back a lot of memories. In the background and seeping through the surface, Hong Kong glitters and roars, and the film itself eventually feels like an organic growth of the city, in tune to its rhythms and real-life atmosphere. But one not need be acquainted with the City of the Nine Dragons to appreciate the quality of *Chungking Express* - this is movie magic in its finest form, infectious and reflective, a paramount example of Asian cinema at its most illuminating. Five stars.
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Summary: My Favorite Movie of All Time
Review: watch this movie and then go burn yourself a cd with "california dreaming" by the mammas and pappas and "dreams" by the cranberries, and go on a road trip to somewhere you've never been before...
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Summary: not the "Madonna of Mandarin"
Review: Great film, but I believe "somebody nobody" is incorrect to call Faye Wong the "Madonna of Mandarin". Perhaps he confuses Faye with the late Anita Mui? Though Anita was primarily a Cantonese singer, not a Mandarin one, she - at least - had been occasionally compared to Madonna, given her wild onstage fashions and manner. Faye Wong, on the other hand, shares nothing with Madonna that I recognize. Instead, she has frequently been compared to Bjork and that gal from The Cranberry's (both of whom Faye has covered), though I think these comparisons pretty much begin and end with the covers (especially in Bjork's case).
Otherwise, "somebody nobody"'s review is on target. The only thing I can add is... if you don't absolutely LOVE the song California Dreamin' (as I do), then - as wonderful as this film is - you are not likely to enjoy it, given that this song is repeated over and over and over again!
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Summary: Too confusing...
Review: I have no idea how this movie could have been shown in the first place. The language switches from Mandarin to Cantonese to English and sometimes Japanese. The first story made absolutely no sense, while the second story was slightly more interesting but downright weird.
Both stories seem to have been filmed with a handheld camera making the shots very shakey. Also, both stories seem centered on repeating a single song for a character. Also, the timelines shift so suddenly back and forth that it's hard for anyone to follow.
Some people may like this movie, but it made no sense to me.
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Summary: Love and obsession....
Review: This movie brings together a great cast, including the legendary Brigitte Lin, and the indelible Faye Wong. Loosely speaking, Chungking Express is the unraveling of two not-so-separate stories about love and obsession. The connection between the two stories is like a subtle undercurrent. At more than one point we see the characters of the two stories cross path, much like anyone of us cross paths with hundreds of unknown faces everyday. They are unaware of each other...why should they?The film explores the nuanced boudaries of love and obsession, of fantasy and reality. The characters are cops, a drug dealer, and a fast food clerk. Their lives occur against the backdrop of the urban jungle that is modern day Hong Kong, where escalators are built so close to apartment buildings that when you look out your second floor apartment, you see shadows of strangers riding up and down your neighborhood. In this postmodern and unreal landscape plays out the primal desires of love and obsession where hope, disappointment, rationality, irrationality, reality, and fantasy plays tricks on our minds. All this is well put together in a tantalizing and sexy film. (spoiler alert) It pits one conventional love story ending with one not so conventional. I've watched this film numerous times, and every time I come away with a reminder of how my desires is a delicate balance between sense and non-sense. Check this film out!
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