One of Wong Kar Wai's most experimental features (and this is even for old Wong folks) is one of his earliest efforts, done while in a creative struggle making his epic Ashes of Time. Chungking Express is light and frothy, featuring funny monologues about the importance of pineapple preservation and a charming, aimless usage of Mama and the Papa's California Dreaming. It's about the search for romance in a city that is dark and dingy and full of holes someone could easily fall into. But what makes it so charming, and interesting ultimately in that European art-house way, is how Wong Kar Wai keeps a rhythm to his story that doesn't follow rules, but feels right in a sense like some off-beat song on an obscure album only your hip friend down the block has. I'm not sure who, in the end, I would recommend Chungking Express. Probably film buff friends who enjoy obsessions over pineapple and girls.
There's also a very good performance turned in by actress Brigitte Lin, who before this was a (enormously popular) pop star, and is slightly used as opposed to cast by Kar Wai as a figurehead, like some flashy, self-conscious symbol of a mystery in and of itself (blond wig, going about the crevices of town on some criminal mystery, the music playing in tight but sweet strings). It's also great to see Tony Leung in an early role that allows him some space for some little notes of emotion we haven't seen in future Wong Kar Wai movies where he's the super-serious or melancholy lover. Not that there aren't moments of the melancholy in Chungking Express, but they're presented like it's the most important thing to the characters, and to the audience is, well, just another piece to their puzzle as a whole character. Little by little we see that this isn't much as a crime film in focusing on these two cops and this odd woman in a blond wig. Or even Fayes character. It's a question of what makes up these characters, when romance throws caution into the wind.
I've seen Chungking Express in bits and pieces over the years, and while I will eventually get down and watch it from start to finish, all the pieces together (not to draw any sort of parallel in what I described and how I view the movie) stay fresh in my mind. I love revisiting the gil dancing to her own beat to California Dreaming, as if we're in the room too. I also love how Kar Wai flashes so many techniques into his story, the flashes of colors, the combinations and segues of film speeds and a kind of impressionistic style that puts up noir into a more emotional plane. It's one of the director's best.
There's also a very good performance turned in by actress Brigitte Lin, who before this was a (enormously popular) pop star, and is slightly used as opposed to cast by Kar Wai as a figurehead, like some flashy, self-conscious symbol of a mystery in and of itself (blond wig, going about the crevices of town on some criminal mystery, the music playing in tight but sweet strings). It's also great to see Tony Leung in an early role that allows him some space for some little notes of emotion we haven't seen in future Wong Kar Wai movies where he's the super-serious or melancholy lover. Not that there aren't moments of the melancholy in Chungking Express, but they're presented like it's the most important thing to the characters, and to the audience is, well, just another piece to their puzzle as a whole character. Little by little we see that this isn't much as a crime film in focusing on these two cops and this odd woman in a blond wig. Or even Fayes character. It's a question of what makes up these characters, when romance throws caution into the wind.
I've seen Chungking Express in bits and pieces over the years, and while I will eventually get down and watch it from start to finish, all the pieces together (not to draw any sort of parallel in what I described and how I view the movie) stay fresh in my mind. I love revisiting the gil dancing to her own beat to California Dreaming, as if we're in the room too. I also love how Kar Wai flashes so many techniques into his story, the flashes of colors, the combinations and segues of film speeds and a kind of impressionistic style that puts up noir into a more emotional plane. It's one of the director's best.