Chungking Express (1994)

1994: work on Ashes of Time was extremely demanding, kind of never-ending doing and re-doing of scenes, on the verge of breakdown. A two-months hiatus appeared (they had to wait for some new equipment) and Wong Kar-Wai suddenly decided to make quickly a totally different movie, just to follow his instincts (as he would later say in an interview). No screenplay, dialogs and situations were decided each day on the spot. The result was one of the most important movies of our time: Chung Hing Sam Lam (Chungking Express), so innovative in the use of camera and soundtrack that it leaves you speechless. Cinematographer Chris Doyle simply revolutionized here the art of filming. The name of Jean-Luc Godard is always reminded when people talk about Chungking Express; I would say that this movie is as innovative as only Man with a Camera was.

Is it possible for a cop to get in love? Of course it is, and when the cop is young it is even nice. Well, the movie comprises two unrelated stories, with young cops in love. Undercover cop 223 was left by his girlfriend, and he falls for a mysterious woman with a blond wig. It happens that she is a drug smuggler. Does it matter? As for the second half of the film, uniformed cop 633 was left by his girlfriend and now a girl working at Midnight Express falls for him. As I am a nice guy, I wouldn't deconspire more of the plot.

Lan Kwai Fong

The title comes from the name of two places in Hong Kong: Midnight Express is a fast-food in Lan Kwai Fong (kind of Hong Kong version of SoHo); Chungking Mansions (where most of the first half of the movie takes place) is a mall-cum-flophouse, noisy, dingy, down-market place incredibly located right in the midst of Tsim Sha Tsui, a very chic Hong Kong area. I hadn't (yet?) the opportunity to be there. but I was once at Chelsea Market in Manhattan and I thought immediately at the movie of Wong Kar-Wai.

Chungking Mansions

Don't look for a logic in this movie, because any logic would be fake; Wong doesn't try to arrange the moments in some succession, because each moment exists on its own, carries its own truth and doesn't care about the rest. Instead of a synthesis the movie offers non-related glimpses; instead of an ultimate truth it offers contradictory slices of truth. It's not life as we think it should be: it's life as it is.

It's soaked in neon lights. It's fun, it's noisy, it's fast. And, above all, it's filled with incredible, hypnotic poetry.

The right word for this movie would be mesmerizing. Enjoy!

(Wong Kar-Way & Chris Doyle)

(Michael Galasso)