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(More customer reviews)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.
Click Here to see more reviews about: Chungking Express (The Criterion Collection) (1994)
The whiplash, double-pronged Chungking Express is one of the defining works of nineties cinema and the film that made Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-wai an instant icon. Two heartsick Hong Kong cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung), both jilted by ex-lovers, cross paths at the Midnight Express take-out restaurant stand, where the ethereal pixie waitress Faye (Faye Wong) works. Anything goes in Wong s gloriously shot and utterly unexpected charmer, which cemented the sex appeal of its gorgeous stars and forever turned canned pineapple and the Mamas and the Papas California Dreamin into tokens of romantic longing.SPECIAL EDITION FEATURES: New, restored high-definition digital transfer DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 Audio commentary by noted Asian cinema critic Tony Rayns U.S. theatrical trailer New and improved English subtitle translation PLUS: A booklet featuring a new essay by critic Amy Taubin and excerpts from a 1996 Sight and Sound interview with Wong by Rayns More!
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