Audience Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested) Binding: DVD EAN: 5022366200264 Format: PAL Number Of Discs: 1 Region Code: 2 Theatrical Release Date: 1996-03-08
Chungking Express tells two stories loosely connected by a Hong Kong snack bar. In one story, a cop who's been recently dumped by his girlfriend becomes obsessed with the expiration dates on cans of pineapple; he's constantly distracted as he tries to track down a drug dealer in a blond wig (played by Brigitte Lin, best known from Swordsman II and The Bride with White Hair). Meanwhile, another cop who's recently been dumped by his girlfriend (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, from John Woo's Hard-Boiled and A Bullet in the Head) mopes around his apartment, talking to his sponge and other domestic objects. He catches the eye of a shop girl (Hong Kong pop star Faye Wang) who secretly breaks in and cleans his apartment. If you're beginning to suspect that neither of these stories has a conventional plot, you're correct. What Chungking Express does have is loads of energy and a gorgeous visual style that never gets in the way of engaging with the charming characters. The movie was shot on the fly by hip director Wong Kar-Wai (Happy Together, Ashes of Time), using only available lighting and found locations. The movie's loose, improvisational feel is closer to Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless than any recent film--and that's high praise. Quirky, funny, and extremely engaging, Chungking Express manages to be experimental and completely accessible at the same time. --Bret Fetzer
Spotlight customer reviews:
Customer Rating: Summary: Like the film, but can't stand this release... Comment: As much as I could like a Tarantino film, his presence was too prominent on this DVD, and it didn't have to...
I like the film very much, and though I've seen a release with better subtitles, I could've given this release a 4/5 stars, if maybe instead of the Tarantino comments, I could've gotten a small video with WKW, or even another video related to the film, but without Tarantino.
This release could be okay, if it dropped on price. Otherwise, wait for another release of the film with less Tarantino in it... Customer Rating: Summary: Left me feeling somewhat distant and disconnected, which is not what I expected... Comment: I really wanted to like `Chung Hing Sam Lam'; really. All of the praise the film has received and all of the adoration fans shell out to director Kar Wai Wong, I just really wanted to like this, especially since my first experience with Wong's work (`My Blueberry Nights') was less than impressive. I don't know if maybe it was a cultural barrier, but I just didn't get it. I mean, I got it, as in I understand the point he was trying to make, but I didn't get the love for the film. I pride myself on being able to indulge in foreign film, in fact some of my favorite films stem from Europe (Germany and Italy for the most part), but I have never really gotten into Asian cinema, and I understand that it is a completely different breed of filmmaking over there so maybe I just need a little more time to grow accustomed to it.
`Chung Hing Sam Lam' is split into two stories, both telling of a police officers loneliness and need of affection.
The first story tells of He Zhiwu (or Cop 223) who has just broken up with his girlfriend May and has decided to give her a month to come back to him. May loved pineapples and so he decides to buy a can of pineapples every day for a month with the expiration date of May 1st and says that if she doesn't come back to him by that date then he will move on. In the meantime he is hot on the tale of a woman in a blonde wig smuggling drugs.
This roughly takes about forty minutes to tell; which is sad because it was by far the most engrossing tale of the two.
The second story tells of cop 663 who has also just ended a relationship and is persuaded by the owner of a snack shop to ask out his new employee (and niece) May (a different May). May is into American music (she listens to the same song over and over and over which serves as a hindrance to ones enjoyment of the film) and soon becomes infatuated with cop 663 (he is never given a name), but 663 is still hung up on his old girlfriend, a flight attendant whom he had a tryst with. May winds up entering 663's apartment when he's not home just to be near him in a way and 663 finds that he is thinking more and more of May.
This section of the film was the weakest link for me. The acting was superior to the first section yet the overall feel and pace of the story was dry and lacked any real connection. Tony Leung is raved as one of Asia's finest actors, and he is (from what I've seen) a very, very good actor; and he is the best part of this film, but the material he's given is rather bland. You'd think that his story would be interesting, but the film moves at such a pace that the emotional conflict between 663 and May came of dulled and vapid.
I just didn't care about anyone in this film, and in order to connect with a film you have to care about the characters.
In the end I have to say that Kar Wai Wong has a nice visual style (that's what makes the first section of the film so engrossing) but his decisions as a director sometimes weight down his films. Both of the films I've seen of his don't seem to be refined or very well thought out. For instance, I mentioned that May listens to the same song over and over, and that song is permanently imbedded into the soundtrack, even when it's just background music, and that comes off as an annoyance. Same with `My Blueberry Nights', which kept the same Norah Jones song on repeat. It is small details like this that can either elevate the feel of a film or drastically lower it.
I'm going to give Wong another chance (three strikes right?), especially since the most raves he's ever received go to his work on `In the Mood for Love' and I have yet to see that movie. If `In the Mood for Love' proves to be worthy of the praise and accolades it's received than I'll look further into the catalog of Wong's filmography, but if it turns out to leave me cold like this one then I think I may need to give up on him altogether. Customer Rating: Summary: Do you like pineapple? Comment: Chungking Express opens on a steamy spring night and despite the late hour the hustle on the streets is endless and voices speaking Cantonese, Hindi, English, and other languages fill the air along with cigarette smoke and fried food. It is amongst this chaotic order that the audience is introduced to Officer 223 He Qiwu who on this night falls in love with a woman sporting a blonde wig and a pair of dark sunglasses who he bumps into on the street. The woman remains a mystery throughout the film, but it becomes soon apparent that she is involved in drug trafficking, and so when the Indians she hired to smuggle the drugs disappear, she finds herself in a precarious spot and a night of gunshots and bloodshed begins. Planning on fleeing Hong Kong the next day, the woman meets the heartbroken He Qiwu, his girlfriend broke up with him on April Fool's Day and he has waited for a month to hear from her with no success, and they spend one night together and thereby solidifying a memory within the being of He Qiwu.
The second story revolves around Officer 663 whose love and chef salads have been spurned by a gorgeous stewardess. Living now in a nicotine and junk food induced haze, Officer 663's social activities seem to be limited to work and visiting a local diner. However, lucky for him, the owner's cute, short-haired cousin Faye, played by the pop singer Faye Wong, falls almost instantly in love with him. However, being too shy to come forward with her feeling, Faye, with a key left at the diner by Officer 663's ex-girlfriend, enters his apartment and spends her time eating his food and exchanging his things for some of her own. How long can such a bizarre closeness keep up, and is Officer 663's clueless nature really as thick as it seems to be?
The above story outline of the film does little justice for the film itself. One does not simply watch a Wong Kar Wai film; one experiences his films with all of one's senses which are titillated because of the visual and aural delights that the film has to offer. One can almost feel the steamy heat, smell the sweat on the stewardess's back as Officer 663 runs the toy plane up her curviness, and taste the lovely foods depicted in the film. Besides making the senses tingle, Chungking Express is a nice love story even if some of the romances in the film last for only a few hours. A good film for those who want to experience Hong Kong cinema without the martial arts, Chungking Express is indeed vital for one's East Asian film library. Customer Rating: Summary: Best romantic comedy ever Comment: I've rated over 1700 movies. Only 49 of them got 5 stars. Chungking Express is the only romantic comedy in that group. If you don't fall in love after watching this flick, you're just creepy, and possibly a Klingon. Customer Rating: Summary: One of the best foreign language romantic comedies ever! Comment: What can you say, Wong Kar Wai is a genius and this is his most light hearted and funniest movie. It may seem a little dated but the characters are classic and the situations in which they meet all seem so plausible minus the whole drug connection thing. Leaves you with a smile long after the movie is over.
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