Chen Jinquan is excellent as the food counter manager who tries to help the situations of the two cops with their girlfriends while dealing with the usual problems with his restaurant. The film’s cast features brief appearances from Liang Zhen as the second May and Valerie Chow as the cop 663's ex-girlfriend stewardess. Chang's costume design also works with the blond wig that Brigitte Lin wears to the small t-shirts and youthful clothing that Faye Wong wears. Even the apartment of cop 663 (which is really the apartment of Christopher Doyle) is wonderfully decorated to bring the sense of energy. Longtime collaborator William Chang does excellent work in the art direction with Qiu Weiming to capture the look of the slums and counter where it looks like Hong Kong. That sequence is the most breathtaking moment of the film. In the second half, the look is more intimate and vibrant, including one beautiful shot involving candles. In the first half, the camera is mostly hand-held in some of the intense moments with a bit of grainy look to bring a sense of realism. The shades of red, blue, green, and white are wonderful to convey the energy of the Hong Kong slums, especially in the Chungking mansions where it's filled with an array of different cultures. Longtime cinematographer Christopher Doyle along with Andrew Lau Wai-Keung do amazing work in the film's visual presentation with its colorful photography. Overall, it's a wonderful film filled with a lot of heart and spirit. It also has a sense of improvisation where it feels real to the audience. The direction of Kar-Wai is exquisite and vibrant in every scene and frame. Especially in conveying moments of action and emotion through half-speeds and having the camera observing what's going on. In Kar-Wai's direction, the film is done with a lot of style both visually and cinematically. Yet, the theme of loneliness is relevant in both stories where there's a balance in its story. The second half is a far more energetic, innocent love story that has a lot of quirks. The first half of the film is a part crime-drama with a study of character in Ah Wu. More importantly, the film has a unique structure in its story. Originally supposed to be a three-segment story with the third being Fallen Angels, Chung Hing Sam Lam is a film about loneliness and lovesickness in all of its innocence and melancholia. The Belcourt Theatre does not provide advisories about subject matter or potential triggering content, as sensitivities vary from person to person.īeyond the synopses, trailers and review links on our website, other sources of information about content and age-appropriateness for specific films can be found on Common Sense Media, IMDband as well as through general internet searches.While the film does explore the world of loneliness and romance like other Kar-Wai films, the difference between this and latter-day films like In the Mood for Love and 2046 is in its energy and style. No other director since the (distant) heyday of Alain Resnais has been so attuned to the effects of time on memory, sensation and emotion.” - Tony Rayns, BFI “…A supreme visual stylist but also a poet of the kinds of love that tear people apart and just occasionally bring them back together again….
“Ultimately feels more sweet than bitter, defined by a tone of long-shot hopefulness and a sense that maybe it might all work out for those heartbroken young people…as they watch the first acts of their youth draw to a close.” - Keith Phipps, The Dissolve
It also marked a turning point in his work, a shift in direction that is actually signaled within the film, when the desultory underworld revenge narrative fades away and is replaced by a love story as simple as it is delirious.” - Amy Taubin, Criterion CHUNGKING EXPRESS established Wong’s reputation as a major auteur, the most glamorous and enigmatic since Godard. It was supervised and approved by Wong Kar Wai. This 4K digital restoration was undertaken from the 35mm original camera negative by the Criterion Collection in collaboration with L’Immagine Ritrovata and Jet Tone. 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. 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. The whiplash, double-pronged CHUNGKING EXPRESS is one of the defining works of ‘90s cinema and the film that made Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai an instant icon.
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