#The chungking express movie#
#The chungking express portable#

Both Faye Wong and Tony Leung make brief appearances in the first story, the former memorably walking out of a shop with a gigantic stuffed Garfield the Cat. The divide between the filmвЂ™s two narratives seems abrupt at first, but it has been suggested that the stories take place at the same time. But the story of Cop 663, reportedly helmed by WongвЂ™s regular cameraman Christopher Doyle, is more fluid, following its characters more gently. The story of Cop 233 and the cans of pineapple, reportedly handled by cinematographer Andy Lau, is shot at the breakneck, grainy pace of a crime thriller with the camera weaving in and out of spaces almost instinctually, as if involved in a dance with the filmвЂ™s actors just to get out of their way. ItвЂ™s a poetic encapsulation of romance, and itвЂ™s also something of the filmвЂ™s mission statement: if you could focus on two people in the middle of the passing crowd, what beauty would you see? In one of the filmвЂ™s most striking shots, the camera holds on a long shot of Faye at one end of the counter, yearning for 663 on the other end crowds pass before them in a blur, but they remain still as if in a living tableau. She wipes down a glass partition as Leung is on the other side, as if sheвЂ™s caressing an image on the television.

#The chungking express portable#

On a hot night at the shop, Faye turns a portable fan on her face as 663 walks away from the counter, as if luring him in with her scent.

#The chungking express movie#

The movie is filled with small gestures that immerse us in a cinematic world filled not just with sound and vision, but smell. But this lovelorn law enforcer has another choice in the form of new snack bar worker Faye (Faye Wong), whoвЂ™s obsessed with the Mamas & the Papas hit вЂњCalifornia DreamingвЂќ and falls for the uniformed regular. Unfortunately, after the cop brings her fish and chips, the choice in food makes her realize she has a choice in men, and she leaves him.

He orders a chef salad for his girlfriend every day, but the shop owner suggests he get her something different. In the filmвЂ™s second and more appealing narrative, a uniformed officer we know only as Cop 663 (Tony Leung) places an order at a fast food counter we see in the first story. In the middle of this perishable consumer countdown, he falls for a mysterious woman in a blonde wig (Brigitte Lin), who happens to be a drug smuggler. He contrives an unusual test to determine when to let go: for 30 days, he goes to his neighborhood Circle K and buys a can of pineapple that expires on May 1, 1994. In the first story, Cop 233 (Takeshi Kaneshiro) is an undercover officer whoвЂ™s not ready to admit that his relationship with May, whom we never see, is over.

In this microcosm of Hong Kong, set three years before the handover to China, two thwarted love stories transpire.

These are the kinds of place where thousands of strangers pass by every day, most of them never to encounter each other. The setting is thousands of miles away from the shores where American moviegoers first discovered it, but it seems perfectly familiar. But the movie he made during a two-month break from editing that failed genre exercise communicated his artistry with an almost instinctual glee that transcended language.Д¬hungking Express revealed an ephemeral magic in the most mundane of big city locations: a Hong Kong fast-food counter. In a 1995 interview, director Wong Kar-wai said to Cahiers du CinГ©ma, вЂњThereвЂ™s one thing that doesnвЂ™t ever change, and thatвЂ™s the desire people have to communicate with others.вЂќ WongвЂ™s films donвЂ™t always communicate effectively his 1994 wuxia film Ashes of Time confuses even the directorвЂ™s fans.