Watching Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express for the first time is like sitting in front of someone you've just met and gracefully falling in love...
There is no need for me to introduce you Kar-wai, Hong-Kong's 'auter of time' whose slow-paced and highly stylised films about love, loss and memories are something of a cult all over the world.
This is Wong's third and the most liberating film that he has made so far. After his first two critically acclaimed features As Tears Go By and Days Of Being Wild he started making a martial arts (wuxia) epic Ashes Of Time, but the process was going very slowly for various reasons, mainly because of Wong's pedantic attention to the details and pressures of working on a big scale production.

Apparently, Chungking Express was shot in less than two months during a break that the director took from the editing of Ashes Of Time in 1994. Wong famously compared the making of Chungking Express to the way post-graduated film students make their first film, mainly relying on natural light and documentary circumstances; he even stated that they didn't have permissions to film in most of the locations because they simply had no time to apply. And this sudden return to youth injected the film with raw energy that is reminiscent to the New Wave French films of the 1950's, particularly in terms of its experimental cinematic techniques and the narrative structure.
The film is divided in two unconnected Haruki Murakami-like stories, both involving broken-hearted policemen (Takeshi Koneshiro and Tony Leung) and a beautiful women (Brigitte Lin and Faye Wong) who they meet by accident and kind of fall in love with.

First part has a certain noir feel to it, especially because of Lin's character, who is playing a drug-smuggler and looks like an icon from the 70's in her blond wig and dark shades. She actually was one of the most famous actresses in China back in the day and after filming Chungking Express she retired from acting. Young Faye Wong, on the other hand, was a very popular singer in the early 90's having just started her acting career. But it was Faye who stole the show with her mesmerising portrayal of a dreamy nymphet who falls for Tony Leung's character.

However, it is not the story, which is rather simple, or the acting, which is rather good – it's the style in which this movie is executed that makes it a cut above the rest of Hong-Kong film export. Chris Doyle proved once again that he is one of the top cinematographers in the world by creating near-perfect frames for pretty much every single shot. Plus, a trademark use of bright colours and in-camera effects (particularly the ones involving shutter speed) carefully blended together with a beautiful production design by William Chang are working so well that you can almost smell the infamous Chef's Salad from the fast-food outlet Midnight Express, where Faye's character worked behind the counter and where both policemen used to hang out after their shifts.
And of course, the music... I don't think I would ever be able to listen to California Dreaming without thinking of that Faye Wong's cute little dance!

Magical...

9/10

Title: Chungking Express (重慶森林)
Certificate: 15
Writer/Director: Wong Kar-wai
Cast: Takeshi Koneshiro, Brigitte Lin, Tony Leung, Faye Wong)