Chungking Express (Film Review)

1994 Jet Tone Production
Written and Directed by: Wong Kar-wai
Starring: Brigitte Lin Chin-Hsia, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, and Faye Wong
MPAA Rating: NR; Running Time: 102 Minutes
The Nicsperiment Score: 10/10

I think Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express just hypnotized me. The 1994 film centers around four people in a sprawling Hong Kong building complex. Two are male police officers who frequent a food stand in the building, one is a mysterious woman involved in drug smuggling, and the other is a woman working behind the counter at the food stand. The film hits the same locations, the same beats, and plays the same songs over and over again to the point that you're in the damn complex, listening to the constant air conditioner whine over the bubbling of an aquarium filter and food frying. Kar-wai's shots, camera movements, and edits are dizzying, and yet some kind of warm, 90's, indie film blanket.
Kar-wai couples (not exactly romantically) the first policeman (a highly energetic Takeshi Kaneshiro, in the vein of a starry-eyed Joseph Gordon-Levitt from 15 years later) with the drug smuggler (an enigmatic, blong-wig-wearing Brigette Lin), and the second policeman (a gloriously moping Tony Leung) with the woman behind the counter (an enrapturing, sprite-like Faye Wong, who would have surely been one of my junior high crushes if I'd seen this in 1994). He then splits his film in half, filling the entirety of the first half with the former couple, and the entirety of the second half with the latter. The change in perspectives not only feels natural, but necessary. As likable as all four protagonists are, the film is ultimately focused on the even more interesting character of its location.
Kar-wai has achieved two incredible artistic goals here: he's recreated a place from his own history in highly detailed, highly specified clarity, and he's created a a cinematic world the viewer wants to live in, at least as a spectator. I've got nothing negative to say about his Chungking Express, though at the moment, I feel strangely suggestible.

For a more in depth look at the film, check out Filmshake.