Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!: Chungking Express/重慶森林 (1994) - Kar-Wai's urban love drama is a visual treat

12/13/2014

Chungking Express/重慶森林 (1994) - Kar-Wai's urban love drama is a visual treat

♥♥♥♥

+ Best Hong Kong Movie of the Year

A beautiful, evocative poster for Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express

QUICK REVIEW:

In the big city, people live very close to each other, but carry on their lives very far apart as well: A restless cop loses his girlfriend and seeks solace with a drug smuggler donning a blond wig. Another cop loses his flight attendant girlfriend and begins seeing a girl at the snack bar, where he picks up his boss's daily salad.

The plot arc is unusual in Express, which tells one story and then another. The film drifts forward in much the same aimless, intimacy-seeking pace that its lead characters live their lives in. Their in some ways transparent lives break through in melancholic grandeur in the film's most evocative images (by cinematographers Wai-keung Lau (Infernal Affairs/Mou Gaan Dou (2002)) and Christopher Doyle (Hero/Ying Xiong (2002))), in the rainy night or the ones where time seems to stand still.
Tony Chiu Wai Leung (In the Mood for Love/Fa Yeung Nin Wa (2000)) gives a tender performance, and Express is visually strong and beautiful. It does, I think, overuse two of its gimmicks a bit: SPOILER The use of the song California Dreamin' by The Mamas and the Papas and Leung's characters 'dialog' with objects.
The film is directed by great Chinese filmmaker Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood for Love), who wrote and made the film as a creatively freer exercise during his making of the big sword adventure Ashes of Time/Dung Che Sai Duk (1994)). He is busy at the moment with pre-production on his next film, The Ferryman (2015), which will star both male leads from Express.

Takeshi Kaneshiro and Brigitte Lin in Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express

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William Friedkin has died

Born in Chicago, Friedkin accrued TV credits prior to his advance to the big screen as the director of Good TImes (1967), The Birthday Party (1968), The Night They Raided Minsky's (1968) and The Boys in the Band (1970) before his major breakthrough, The French Connection (1971), for which he won his only Oscar. He followed it up with the even bigger smash, The Exorcist (1973), arguably the best horror film of all time, for which he was Oscar-nominated. Later credits include Sorcerer (1977), Cruising (1980), To Live and Die in L.A. (1985), Rampage (1987), Rules of Engagement (2000), Killer Joe (2011) and The Devil and Father Amorth (2017, documentary). Friedkin passed away at age 87. R.I.P.

Louise Fletcher has passed away

Born in Alabama to deaf parents, Fletcher got her first credits in late-1950s TV-series.She took a 10 year-long sabbatical to devote her time to motherhood after the release of A Gathering of Eagles, but then came back and soon saw her career's most important part, as Nurse Ratched in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1975), for which she won her sole Oscar. Later credits include Exorcist II: The Heretic (1977), The Lucky Star (1980), Brainstorm (1983), Two Moon Junction (1988), Cruel Intentions (1999), A Perfect Man (2013) and many more. Fletcher passed away at age 88. R.I.P.

Jean-Luc Godard has passed away

Born in Paris, France, Godard lived much of his life in Switzerland. He wrote for French film criticism magazine Cahiers du Cinema and became foundational for the New French Wave that inspired new waves in scores of other countries across the world with his Breathless (1960). Later credits include A Woman Is A Woman (1961), Vivre Sa Vie (1962), Le Petit Soldat (1962), Contempt (1963), Alphaville (1965), Pierrot le Fou (1965), 2 or 3 Things I Know About Her (1967), Weekend (1967), Every Man for Himself (1980), King Lear (1987), Century of Cinema (1995, documentary), Goodbye to Language (2014) and many more. Godard died of assisted suicide at age 91. R.I.P.

Wolfgang Petersen has died

James Caan has died

Caan was born the son of Jewish immigrants from Germany in New York. He got his start on TV in the early 1960s. His credits include El Dorado (1966), The Rain People (1969), Brian's Song (1971, TV movie), The Godfather (1972), - for which he earned his only Oscar nomination, - Slither (1973), The Gambler (1974), Funny Lady (1975), Rollerball (1975), Silent Movie (1976), Hide in Plain Sight (1980), - the only film he also directed, - Thief (1981), Misery (1990), Honeymoon in Vegas (1992), Bottle Rocket (1996), Eraser (1996), Dogville (2003), Elf (2003), Las Vegas (2003-07), Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs (2009) and many more. Caan passed away at age 82. R.I.P.

Jean-Louis Trintignant has died

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Ray Liotta has died

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Philip Baker Hall has died

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William Hurt has passed away

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Ivan Reitman has passed away

Born in Chechoslovakia, now Slovakia, Reitman's family fled the Soviet regime to Austria, then Toronto, when he was 4 years old. Reitman broke into movies as a director with Foxy Lady (1971). Later credits include Cannibal Girls (1973), Meatballs (1979), Stripes (1981), Ghostbusters (1984), Twins (1988), Ghostbusters II (1989), Kindergarten Cop (1990), Junior (1994), Father's Day (1997), Evolution (1998), No Strings Attached (2011), Draft Day (2014) and more. Reitman's son Jason Reitman is also a great filmmaker. Reitman passed away at age 75. R.I.P.

Film Excess - Free Ukraine - Stop Putin - End the war NOW!!

Eagerly anticipating this week ... (6-24)

12/13/2014

Chungking Express/重慶森林 (1994) - Kar-Wai's urban love drama is a visual treat

1994 in films and TV-series - according to Film Excess

Watch the not very good US trailer for the film here

Cost: Unknown

Box office: 0.6 mil. $ (US), 7.6 mil. HK$

= Uncertainty

What do you think of Chungking Express?

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