Volume 2, Number 3 -- March, 1997
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Volume 2, Number 3 -- March, 1997 |
Wong Kar-Wai's "Chungking Express" is a trip worth takingby Tony Han
With the Academy Awards right around the corner, I felt the teasing
allure to jump on the bandwagon and make my predictions for the major
categories. But I would digress. There's almost no reason for such
an endeavor. Since I mostly agree with the nominations already, I
feel no reason to pit my opinion of cinema and its charms against
that of the Oscar committee. Besides, my only interest is in Best
Picture, which will go to The English Patient
[see review]. And,
in the Best Actor category, if Geoffrey Rush does get Best Actor
for his part in "Shine", then it supports the theory that Best
Actor/Actress will more likely go the person who portrayed a
mentally or physically handicapped character. Beyond this, the
rest of the awards don't interest me. However, will I be planted
in front of the television for this event? Perhaps after an
incapacitating amount of drinking. But, I digress...
Let us leave the theaters for this review and pop in a video for a
quiet evening. What brand and vintage of video would I recommend?
Skipping the video releases of the blockbuster monstrosities, I'd
like to introduce you to Wong Kar-Wai's "Chungking Express". Released
domestically by Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder Pictures, I found
the film surprisingly charming (surprising because, though I enjoy
what he's written, I don't think I agree with all of his choice of
films). "Chungking Express" does not follow the typical vein of Hong
Kong films that have recently become popular in the US; the
hyper-action flicks that use more bullets than World War II. Rather,
it's a quirky, existential, romantic film with dialogue, though
subtitled, that harkens back to films in the forties and the fifties
-- sweet and idealistic.
STATE TO BE IN WHEN VIEWING THIS FILM: Definitely sober, preferably
with a date. It's not a movie to watch after a rowdy night on the town.
Though there are action sequences in the film (just a few), these
scenes are not shot with a violent intent so much as it tries to
capture the chaotic atmosphere of it's setting, Hong Kong. The movie
is actually two short stories connect by chance meetings of the main
characters, both about the pursuit of love by two police officers. For
what it's worth in the States, some of the most popular Hong Kong
actors/actresses/entertainers are in this film: Briggitte Lin,
Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tony Leung, and Faye Wang. Lin and Kaneshiro
take the first skit, Lin playing a drug smuggler on the lamb and
Kaeshiro the cop who, after getting dumped, bumbles into her and
falls in love with her. In the second verse, Faye Wang is a cafe
girl who falls in love with and raids the life of Tony Leung, a cop
(yes, he was recently dumped, too) whose oblivious to her invasion
and spends most of his time talking to inanimate objects.
While most of the other Hong Kong films being released in the US
spend most of its time being 'unrealistic' and archaically sentimental,
Wong Kar-Wai's "Chungking Express" is modern and classically romantic
(or as close as a Hong Kong film can get). He uses an accelerated,
choppy editing technique to 'speed' past the action sequences which
are important, but secondary to the focus. The same technique is used
in the film to portray two scenes in which Tony Leung is waiting...
and waiting. Faye Wang, the cafe girl in the second skit, covers a
Cranberries' song beautifully to the point where you're more surprised
that the lyrics are in a different language. Regarding more information
about this film, Tarantino give more commentary at the beginning and
the end of the video (some interesting, other's condescending), which
I will not retrace.
It's easy, after viewing the barrage of Hong Kong mobster flicks that
are circulating about, to assume that the Chinese couldn't write a
decent script if it was given to them. Their expertise is in violence.
The characters are typically flat and predictable; the dialogue cheesy
and/or moronic; the theme's and story lines variants of masculine
bonding and cops-and-robbers. Wong Kar-Wai seems to have taken all of
these rudimentary facts of Hong Kong films and went the other way.
Though some may disagree, I think that much of the dialogue of the
male characters (which is mostly what the film revolves around), are
universal in it's clumsy, romantic idiosyncrasies and general male
idiocies. Kaneshiro's character, after being dumped on April Fool's,
considers the whole thing a joke, so buys a can of pineapple (his
girlfriend's favorite fruit) a day, each to expire on May 1st. On
the deadline date, when his girlfriend does not come running back
to him (duh), he's left with 30 cans of pineapple and only his dog
to share them with. This moronic, yet romantic notion is typical of
being a guy (at least the one's that I know) and we're all desperate
to escape these characteristics.
 
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