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Topic | The SephG Top 250 [movies] - Topic II: the top 75 |
Nelson_Mandela 07/14/19 8:30:58 PM #249: | #8. Chungking Express https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c0/Chungking_Express.jpg Dir: Wong Kar-wai Genre: Drama, Romance Year: 1994 SephG Superlative: The greatest Hong Kong/Chinese movie ever; the greatest Asian movie ever; the greatest non-English speaking movie ever Chungking Express is the most recent film in the top tier for my own personal viewing, having watched it about two (?) years ago on Filmstruck (RIP). Needless to say that I immediately shelled out like a hundred bucks for the Criterion release on DVD because I needed to ensure that I could watch it over and over. And I am glad I did. There are two parts to Chungking Express that each work to make this movie special in their own unique way. The first part is flashy, fast, film noir that evolves into a peculiar "love" story of sorts. If you were like me, knowing little about the film before viewing it, you'd assume that Chungking Express was a crime drama. But in the loveliest WKW fashion, this is merely an entree into his favorite kind of character--tired, lost, lovelorn people living out their loneliness in the densest city on the planet. My favorite aspect of the first story is Takeshi Kaneshiro's sullen police officer, whose melodramatic monologues are equally funny and poetic. Pay attention to every single word in this part--the call-backs and repetition in language (and its delivery) are almost Nabokovian in their brilliance. The second part seems to be what everyone remembers about this movie. "California Dreamin.'" The Cantonese version of "Dreams." Brigitte Lin essentially inventing the hipster girl look 15 years before Brooklyn cemented it into our culture. It's been a long time since anything has made me as happy as the latter half of Chungking Express. It's incredibly charming without succumbing to any of the annoying rom-com tropes that never cease to bother me. It's spectacularly fulfilling without coming off too neat. It's Wong Kar-wai and 90s cinema at their finest, and required viewing for anyone who likes a good romance. Worth the $100 and more. --- "A more mature answer than I expected."~ Jakyl25 "Sephy's point is right."~ Inviso ... Copied to Clipboard! |
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