CHUNGKING EXPRESS: THE CRITERION COLLECTION - Blu-ray review

Long wrote his portion of the main movie review, and Feng wrote everything else.

The Film According to Chris:
In his third film, Wong Kar Wai not only subverts the gangster genre, but erases it altogether. Guns, drugs, and cops. All the standard action elements are presented front and center in Chungking Express only to be discarded quickly for something completely different.

It's rare to see a film in which the protagonists are policemen, yet their vocation has absolutely nothing to do with the film's story. In the first of the film's two separate but tangentially related stories, Cop 223 (Takeshi Kaneshiro) broods over his girlfriend May who broke up with him on April Fool's Day. In a precious touch akin to a certain annoying tendency in American independent cinema, he goes to the store each day to buy a can of pineapples with the expiration date May 1. May liked pineapples, and May 1 is also his birthday, so if she hasn't called him by then, he'll finally admit that the breakup is no joke. When the deadline finally comes, he's left to gorge on his syrupy sweet citrus stockpile, so sickly that even his faithful dog won't help him eat it.

Existential nausea turns profoundly physical and after 223 chunks up his Dole-clogged guts, he indulges his pity party at a bar where he vows to fall in love with the next woman who walks in. A broken heartbeat later, in wanders a woman in a blonde wig and sunglasses (Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia). We have seen her before passing off drugs to couriers who betray her, and then gunning down the crooks who come after her. When 223 sidles up to the Woman in the Blonde Wig and starts making small talk ("Do you like pineapples?") we know trouble is afoot.

Except there isn't any. 223 takes the drunken woman back to a hotel room where she passes out on the bed. He eats four chef's salads, then leaves to go jogging. The threat hanging over the head of Lin's character never impacts their time together. It simply drops out of the story altogether.

In the second story, Cop 663 (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) also has a taste for chef's salad which he indulges at the Midnight Express cafeteria (where 223 also made a brief appearance). In another slightly-too-precious moment, the Express manager (Piggy Chan Kam-chuen) convinces 663 to try something different for a change, and he leaves with fish and chips. It predicts the rapidly approaching moment when 663's gorgeous stewardess girlfriend dumps him. The manager tries to convince 663 to hook up with his new waitress Faye (the elfin pop singer Faye Wong), but 663 isn't ready to move on yet.

Faye gets hold of 663's keys and spends her expanding lunch hours cleaning and playing in his apartment while he's at work, all without his knowledge of course. Another American indie staple--the quirky free-spirited woman who liberates the uptight man--threatens to rear its ugly head here, but Wong (just barely) avoids letting the film lapse into cloying cutesiness.

This is due in no small part to his unique use of popular music, most notably the repeated use of the Mamas and Papas hit "California Dreamin'". And I stress the word "repeated" here. The song plays in virtually every scene in which Faye appears, sometimes so loud she and 663 can't even hear each other speak. It would seem that the song would quickly become annoying, but somehow it gains in affective power with each use, reinforcing the wistful, melancholy yet playful feel of a film that has moved seamlessly from crime flick to romantic comedy.

Produced in two months on a modest budget, Chungking Express was shot guerilla style through the streets and alleys of Hong Kong. Then-largely-unknown Christopher Doyle, who had previously worked on Wong's sophomore film Days of Being Wild, cemented his reputation as one of the preeminent cinematographers of the ‘90s and ‘00s with his gorgeous treatment of the city, capturing both a realistic and romantic feel and equally effective in its most frenetic moments as in its more serenely composed ones. Doyle has continued to work with Wong as well as with other major directors like Edward Yang, Zhang Yimou, and Gus van Sant.

For such a small film by a relatively unproven director, Chungking is packed with big stars. Both Faye Wong and Takeshi Kaneshiro were well-known pop stars, and Brigitte Lin (in her 40s at the time) and Tony Cheung (Hard Boiled) established actors. The film was a commercial hit in Hong Kong, but failed to find an audience in the U.S. despite, or perhaps because of, its release by Miramax on Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder brand.

Nonetheless, this romantic mood piece was a wake-up call for critics whose idea of Hong Kong cinema left little room for anything that didn't involve a large body count. Wong's status as revered auteur was secured almost overnight, even though, in all honesty, his only subsequent film to match Chungking's level of accomplishment is In the Mood for Love.

A youth film that speaks to all audiences, Chungking Express remains as fresh and fun today as when it was released nearly 15 years ago. Has it really been that long?

The Film According to Eddie:
Although my good friend Chris doesn't usually indulge in excessive plot summary, he did with Chungking Express. To be fair, plot summary is nearly unavoidable with movies that aren't plot-driven. This contradiction arises because character-driven movies are episodic and can't be explained away with just two or three sentences. Character-driven movies have small moments that can add up to something grand, but they also run the risk of being less than the sum of their parts.

I had a nearly opposite reaction to Chris with regards to Chungking Express. Frankly, I hated it. The "precious" touches, such as buying 30 cans of pineapple and having a free-spirited girl invade another person's house, are disgusting.

The movie is actually divided in half, which is something that many reviewers don't seem to explicate (or perhaps understand). When Takeshi Kaneshiro and Brigitte Lin disappear from the movie, their stories aren't mentioned at all during the second half with Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Faye Wong. (The two parts even look different, with the first half mostly taking place at night while the second half takes place mostly during the daytime.) The first half could've been a decent short film (minus the pineapple and stutter-step editing), but the second half is infuriating.

I've decided that Wong Kar-wai is a better disc jockey than he is a director. He really knows how to pick great music to establish moods and themes. Wong should become a music impresario instead of sticking with motion pictures.

Video:
The 1.66:1 1080p image is rather soft and very grainy. This is due to the film's low-budget origins and shooting conditions, of course, but don't expect the pop or sparkle associated with movies from the past five years. Colors are mostly faded and muted, especially during the first half. Tony Leung's police uniform looks great, though (as does Mr. Leung himself). The end credits are filled with vertical and horizontal ghost lines.

Audio:
The DTS-HD MA 5.1 audio track is bright and clear, though even with Wong's excellent music selections, the sonic activity is front-heavy. Bass response is associated with tense music cues (mostly during the first half). Stereo separation is comfortably wide but not especially dynamic. Again, any limitations are understandable given the movie's origins.

Although Cantonese Chinese is the dominant dialect, several languages are spoken. Takeshi Kaneshiro alone speaks Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese Chinese, Japanese, and English. Kaneshiro and Brigitte Lin's voiceovers are done in Mandarin, though they speak Cantonese with other Hong Kongers.

Extras:
First up is an audio commentary by Tony Rayns, who is a wealth of information (as usual).

Next up is an excerpt from a British TV program that has interviews with Wong Kar-wai and Christopher Doyle.

You also get an American theatrical trailer.

--Miscellaneous--
You also get an insert booklet with an essay, chapter listings, and film and DVD production credits.

Criterion opted to use a cardboard DigiPak case with a cardboard slipcover. This is terrible packaging as it's difficult to get the DigiPak in the slipcover, and DigiPak trays are highly prone to damage. My copy arrived with the DigiPak tray already cracked.

Operations:
The disc takes quite a while to load, and the menus are slow and fussy.