Chungking Express is a film that was nearly lost until Quentin Tarantino and his Rolling Thunder productions company brought it to the attention of the American mainstream...but seriously, he shouldn't have bothered. Wong Kar-Wai's film is an aesthetic treat - it looks nice, sounds nice, I dare say it would even smell nice if it had a scent - but plainly and simply, Chungking Express lacks substance and it's 2D characters and muddled (not to mention slow) plotting with only leave you cold by the time the final credits (finally) role. The colour scheme and way that the camera moves is bound to please fans of the technical side of cinema - and it is for those reasons why I hesitate to put this down as a bad film, it's just the story side that lets it down. The film follows two separate stories, both about heartbroken policemen. They've both lost their loves and found new ones, and the film follows them through their tribulations. This wouldn't be so bad, if Wong Kar-Wai gave you any reason at all to care for them. The characters shown in this film have been given two of the most wooden profiles ever to befall a film character and although it's obvious which side of the film is most important to Kar-Wai; at the end of the day, if a film like this fails to impact you on an emotional level - it has failed.
I thought that there would be some sort of limit for how many times a song could be played in a movie, but Wong Kar-Wai obviously disagrees with that notion. The first time that The Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreaming" lit up the screen, I was pleased. It's a very nice song...but after the twentieth time of hearing it, I thought that a change of track was due. The film only has three popular tracks in it, and all of them are overplayed. I've never liked Daniah Washinton's "What a Difference a Day Makes", so hearing that didn't float my boat...but a Cantonese version of The Cranberries "Dreams" was a nice inclusion - but again, it's overplayed. That's the thing about this film, what it really lacks is ideas. We see characters talking to inanimate objects and dancing to California Dreaming and then, instead of seeing something else - we see the same thing again and again and again and it all gets very tiresome. Basically, this film is rated highly for two reasons: Quentin Tarantino has a lot of fans (even though this movie has nothing to do with him really) and the fact that everything from Asia is at the height of fashion right now. This film is worth seeing if you like to see well photographed movies with nice camera-work; but it's an ultimately shallow experience, and people that like their movies with a bit of meat on them will be thoroughly disappointed.
I thought that there would be some sort of limit for how many times a song could be played in a movie, but Wong Kar-Wai obviously disagrees with that notion. The first time that The Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreaming" lit up the screen, I was pleased. It's a very nice song...but after the twentieth time of hearing it, I thought that a change of track was due. The film only has three popular tracks in it, and all of them are overplayed. I've never liked Daniah Washinton's "What a Difference a Day Makes", so hearing that didn't float my boat...but a Cantonese version of The Cranberries "Dreams" was a nice inclusion - but again, it's overplayed. That's the thing about this film, what it really lacks is ideas. We see characters talking to inanimate objects and dancing to California Dreaming and then, instead of seeing something else - we see the same thing again and again and again and it all gets very tiresome. Basically, this film is rated highly for two reasons: Quentin Tarantino has a lot of fans (even though this movie has nothing to do with him really) and the fact that everything from Asia is at the height of fashion right now. This film is worth seeing if you like to see well photographed movies with nice camera-work; but it's an ultimately shallow experience, and people that like their movies with a bit of meat on them will be thoroughly disappointed.