Chungking Express

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I really thought I was going to fall asleep on Chungking Express. It was a matter of boredom and spontaneous eeny-meeny-miny-moe-which-arsty-farsty-movie-am-I-pretending-to-watch. But lo and behold, I found myself exclaiming Chungking Express is the bestest movie. EVER.

Okay, not really. I settled with Moulin Rouge about that (just so I can have one consistent answer to give social networking sites on what my favorite movie is). But maybe the whats, wheres, whens, and hows of watching this film lead to an apt, and therefore, perfect watching experience of Chungking Express.

So here it is: watch this before midnight, with the rain tapping outside your window, and your blanket is all cozily wrapped around you. Watching this film is like reading short stories that paint life in the city with such simplicity and poignancy.

Chungking Express is "divided" into two stories on two cops, both involving break-ups. The first one stars Takeshi Kaneshiro and Brigitte Lin. Kaneshiro is hung-up on his ex while Lin is solving a drug deal gone wrong. Their lives collide just for one night. And nothing pretty much happened. But with that, everything happened.

Because I know profound and all that.

Anyhow, Kaneshiro's obsession with pineapple cans is so charming. Heck, his moping around is as charming as well, making you wonder why someone could break up with a guy like him. I wanted to hug him and be the Brigitte Lin to his getting-over-the-ex. And I'm not saying this just because, Kaneshiro the actor is the definition of hot.

The second story has Tony Leung and Faye Wong. Leung's stewardess girlfriend broke up with him through a letter he never would read (she also returned Leung's apartment key). Wong was the one who received the letter, working at the store where Leung frequents. Wong, who's been secretly watching and falling for Leung, reads the letter, concludes that Leung's depressed and decides to secretly clean up his apartment using the keys with the letter.

Faye Wong as the eccentric girl played eccentricity just enough─not to the point that it was annoying and too typically artsy-fartsy. Leung played cool cop just right too. Cool, but not too much, to the point he'd be starring in an action flick instead of a simple story on dealing with break-ups.

And oh, the imagery and camera shots on both stories were fantastic too. There's emphasis on time in the city being too fast and sometimes, people just find refuge in brief moments.

The film talks about heartaches, hopes, urban alienation, and all that jazz without being too... loud. The metaphors weren't obscure, but they weren't rubbing it in my face too. Personally, I liked the first story over the second one because I find it more quiet, and more strong too. The second story, relative to the first, is an apparent love story. The first story, not so.

And if I'm beginning to sound too confusing. It's because I don't want to post too much spoilers. See? That goes to show how much I love this film.

And a 10/10 rating would probably be better proof.

Chi Bi (Red Cliff)

I never really liked John Woo as a director. Well I'm sorry, but this film doesn't change my opinion.

Too bad I only got to watch the American version, which was dubbed in English. Although dubbing lets your eyes focus more on the onscreen action, the dubbed voices have no character. Deep inside, you will know that the voice you're hearing doesn't belong to the face you're seeing. So subtitles are better.

John Woo again does his trademark "white dove", which now gets an exaggeratedly long screen time. But the white dove just made me roll my eyes and mutter, "Ugh, John Woo."

This is supposed to be an epic, and it does succeed in giving us that Cecil B. DeMille-epicness. Of course this film had a hundred thousand extras dressed in first century Chinese army uniforms, and another hundred thousand horses, and a vast naval fleet, so if it failed to give you the epic feel, blame John Woo.

The story was okay, since it was adapted from a centuries-old Chinese text, but the editing didn't quite work for me. Frankly, it had too many dissolves, it was distracting. And most of the time, the dissolves weren't even called for. I think John Woo just used the dissolve for lack of a better transition. But I believe the cinematic rule is: When in doubt, cut.

Anyway, this film's saving grace was the male stars. True to the essence of patriarchal ancient China, this film only had two female stars. But it was seeing Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tony Leung, and Chang Chen onscreen at the same time that made me temporarily gay. Talk about man power. But Tony Leung didn't look as alpha male without facial hair.

So, is this film worth watching? Yes. Is it worth watching again? Probably. But I'd most likely go see the Asian version, which I've been told has more story arcs than the American one.


*some info from IMDb
pic from filmofilia.com


Chi Bi (Red Cliff). China. 2008.


Rating: Seven out of ten.
Tony Leung without facial hair: Six out of ten.