Lyrical, impressionistic, startling, and resonant. I have been in love (I still am), I have been lonely and wanting a way out, I have felt lost in the big city, and I have been struck dumb by moments of coincidence, whimsy, and happenstance ... this movie captures all those feelings perfectly - wrapped around a subtext of China's reclamation of Hong Kong and all the anxieties and uncertainties that brought. The emotional pitch of the film is astounding. And the humor and smile-inducing moments are truly original. Absolutely lovely.

This little film by Wong Kar-Wai has made some kind of movement in the states, but only when Quentin Tarantino, straight off of the success of Pulp Fiction, decided to catalog it in a selection of international deep cuts known as "Rolling Thunder pictures". He introduced to us a very simple- minded, un-pretentious, giddy Hong Kong film about love. There's a lot of funny little things here, having to do with canned goods. Also, this film arguably holds the record for the most times California Dreamin' by the Mamas and the Papas is played in a motion picture. It was played so much, that I now hate it. But in retrospect, it added to the gentle, playful nature of the film.

I love Chungking Express.If you're into a movie for pro-forma plot line or how fast a car goes in Fast and the Furious or how many people are chomped on by dinosaurs, then Chungking Express isn't for you.Chungking Express is a movie to be experienced, to be savoured, to be enjoyed. Maybe it's because I've been to Hong Kong a few times and it's amazing seeing the sights incorporated into Wong Kar-Wai's vision and Christopher Doyle's cinematography.The ending was bittersweet but I loved the Cantonese rendition of a famous Cranberries hit.The atmosphere of Chungking Express is pure Wong Kar-Wai - congratulations on a top movie.

Wong Kar-Wai's most acclaimed and certainly widespread film, helped by showings to film classes everywhere, Chungking Express is a meandering meditation of loneliness in urban Hong Kong. Told in two separate stories of love, life and loneliness (a third branching off into a separate film, Fallen Angel), they follow two cops dealing with a break-up and a new love interest.The first, shorter and weaker segment follows a pineapple-obsessed cop falling for a blonde-wigged heroin smuggler. The second watches a depressed cop's ignorance as a girl with a crush revitalises his life.The first segment is certainly a visual marvel, and Wong Kar-Wai (alongside cinematographers Christopher Doyle & Andrew Lau, the latter of Infernal Affairs fame) blazes through with a frenzy of action in a confined space. The blur, the colours and the contrast are impressive. It's also a poetic segment, but ultimately falls short, emotionally hollow without developed characters to anchor it. One could suppose that your reaction to this segment will depend on your appreciation of the themes and feelings of the main character.One must spend more time considering the second, which more than makes up for the first ones failings. It adds a wry wit to the -better- romantic undertones, two incredibly charismatic leads (Tony Leung and Faye Wong), and one of the best repeated uses of a single song ever. California Dreamin' will forever for me be associated with this film. More importantly, the second part has a heart, a cute, quirky romance that bubbles, and the incredulity ebbs at its sweetness.The soundtrack as a whole is full of excellent choices, though 'full' may over-exaggerate, as it's better seen as a few choice selections being repeated. Nevertheless, through the cinematography and the soundtrack, the film develops a dreamlike atmosphere, which is probably its greatest asset. The film keeps itself firmly uprooted in the clouds, and it certainly drifts.Chungking Express is a unique film, and certainly not one for all occasions. It isn't designed to blow one away. One drifts through it, then thinks about it after its over. As a technical craft, it's a masterpiece. As a poetic piece of storytelling, its a bit more hit and miss, but it hits more than it misses.