305 S. Campbell, Suite 101
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Two melancholic Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious female underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal waitress at a late-night restaurant he frequents. (PG-13, 102 min.)
7:00 PM
Essential Arthouse: This monthly series showcases “essential arthouse” films everyone should see on the big screen. Arthouse is a film genre which encompasses films where the content and style – often artistic or experimental – adhere with as little compromise as possible to the filmmakers’ personal artistic vision. This series is Free for Members.
The whiplash, double-pronged "Chungking Express" is one of the defining works of nineties cinema and the film that made Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai an instant icon. Two heartsick Hong Kong cops (Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung), both jilted by ex-lovers, cross paths at the Midnight Express take-out restaurant stand, where the ethereal pixie waitress Faye (Faye Wong) works. Anything goes in Wong’s gloriously shot and utterly unexpected charmer, which cemented the sex appeal of its gorgeous stars and forever turned canned pineapple and the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” into tokens of romantic longing. [Janus]
Starring: Brigitte Lin, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Tony Leung Chiu-wai
Director: Kar-Wai Wong
Language: Cantonese
Genre: Comedy, Crime, Drama, Mystery, Romance
"One of the greatest treasures of 1990s filmmaking."
— Tim Brayton, Alternate Ending
"Chungking Express is one of Wong's purest evocations of its excitement and heartbreak."
— Matt Noller, Slant Magazine
"Chungking Express functions magically as a modern love story divorced from time and space."
— Clint Worthington, The Spool
"Experimental in form, it's also open and appealing in its vision of romantic redemption, an avant-garde romp that's also a great date movie."
— Dave Kehr, New York Daily News
"It's the cinematic equivalent of popcorn on a hot stove with jump-cut shots, freeze frames, stirringly beautiful images and boundless energy."
— Desson Thomson, Washington Post
"Wong and longtime cinematographer Christopher Doyle capture some of the most charming breaking-and-entering footage in recent memory."
— Selina Lee, In Review
"Wong Kar-wai is one of the best filmmakers from one of the most significant film movements... And, in my opinion, Chungking Express is his best film."
— Joshua Polanski, Boston Hassle
"A minor miracle of modern cinema, a sweet-hearted lightheaded meditation of the ups and down of romantic love that should leave any audience walking on air."
— Eddie Harrison, film-authority.com
"Chungking Express (1994) was the Masculin féminin of the 1990s, a pop art movie about cool twentysomethings looking for love in the city that has replaced Paris as the center of the world-cinema imagination."
— Amy, Taubin, Criterion
"Wong made Chungking in just 23 days, and the film's mad-dash energy is nicely reflected in his quartet of stars. Wong, himself a star of cinema's future, has already shown that he possesses a uniquely '90s voice, eye and spirit."
— Richard Corliss, TIME Magazine
"Wong's singular frenetic visual style and his special feeling for lonely romantics may remind you of certain French New Wave directors, but this movie isn't a trip down memory lane; it's a vibrant commentary on young love today, packed with punch."
— Jonathan Rosenbaum, Chicago Reader
"Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express is as fresh as falling rain, a pair of love stories full of pain and humor. Chungking Express ravishingly, seductively exudes the immediacy of everyday life as its spins its classically timeless tales of love lost and almost regained."
— Kevin Thomas, Los Angeles Times
"Wong Kar-wai has created—out of colored lights, devious angles, and a glorious smudged slo-mo—his own charged, dazlingly elliptical grammar to exprses something about love and pain. Wong's Chungking Express is a lyric marvel, Jules and Jim for our anonymous time."
— Georgia Brown, The Village Voice
"The performances here are irresistible, thrilling in their invention and spontaneity, as is the mind-blowing, urgent cinematography of frequent Wong collaborator Christopher Doyle, which makes the most of Hong Kong's neon-drenched streets and cramped interior spaces."
— Joey O'Bryan, Austin Chronicle
