Like 223, he regularly frequents the Midnight Express fast food bar and is on similarly friendly terms with its manager. In the second story, Cop 663, aka He Zhiwu, is also quietly mourning the departure of a girlfriend, a flight attendant who has been lodging at his flat since the two first got together. By the end of the day all she wants is a drink and a quiet spot to rest. At the same time, the woman he came so close to bumping into during the opening sequence is operating on the other side of the law, brusquely preparing a group of men from the city's Indian quarter to act as drug couriers, a plan that goes awry and sends her fleeing for her life. Cop 223 is still hanging on to the possibility that his departed girlfriend May will return, but after a month of fruitless waiting he hits a bar to celebrate his birthday and drown his sorrows, pledging to fall in love with the next woman who walks through the door. I'm taking it as read here that you have a preference for the offbeat over the formulaic or you probably wouldn't have got this far into a review of this film on this site.Ĭhungking Express is a portrait of two street cops at the tail end of relationships and two women they become involved with though chance encounters. I'm assuming that a good many of you know the film and can skip to the technical specs, but if you're new to it or have just never got around to seeing it then some expansion on the plot will hopefully persuade you to do so. Their moment of near contact is exquisite, and forty minutes later it is gloriously repeated with a couple of crucial alterations, as the two main characters hand over to a second pair and an altogether different relationship story unfolds.
Fifty-seven hours later I fell in love with this woman." Now if this doesn't hook you then my description has fallen way short, though however I tell it, I'm never going to do justice to how sublimely it plays. Qiwu's voice-over tells us this: "At the closest point of our intimacy, we were just 0.01 centimetres from each other.
A clock ticks over to 9pm, and the film slows to a halt just as 223 and the sunglass-wearing, blonde-wigged woman almost collide.
Seconds later he is moving through the same busy back streets, being observed in similarly kinetic manner as he chases a fleeing handcuffed and head-bagged figure. * Over silhouetted shots of rooftops at twilight, a male voice muses on the nature and consequence of chance encounters, then introduces himself as He Qiwu, a cop with the badge number 223. Set to an instantly memorable, stuttered-rhythm theme that feels simultaneously urgent, laid-back and mysterious, a woman dressed in a raincoat, a blonde wig and large sunglasses moves purposefully through the busy market back-alleys of Hong Kong in energetic hand-held stepped motion. The opening of Chungking Express doesn't so much grab you as forcibly suck you in like you're caught in the pull of a passing jet engine. Now I've been known to go on the odd rant about the issue of style over content in Hollywood movies, which puts me in a somewhat awkward position when I get all excited by the style of a film before I'm even aware that there is content to back it up. And top of the list just has to be Chungking Express. The list was never meant to be exhaustive, just a few personal favourites thrown in for consideration, but every time I look back at it I'm struck by how just how many titles that should have been there that I somehow missed. Of course, it's always something of a relief when they actually take you somewhere worth visiting, which is why the current Hollywood habit of opening with a bang and then going nowhere feels like such a con. These were opening scenes that made such an impression that the filmmaker could have taken me anywhere afterwards and I'd have followed like a devoted spaniel. But the choices – MY choices – were genuine. It was always intended as a light-hearted piece, designed in part to get a couple of those who had promised to contribute to the site to actually do so.
#CHUNGKING EXPRESS OPENING MOVIE#
Some time ago, in the early days of this site, I posted a collaborative article on great movie opening sequences. Why? Hell, you want reasons? Well here are six to chew on. I'll save some time and kick ambiguity out of the window here by stating up front that Chunking Express, the third feature from Hong Kong maestro Wong Kar-wai, stormed onto my favourite films just seconds after I first saw it, and that subsequent viewings have only served to consolidate its position as one of the smartest, most skin-pricklingly cool and enjoyable movies ever made.
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