Chung Hing sam lam / Chungking Express (Wong Kar Wai, 1994)

Two stories of policemen falling in and out of love.

I loved the story with Faye Wong - her character's carelessness and (slightly creepy) stalking of the police man she falls in love with is engaging to watch. Some people argued that this would be a horror movie if the genders would have been reversed, but I don't think that the film should be taken realistically anyway. I've seen it as a beautifully dreamed up fantasy about romance.

The other thing I noted that it's really funny. It has so many comedic overtones that ventured on the absurd. I enjoyed the policeman calling his former lovers, just to find somebody he could talk to. At one point he ends up calling a girl he went to fourth grade with - she obviously has not the slightest idea who he is. Another great moment is when the shop owner is supposed to deliver a "very personal" letter - and literally everybody in the shop gets to read it.

Also the side kicks were carefully cast and they too get their little moments of comedy. All the workers in the back of the take-away get one or two funny lines - and they don't feel cheesy. Maybe I would have found the whole film too cheesy if it hadn't been for the many subtle light moments.

I am not a big fan of "Avid slow motion" - unfortunately, the film is full of them. And although the colors already predict what's to come in later years, they are still on the 80s side. The editing is frantic, but not too fast for a story like that.

Kommentare

Beliebte Posts aus diesem Blog

Odd Man Out (Reed, 1947) #TSPDT #469

An underground rebel is wounded during a heist and tries to evade the manhunt in Belfast. The story is of a steady decline towards the unsurprising end of terrible consequences. James Mason is quite astonishing as the soft-spoken hero, whom you just cannot imagine of doing anything as bad as scaring a child, let alone a robbery. Obviously, he does both in the film and much more. His endless odyssey which is much less about him than the various Belfastian characters towards him and - although explicitly denied by the filmmaker in a bizarre opening title card - ultimately about the struggle for independence in Northern Ireland (or any similar situation) There were two or three moments in the film that didn't hold up for me as well as they should, but the crazy painter and his bizarre co-inhabitant made it all up - a bold selection of outright frightening men from the fringes of society. There is no need to decipher the symbolism (payoff might be even bigger) - it's simply e...

Time of the Gypsies / Dom Za Vesanje (Emir Kusturica, 1988)

A supernaturally gifted boy from a Gypsy community is forced to survive in the world of crime. The intriguing qualities of Kusturica's films I've seen is his relentless depiction of basically crazy communities. Not just agreeably potty, they're usually outright interstellar-nuts. Here, he follows the fate of the rather harmless boy Perhan, that leaves for Italy in hope of a better future for him and his loved ones. There are some enormously interesting images in the film that kept ringing long after. The ritual in the river and the last scene in the church ruin (with a horse standing somewhere far back in the image...). After sketchily mapping out the scenes it is surprising how rigorously three-acty the screenplay is constructed. The first act seems quite long in terms of time and number of scenes, but there is also a lot of imagery spent on depicting life in this crazy universe, which makes the second part in Italy much more believable. And there is a certa...

Scarface (de Palma, 1982) - TSPDT #490

A cuban refugee wreaks havoc on Miamis drug industry and realizes his version of the American Dream. The main character is really something - the acting is great and the character suffers from the most fatal of all flaws: He cannot lie - although in a practical sense he does exactly that. So his attacks on the american society he has worked so hard to become a part of work really great - he has a deep insight but at the same time he is hypocrite enough to fall in the same trap in a way. The only time when I felt that the script had to "pull" a little to take the story where it wanted it is when Tony's mother calls to ask about his sister. Her character was a little too much on hating Tony.

Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

Dieses Blog durchsuchen