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

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...

Easy Street (Chaplin, 1917) - #DTC 1819

The tramp-turned-policeman is given charge to clean up notorious Easy Street. This Chaplin was pretty coherent in story, although one can still feel his extremely strong focus on single scenes, and his longer films always lack something of an arc for me. But here the whole movie is short enough to keep me posted on the story. The centerpiece for me was the chase routine, which seemed like an enormously tuned door-in/door-out scene. But the tempo is still amazing to watch even after a hundred years. I felt a lack of this pace in Lloyd's film and in other slapstick comedies from the era and later. The general perception of comedic rhythm seems to have changed substantially over time, but Chaplin's stuff seems to work great in all eras. His arch-enemy, the fascinating Eric Campbell is a delight to watch and works as the archetypical thug.

Choked (Joong-Hyun, 2011) - #Berlinale 2012 #koreablog

A young man is confronted with his mothers worsening debts. Things spiral out of control when she suddenly disappears. Most notable about the film for me was the insight into the Korean society - the filmmakers seem to suggest that basically everyone in Korea seems to live way over their means. The pressure on the son to get a "good life" in terms of owning an apartment of good size determines the happiness of his fiancee. The characters talk plainly about the subject of money to each other with a frankness that would not be seen in other societies. I wonder if this was a fiction or conversations can be that open in Korea. Something I've noticed recently in some Asian films with a similar style is a sort of liberation of the genre, I cannot really describe it any better. At any point during this film I expected it to turn funny, bloody, dramatic or simply weird. And to a very slight degree it really turns this or that direction. Maybe it was just me, but t...

Yogi's Movie Consumption Blog

Dieses Blog durchsuchen