

When Wong Kar-wai was working on his wuxia epic Ashes of Time, he decided that he needed a break. His plan was to create something fresh, quick, and easy. That “break” turned out to be 1994’s Chungking Express, a charming romantic comedy teeming with energy and style. Wong decided to go with three stories, but only two made the motion picture. The third story, a tale of a lovesick hitman, is actually told in his Fallen Angels.
Chungking Express is not structured like the typical Hollywood movies many of us are used to. To fully appreciate it, it pays to have some background in film or some familiarity with foreign cinema. Wong Kar-wai is constructing a measured, stylishly-driven story of romance and getting over romance. It has a lot in common with the hot Godard movies of French New Wave, where the rules were that there were no rules and the conventions of cinema were ripe for experimentation. Some may find the structure, that of two stories with virtually no connection to one another, to be perplexing.
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