A defining work of 1990s cinema, the sinuous, multi-narrative Chungking Express is the film that heralded Wong Kar Wai’s iconic status, bolstered by the fandom of Quentin Tarantino, who championed the film’s release in North America. 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’s “California Dreamin’” into tokens of romantic longing.  

Notes by David O’Mahony

Screening as part of The World of Wong Kar Wai season.