重慶森林 - Chungking Express

"Change of flight. Your plane cancelled. Here's your key. Bye."Air Hostess

☆☆☆☆☆ Classic 

重慶森林 - Chungking Express (1994) is beautiful poem to love.

Directed by Wong Kar Wai.


Starring, Faye Wong, Brigitte Lin, Valerie Chow, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Takeshi Kaneshiro among many others.


Wong's film about love reminds me of Jean-Luc Godard's masterpiece, A Bout de Souffle - Breathless (1960) . Kar Wai was inspired by Godard and his use of Jump Cuts, montages, unique camera angles and plots that meander. I love the way love is expressed throughout the film silently by characters as they remember their lovers by objects they still possess. According to Quentin Tarantino in his video comments on the film below, Wong intended to have three stories. Instead he made the third story into a film called, Fallen Angels (1995). Personally, I would have made each story of the two remaining stories into separate films. Kar Wai tends to focus more on one story when he has to deal with more than one storyline. This can be seen in both the stronger last story here and with his recent visual masterpiece, The Grandmaster (2013) in which two stories are intertwined to muted outcomes. The remaining two stories in Chungking Express do not suffer and are brilliant in their own rights, but I would have like to have seen the two stories on their own.

Watch in the scene below how each character is immersed silently in their own deep thoughts reflecting upon the emotions that love drowns them in, while life moves fast forward before them in the foreground. What a brilliant, imaginative way to capture our selfish, egocentric inner life in the midsts of the entire human cosmos.

Film Scene

Trivia - Christopher Doyle's apartment was used in the film as the dwelling for cop 663.

Film Trailer

Tarantino Discusses Chungking Express #1

Tarantino Discusses Chungking Express #2

Film Photos - Posters

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Film Transcript

Note - If you would like to view Chungking Express to rent or buy please click on the link below the comments. It is sponsored by Google, so it is the safest and most secure way to get a copy for your film library.

喋血双雄 - The Killer (1989)

"I always leave one bullet, either for myself or for my enemy." Joe

☆☆☆☆☆ Masterpiece 


喋血双雄 - The Killer (1989) is a ballet of bullets.


Directed By John Woo.


Starring Yun-Fat Chow, Danny Lee and Sally Yeh among others.

I first saw The Killer in an art house theater late one night by myself. I came out blown away by the ballet of bullets throughout the film. John has said his film is about honor and friendship. Woo said he was influenced by Jean-Pierre Melville's, Le Samourai (1967) and Martin Scorsese's, Mean Streets (1973). I can clearly see the the influences of both directors and their respective films in The Killer. John like Melville has an honorable, cool, calm and cunning assassin and yet the film has the violence and grit of Scorsese's, Mean Streets. The combination is both riveting and revolting. The Killer in turn has influenced directors, Robert Rodriguez' El Mariachi (1992), Quentin Tarantino's  Jackie Brown (1997) and Luc Besson's  Nikita, La Femme Nikita (1990).

In the scene below watch the shootout and the incredible chemistry between Chow and Danny. They make the complicated action sequences look as easy to do as walking across a minefield with magnets attached to your feet.

Film Scene

Trivia - Woo filmed the picture in 92 days, at a cost of 2 million US dollars. The beach house shootout was filmed in 28 days with 20,000 rounds of ammunition fired. The final church shootout took 36 days and 40,000 rounds.

Film Trailer

Film Photos - Posters

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Film Transcript

Note - If you would like to view 喋血双雄 - The Killer (1989) to rent or buy please click on the link below the comments. It is sponsored by Google, so it is the safest and most secure way to get a copy for your film library.