Chung Hing sam lim (Chungking Express)

An earlier film from one of the most highly renowned directors working today, Kar Wai Wong. And, going in with high expectations from the supreme 'In The Mood For Love', our hopes were met and even more, this is a terrific film.
It is wonderfully shot, the incredible jolting, disorientating, jerking camerawork that opens the movie and recurs at points expecially near the start of the film. Kar Wai Wong has a incredible sense of colour, vivid, and a way of capturing the nuances of the human face without having to resort to self-conscious tricks to do so. The way of the city is though the real 'love letter' (horrible cliche) of this film. The evocation of a great metropolitan city that is still, irredemeably, singular, the ethnic mix, the food stalls, the dark almost blade-runner esque near-independence Hong Kong. It made us yearn for another film that shows the streets of Tokyo, but it is also more than just an identikit far-eastern city; the specific locality if wonderfully evoked.
The actors are flawless, Tony Leung in particular is as excellent as ever. Characters who should be, and you worry at the start will be a little bit annoying, are, somehow (this is a cop out, but Wai is a master and we can only bow) made into real human beings. Wonderfully dressed human beings, at that.
The plot is, we suppose, not particularly laden with drive or purpose. It never feels like nothing is happening, though, as in all the best films (so we say) the human beings at the centre are the story here. Perhaps the second half is not quite as engaging as the first, and, like the great 'In The Mood For Love' it might just be a few scenes too long. This is more than made up for, and so forgiven as to barely be worth mentioning.
Wai has a visual style that is vivid, fast, and one could say 'pop-video- esque, but it has so much more weight and beauty than that. Visually, this is a film to re-watch. And plot wise too; on our first viewing, we focus on the characters and become immersed in the plots of their lives (which re fascinating). As it develops however, and we attempt to tear ourselves away from direct intense involvement, we realise this film has great universailty. It is really a slow moving paen to the city, the changing times of the specific locale of 1994 Hong kong that, with its capturing of little incidents that seem big at the time. It is a consideration of the loneliness/friendliness of the city, but far beyond the usual cliches of films that attempt to explore this. It has a different take on this idea than most films, taking us beyond the simple 'loneliness of the city' themes.
This is a beutiful film, about real people. It is excitingly, at times innovatively, filmed, by a modern (and, one day, timeless) master. One of the rare films that is both wonderfully intelligent and shot with adrenaline, as an early work of a great filmaker, this film is most highly considered.