I fell head over heels for Wong Kar-wai when I was in my twenties and so I’m very partial to his work. “Chungking Express” was very important to me during many long, formative years trying to figure out what it meant to be looking for love.

I’m still a fan, and when I rewatched “In the Mood for Love” recently it felt like a true luxury—not in the sense of something being expensive and inessential, but in the way of something being so carefully and meaningfully crafted that you feel the intent in every little detail. It holds up.

When I rewatched “Chungking Express” though, I was surprised by how kind of ridiculous it was; the characters and motivations are, probably appropriately, more like song lyrics than script lines. It still holds a special place for me as does all his work, but I can definitely see how it’s all on a very specific wavelength, like a radio station from far away and the tuning is so fragile that you lose it instantly if the antenna is not positioned just so.

2021-04-21