The whiplash, double-pronged Chungking Express is one of the defining works of nineties cinema and the film that made Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar Wai an instant icon.
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’ “California Dreamin’” into tokens of romantic longing. 1994, Hong Kong, 4K DCP, in Cantonese with English subtitles, 102 minutes. Recommended for 16+.
Co-presented with the Department of English, UofL and featuring a post-screening discussion led by Assistant Professors Laura Tscherry and Savannah Trent, with special guest Zikai Pang (Indiana University), an expert on urban spaces in contemporary Chinese cinema.
Urban Intimacies is a four-part screening and conversation series presented by Tscherry and Trent. The series brings together films about urban encounters and their consequences, to trace how representation of the city and its inhabitants have changed over time and cultural contexts, an examines how these encounters can contribute to our understanding of the complex interplay of race, class, sexuality, and space in homemaking and kinmaking.