In a burst of creative inspiration, Wong Kar-Wai challenges the conventions of film story-telling to deliver a film that’s as close you can get to a piece of contemporary art, in that it’s as challenging in its non-conformism as it is simple in its understanding of the human heart. Where else could love and loss, yearning and melancholy, loneliness amidst bustling cities co-exist with such innate understanding of the aimlessness of human nature than in a Wong Kar-wai film? Many would argue that the film lacks a sense of grounding — but films with such unapologetic emotion and understanding of human nature were never really meant to stay on the ground in the first place.
Chungking Express is one of those pieces of art that lingers, and eventually forever changes your perception of the million little universes that are created and destroyed when two people collide. Where the largest, most inexplicable emotions are held together by the most unassuming of objects: a can of expired pineapples; a rain-soaked paper napkin; an old song, played over and over until it turns into something resembling love.
