Chungking Express, 1994

The 1990s will go down in history as being the decade of independent film. Filmmakers across the U.S. and around the world created a record number of celluloid stories, and two cable channels were launched to showcase this massive volume of work. And while most were, in retrospect, less than stellar, even the very average ones seemed great precisely because of their averageness. Ordinary stories about ordinary people, such a far cry from the decades old glamorous Hollywood formulas we'd all grown so tired of. Which brings us to 'Chungking Express'. Don't be fooled by the fact that this Hong Kong film about two cops was distributed in the U.S. by Quentin Tarantino; It's actually a very human story of love and loneliness in the big city. Though we've seen the same story before ('Breathless' for Paris) and since ('Lost in Translation' for Tokyo), this is Hong Kong's turn. And Hong Kong, is the real star of the film. Similar to the New York of a Paul Auster novel, this Hong Kong, from it's back alleys and tenements to it's street side markets and titular carryout business, sticks with you long after the details of the plot fade. A movie to be experienced.

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