重慶森林，Chungking Express Pic Spam [part 1 of errrr several]
"If my memory of her has an expiration date, let it be 10,000 years".
.......- Chungking Express
Given how much I love this film, I can't believe I have never done a pic spam before.
故事第一, Story #1
Much as I love Takeshi, I actually prefer Story #2, but anyway. :)
Rather signature shot. Frenetic, rather crazy and wild camera. Very blurred.
Wong Kar Wai has the different characters encountering one another without knowing it. In this scene, Cop 223 pursues an escaped criminal through the streets and collides with the sunglassed, blonde-wigged Bridget Lin who's a drug dealer. The images here are really blurry but I couldn't get a clear capture because the start of the movie is deliberately kind of hyperactive.
Cop 223 recently broke up with his girlfriend May. The anniversary of their break-up, coincidentally is 1 May. Here he is trying to get a date. Ha. What girl in her right mind would turn down the multilingual Takeshi? :D In this scene, he calls different people in English, Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese.
The Midnight Express, the venue in Hong Kong's Lan Kwai Fong district that unites the two stories.
Bridget Lin at the Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui in Hong Kong, having recruited drug mules, prepares the heroin for trafficking. Hong Kong has a large Indian population and this movie captures some of the areas quite beautifully.
Bridget leading her drug mules through the airport.
Suddenly she realises she has lost them.
Meanwhile, Cop 223 goes around trying to buy tinned pineapple with a 1 May expiration date.
We split up on April Fool's Day. So I decided to let the joke run for a month. Every day I buy a can of pineapple with a sell-by date of May 1. May loves pineapple, and May 1 is my birthday. If May hasn't changed her mind by the time I've bought thirty cans, then our love will also expire.
Bridget takes desperate measures and kidnaps the daughter of an Indian shopkeeper. She threatens him. In some versions of the dvd, the kidnap is cut. The loss of the drug mules means that Bridget becomes a fugitive and there are quite a few scenes of her running for her life.
Another of the 'unwitting meetings'. You can see Faye's character (from Story #2) buying a Garfield in the background while Bridget waits out the front)
In this 'unwitting encounter', Cop 223 is making phone call.
Nearby, standing on the World's Longest Escalator (located in Hong Kong's Midlevels District), is Cop 663 played by Tony Leung.
In frustration, Cop 223 runs up the World's Longest Escalator screaming his anger.
He goes shopping for more pineapple in a Circle K shop, which is a type of 7/11 in Hong Kong.
Cop223: Any canned pineapple that expires on May 1?
Cashier: You know what day it is today?
Cop223: April 30?
Cashier: Right. You think we sell outdated stock?
Cop223: There's still two hours to go.
Cashier: Nobody would buy it. Get a fresh one.
Cop223: People like you are hung up on freshness. You realize what goes into a can of pineapple? The fruit must be grown, harvested, sliced, and you just throw it away! How do you think the can feels about that?
Cashier: Buddy, I only work here. Who cares about how the cans feel? What about how I feel? Loading, more loading, unloading... How I wish cans wouldn't expire! It'd save me loads of work. You like expired cans? Help yourself! As many as you like! On the house!
"Somehow everything comes with an expiry date. Swordfish expires. Meat sauce expires. Even cling-film expires. Is there anything in the world which doesn't?"
He then sits at home and eats expired cans of tinned pineapple until he feels sick.
He goes back to the Midnight Express where the owner told him he should go out with one of the waitresses. Unfortunately the waitress is already gone.
So a depressed Cop 223 vows to fall in love with the next woman who walks into the bar.
Of course it's Bridget.
She's not interested, but he persists. They go to a hotel room where she passes out and he orders room service, takes off her shoes and washes them for her.
At the end of Story #1, Cop 22 encounters Faye. "At the high point of our intimacy, we were just 0.01cm from each other. I knew nothing about her. Six hours later, she fell in love with another man ......." Cue strains of California Dreaming ....
