Rating: 4/5
Criterion Challenge 2022 | 9/52 | 1990s
Wong Chi-ming and his partner sit together, smoking cigarettes. Though they have worked together for several years, this is the first time they’ve sat together. The film rewinds to earlier.
The unnamed partner cleans a rundown apartment near the train tracks. She leaves a message in the fax machine and does her makeup before leaving. Later, Wong arrives at the same apartment. He relaxes with a cigarette and television.
This is the nature of their relationship — she passes messages along (notes and faxes) and tends to his home needs (cleaning, grocery shopping, etc) when he is out.
Wong likes being an assassin. He never makes any choices — he receives his instructions and follows them. But having no one to care for and no family to speak of is a lonely life.
Over time, she becomes infatuated with him. She goes through his trash to create a portrait of the otherwise elusive figure who dominates her life. She goes to a bar he frequents, then goes home and has sex with the idea of him.
After one too many close calls, Wong quits the hitman business. He wants to tell his partner but is too scared to meet her. So, he leaves a coin and a song on the jukebox.
The sister film to Chunking Express, this movie sets itself up for comparison — overlapping locations and actors, but shot more at night and with wide angles. Both explore alienation in city life, but this movie ventures into darker territory and chases more emotional levity. Still, the bouncing wildness of Chunking permeates both.
Wong Kar-wai’s Hong Kong is soaked permanently in neon green, with a few moments of black and white. No one knows anyone, but everyone has “friends.” For the partner, they are contacts. For Wong, they are old classmates selling insurance or women who mistake him for an old lover.
The camera is as restless as the city, never content to idly observe — it shakes, tilts, fisheyes, and slows.
The murders are bloody messes — it’s never a clean in-and-out, but a massacre that leaves survivors, young and old, reeling.
The unnamed partner is frustrating for a couple of reasons. For one, it makes writing this review more cumbersome. Also, it reduces her to someone who only exists in Wong’s shadow. That’s the point, but that doesn’t mean I must like it.
It also reflects why Chunking Express works in a way that this movie doesn’t. This film does not care about the emotional state of its characters beyond the alienation and the love story. It feels like a B-side.
Still, Wong Kar-wai’s B-sides are captivating pieces of film with plenty to enjoy.