Given the current recommendation to stay home and practice social distancing, we at the Chicago International Film Festival are looking at past selections from each year of the Festival that you can stream now from home. Stream our past selections as we look forward to the 56th Chicago International Film Festival this October 14-25, 2020. Find the full 56 Films for 56 Years selections here.

Today’s #56Films entry comes from the 90’s coolest auteur, Wong Kar-wai, whose stylishly shot, memorably soundtracked Chungking Express screened at the 30th Chicago Internatioanl Film Festival in 1994.

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CHUNKING EXPRESS

Director: Wong Kar-wai
30th Chicago International Film Festival

Ah, the ‘90s: Avant-pop, pixie-girls, and filmmaker Wong Kar-wai. Perennially seen in sunglasses, the Hong Kong New Waver cemented his reputation as the world’s coolest auteur with this stylishly shot bifurcated story of star-crossed lovers, memorably scored with the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” and the Cranberries’s hit single “Dreaming” (“Ohhh, my life/Is changing every day/In every possible way”). Both sentimental and postmodern at the same time, Chungking Express tells two different tales of heartbroken policemen and their romantic near-entanglements in modern-day Hong Kong. Famous for its staccato slow-motion flourishes, the adorable dancing of Faye Wong and the alluring smiles of Tony Leung, the film is a propulsive, bittersweet tale of longing and love’s fleeting embrace. – Anthony Kaufman, Senior Programmer

Streaming Details:
Chungking Express is streaming now on The Criterion Channel.