Latest news with #ChungkingExpress
Korea Herald
04-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Korea Herald
Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai's first TV series 'Blossoms Shanghai' to air on SBS
Award-winning series to hit Korean TV, streaming services Studio S, the drama production arm of Seoul Broadcasting System, is bringing Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-wai's first-ever television series 'Blossoms Shanghai' to South Korean audiences. The period drama will premiere Monday on SBS F!L UHD, with streaming availability beginning Tuesday on multiple streaming channels, including Tving, Watcha, Wavve, KT GenieTV, LG U+TV and SK Broadband Btv. 'Blossoms Shanghai' marks Wong's long-awaited series debut. Widely regarded as one of Asia's most influential filmmakers, Wong is known for acclaimed features such as "In the Mood for Love" (2000), "Chungking Express" (1994) and "Happy Together" (1997). Set in 1990s Shanghai, "Blossoms Shanghai" follows Ah Bao (Hu Ge), a young man from modest beginnings who rises to wealth amidst the city's rapid economic transformation. Based on Jin Yucheng's 2012 novel of the same name, which won China's prestigious Mao Dun Literature Prize, the project has been years in the making. Wong acquired the rights in 2014 and spent roughly seven years developing the series, with three additional years dedicated to production. 'Blossoms Shanghai' originally premiered in December 2023 on China's television channel CCTV-8 and China's streaming service Tencent Video. The series went on to earn the best creative award at the Asia Contents Awards held alongside the Busan International Film Festival in 2024.
The Guardian
01-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Joyous and uplifting': why Chungking Express is my feelgood movie
Chinese auteur Wong Kar-Wai is not a director you'd immediately seek out for a cosy feelgood experience. His films delve into loneliness, yearning and doomed love affairs, carried along by a melancholy undercurrent. Chungking Express, the story of two Hong Kong cops reeling from being dumped by their respective partners, doesn't deviate from these obsessions of his but the quirky romantic comedy also manages to be his most joyous and uplifting offering. The film has a playful energy and is brimming with offbeat humour. Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Takeshi Kaneshiro play the heartbroken policemen, both deep in denial over the end of their relationships. We watch them cope in very different ways with their heartache. Kaneshiro's Cop 223 pines outside his ex's flat, buys cans of pineapple because they were her favorite food and goes on jogs so his body has no water left for tears. One night, he comes across Brigitte Lin's mysterious femme fatale in a dimly lit bar. Decked out in a bouncy blonde wig, sunglasses and a trench coat, perpetually prepared for both sunshine and rain, she has problems of her own. Their encounter is told as a noir-style crime caper that looks at the seedy underbelly of Hong Kong complete with shootouts and runaway drug mules. The film then moves on to Leung's Cop 663, whose story combines light-hearted romance with a dash of screwball comedy. He mopes at home in his underwear after his girlfriend leaves him, giving objects around his flat a tough talking to for letting themselves go. Cantopop singer Faye Wong plays a music-loving fast-food worker, also named Faye, who develops a crush on him and tries to work her way into his heart by secretly cleaning his flat. It's an act that is less domestic servitude and more a cunning plot to change someone on a cellular level without them realising. If that all sounds too zany and affected, it's not. Chungking Express somehow manages to be both gently whimsical and beautifully profound while mining plenty of laughs even in the desolate gloom of breakup despair. All four leads are unbelievably charismatic, and watching the two couples dance tentatively around each other is an unadulterated delight. I was 16 when I first saw Chungking Express and even though I grew up in Surrey, there was something about its depiction of alienation and not quite belonging in the big city that resonated with me. Perhaps because I also felt the same way as a second-generation Chinese immigrant; my family was one of the few ethnic minorities living on a very white council estate. I would borrow arthouse films from my local library, dreaming of a more exciting life. My parents were big fans of mainstream Chinese blockbusters, martial arts epics and triad crime films. When they brought home a VHS copy of Chungking Express, they had no idea of the impact it would have on me. It wasn't so much a breath of fresh air as a neon-hued tornado obliterating everything I knew about Hong Kong cinema. Over the years, I've rewatched all of Wong's films many times. I am just as smitten by his romantic masterpiece In the Mood for Love and the moody drama Days of Being Wild, but Chungking Express is the one I return to the most. It is as effervescent as the Coca-Cola that is blatantly plugged in the film and as exhilarating as the Mamas & the Papas' song California Dreamin' that Faye plays on repeat. It never fails to cheer me up. Each and every time I'm ridiculously charmed by the sight of Leung asking a giant white teddy bear if he's been in a fight, Faye dancing behind the snack bar counter brandishing condiments like glow sticks, and Kaneshiro trying to hit on women in a bar by awkwardly asking them if they like pineapple. The film is just so incredibly sweet, so astute about our interior lives, and so stylish in a way that still feels fresh and exciting even years later. Despite the sadness at the heart of Chungking Express, watching it feels like basking in sunlight. One of my favourite lines from the film comes from Cop 223, touched by a surprise message, as he speculates: 'If memories could be canned, would they also have expiry dates? If so, I hope they last for centuries.' My love for Chungking Express will never expire. Unlike other, more straightforward feelgood movies, it doesn't shy away from depicting the rough edges of urban life and how it can leave you feeling unmoored. But it shows how there's always a chance to make a meaningful connection, hope emerging like a rainbow after the rain, scattering the grey clouds from the sky. Chungking Express is available on Max and The Criterion Channel in the US and to rent digitally in the UK and Australia
The Guardian
30-06-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
‘Joyous and uplifting': why Chungking Express is my feelgood movie
Chinese auteur Wong Kar-Wai is not a director you'd immediately seek out for a cosy feelgood experience. His films delve into loneliness, yearning and doomed love affairs, carried along by a melancholy undercurrent. Chungking Express, the story of two Hong Kong cops reeling from being dumped by their respective partners, doesn't deviate from these obsessions of his but the quirky romantic comedy also manages to be his most joyous and uplifting offering. The film has a playful energy and is brimming with offbeat humour. Tony Leung Chiu-wai and Takeshi Kaneshiro play the heartbroken policemen, both deep in denial over the end of their relationships. We watch them cope in very different ways with their heartache. Kaneshiro's Cop 223 pines outside his ex's flat, buys cans of pineapple because they were her favorite food and goes on jogs so his body has no water left for tears. One night, he comes across Brigitte Lin's mysterious femme fatale in a dimly lit bar. Decked out in a bouncy blonde wig, sunglasses and a trench coat, perpetually prepared for both sunshine and rain, she has problems of her own. Their encounter is told as a noir-style crime caper that looks at the seedy underbelly of Hong Kong complete with shootouts and runaway drug mules. The film then moves on to Leung's Cop 663, whose story combines light-hearted romance with a dash of screwball comedy. He mopes at home in his underwear after his girlfriend leaves him, giving objects around his flat a tough talking to for letting themselves go. Cantopop singer Faye Wong plays a music-loving fast-food worker, also named Faye, who develops a crush on him and tries to work her way into his heart by secretly cleaning his flat. It's an act that is less domestic servitude and more a cunning plot to change someone on a cellular level without them realising. If that all sounds too zany and affected, it's not. Chungking Express somehow manages to be both gently whimsical and beautifully profound while mining plenty of laughs even in the desolate gloom of breakup despair. All four leads are unbelievably charismatic, and watching the two couples dance tentatively around each other is an unadulterated delight. I was 16 when I first saw Chungking Express and even though I grew up in Surrey, there was something about its depiction of alienation and not quite belonging in the big city that resonated with me. Perhaps because I also felt the same way as a second-generation Chinese immigrant; my family was one of the few ethnic minorities living on a very white council estate. I would borrow arthouse films from my local library, dreaming of a more exciting life. My parents were big fans of mainstream Chinese blockbusters, martial arts epics and triad crime films. When they brought home a VHS copy of Chungking Express, they had no idea of the impact it would have on me. It wasn't so much a breath of fresh air as a neon-hued tornado obliterating everything I knew about Hong Kong cinema. Over the years, I've rewatched all of Wong's films many times. I am just as smitten by his romantic masterpiece In the Mood for Love and the moody drama Days of Being Wild, but Chungking Express is the one I return to the most. It is as effervescent as the Coca-Cola that is blatantly plugged in the film and as exhilarating as the Mamas & the Papas' song California Dreamin' that Faye plays on repeat. It never fails to cheer me up. Each and every time I'm ridiculously charmed by the sight of Leung asking a giant white teddy bear if he's been in a fight, Faye dancing behind the snack bar counter brandishing condiments like glow sticks, and Kaneshiro trying to hit on women in a bar by awkwardly asking them if they like pineapple. The film is just so incredibly sweet, so astute about our interior lives, and so stylish in a way that still feels fresh and exciting even years later. Despite the sadness at the heart of Chungking Express, watching it feels like basking in sunlight. One of my favourite lines from the film comes from Cop 223, touched by a surprise message, as he speculates: 'If memories could be canned, would they also have expiry dates? If so, I hope they last for centuries.' My love for Chungking Express will never expire. Unlike other, more straightforward feelgood movies, it doesn't shy away from depicting the rough edges of urban life and how it can leave you feeling unmoored. But it shows how there's always a chance to make a meaningful connection, hope emerging like a rainbow after the rain, scattering the grey clouds from the sky. Chungking Express is available on Max and The Criterion Channel in the US and to rent digitally in the UK and Australia
South China Morning Post
24-04-2025
- South China Morning Post
From Critical Analysis to Breakthrough: EdUHK Prof Erni's Research on Ethnic Minority Media Representations Reaches UN Forum
[The content of this article has been produced by our advertising partner.] Advertisement Despite Hong Kong's multicultural heritage, racism persists in the city's mainstream media. In October 2022, TVB, the largest broadcaster, faced public criticism for using blackface in a drama episode, shortly after an actress apologised for wearing brown makeup to portray a Filipino domestic worker. Recognising the void surrounding a sustained and meaningful debate on the problem of racism in the city, Prof John Erni, Dean of the Faculty of Humanities at The Education University of Hong Kong, has emerged as a leading voice through his cultural research. His scholarly work that spans nearly 20 years examines how ethnic minorities are portrayed across Hong Kong's mainstream media. Through his research, he hopes to elevate public consciousness while fostering genuine cultural diversity within the city. Findings: Misrepresentation & Underrepresentation Erni's books on ethnic minorities Gaps: Lacking Connections Erni's findings indicate South Asians and other ethnic minorities in Hong Kong are consistently underrepresented and misrepresented in mainstream media. They are cast in roles reinforcing mostly negative stereotypes, mainly as criminals, gangsters or comedic characters, thereby contributing to their characterisation as the racialised Other. His co-authored book on the images of non-Chinese in four decades of Hong Kong cinema, citing Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express, states: "The portrayal of South Asians was relatively negative and stereotypical. These characters were either drug dealers or thieves, willing to break the law for money." Erni added that while such patterns are not unique to Hong Kong, they deepen social divisions and perpetuate the symbolic annihilation of ethnic minorities. Advertisement Erni's research exposes blind spots within the media industry and in society as a whole regarding ethnic minorities' lived experiences. The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the shortcomings. "The pandemic revealed our dangerous lack of direct connections with these communities," explains the specialist. "Their infection rates may have been disproportionately higher, but since statistics were aggregated with general population data only, we could not quantify the true impact."
