Chungking Express
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CRITERION COLLECTION: CHUNGKING EXPRESS
You probably know that I'm a huge movie collector and generally love what Criterion is doing (see some of my Criterion DVDs). I was thrilled to see that Criterion finally decided to release their movies on bluray that I picked up one of my favorite movies, Chungking Express (1994) (重慶森林), without reading any reviews on it.
Sad to say, I'm fairly disappointed in this release. There's practically no special features, unlike the packed features of Wong Kar-Wai's other Criterion release, In the Mood for Love (2000).
I was also disappointed in the transfer, although a vast improvement over the Rolling Thunders DVD (which I also own), it doesn't look quite as sharp and clear like other blurays I own (particularly compared to the 1962 How the West Was Won). I suspect it has to do with the source material... still the colors are very vibrant in the Chungking Express bluray.
Other extra is a little booklet/pamphlet and the case is in digipak - which is rare with blurays. I was hoping they'd go with the book-format that you see with Warner Brothers (Dirty Harry, Natural Born Killers), but still better than the standard plastic case.
I can't recommend the bluray to you, unless you find it at a decent price. Criterion's prices are normally $30+ per DVD, and in this weak economy, you may want to pick it up used or not at all. Hey, there's always Netflix.
CHUNGKING EXPRESS SOUNDTRACK
I love the soundtrack on this movie. If you've seen the film, you won't be able to get The Mamas and the Pappas' "California Dreamin'" out of your head. The song is repeatedly played as Faye Wong's character's theme song.
Other songs in the movie you might be able to pick out is Faye Wong's very faithful Chinese version of the Cranberries' song "Dreams". Fay Wong (王菲) recorded two version of the "Dreams" song in both Cantonese and Mandarin (the Mandarin version would later appear on another film called Somebody in My Dream).
Oh, if you haven't figured it out, the beautiful Wong is better known for being a pop singer out of Hong Kong. I believe Chungking Express might have been her first film. She would later go on to other film works, including reuniting with Kar-Wai for 2046 (a film that I bought as a special 3-disc set, but wasn't in love with it as Kar-Wai's other films).
W♥M UPDATE
Also, there's a lot of background stuff that I've been doing lately. With google being evil, the new search is courtesy of Atomz. Since it's a free account, the service is limited to 500 pages and there are advertisements in the search results (they aren't that intrusive).
So give the search a try and let me know what you think. If you don't have access to email, you can now fill out a simple form (note: you can also use this to suggest bands or complaints).
You probably know that I'm a huge movie collector and generally love what Criterion is doing (see some of my Criterion DVDs). I was thrilled to see that Criterion finally decided to release their movies on bluray that I picked up one of my favorite movies, Chungking Express (1994) (重慶森林), without reading any reviews on it.
Sad to say, I'm fairly disappointed in this release. There's practically no special features, unlike the packed features of Wong Kar-Wai's other Criterion release, In the Mood for Love (2000).
I was also disappointed in the transfer, although a vast improvement over the Rolling Thunders DVD (which I also own), it doesn't look quite as sharp and clear like other blurays I own (particularly compared to the 1962 How the West Was Won). I suspect it has to do with the source material... still the colors are very vibrant in the Chungking Express bluray.
Other extra is a little booklet/pamphlet and the case is in digipak - which is rare with blurays. I was hoping they'd go with the book-format that you see with Warner Brothers (Dirty Harry, Natural Born Killers), but still better than the standard plastic case.
I can't recommend the bluray to you, unless you find it at a decent price. Criterion's prices are normally $30+ per DVD, and in this weak economy, you may want to pick it up used or not at all. Hey, there's always Netflix.
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I love the soundtrack on this movie. If you've seen the film, you won't be able to get The Mamas and the Pappas' "California Dreamin'" out of your head. The song is repeatedly played as Faye Wong's character's theme song.
Other songs in the movie you might be able to pick out is Faye Wong's very faithful Chinese version of the Cranberries' song "Dreams". Fay Wong (王菲) recorded two version of the "Dreams" song in both Cantonese and Mandarin (the Mandarin version would later appear on another film called Somebody in My Dream).
Oh, if you haven't figured it out, the beautiful Wong is better known for being a pop singer out of Hong Kong. I believe Chungking Express might have been her first film. She would later go on to other film works, including reuniting with Kar-Wai for 2046 (a film that I bought as a special 3-disc set, but wasn't in love with it as Kar-Wai's other films).
W♥M UPDATE
Also, there's a lot of background stuff that I've been doing lately. With google being evil, the new search is courtesy of Atomz. Since it's a free account, the service is limited to 500 pages and there are advertisements in the search results (they aren't that intrusive).
So give the search a try and let me know what you think. If you don't have access to email, you can now fill out a simple form (note: you can also use this to suggest bands or complaints).
01/15/2009 21:01:14 ♥ vu (
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Comments
This has been on my "to watch" list for years. I liked Fallen Angels. Have you seen 2046 or My Blueberry Nights?
The new search module seems OK.
No problems so far.
Atomz appeared to be the best free solution, and since it looks enough like Google, I think the transition will be seamless enough. I happen to use the AdBlock Plus extension and so I don't see the ads.
The search hits are great; very relevant. I seemed to have few problems finding articles quickly. I guess we'll see over the long haul whether 500 pages is limiting (I seem to remember you mentioning 600, though) but if I understood you right this is not a problem at all right now.
Gah, I just realize how geeky I sound but I love technical details...
Start Time: 01/14/2009 22:50:24 CST End Time: 01/14/2009 23:05:04 CST (that's not bad to index 500 pages in 15 minutes.)
Elapsed Time: 14 minutes 40 seconds Pages Indexed: 521 pages Words/Bytes Indexed: 959338 words / 52430946 bytes
I think 500+ pages are good enough for what you're doing, but if you consider that we produced 698 articles in 2007 and 587 artist in 2008, 500-ish pages will be a problem later down the road when searching might not give you back good/or any results.
I'll have to see more on atomz's pricing, but I think I thought I saw it was $80 a year for 5000 pages, which seems like a bargain considering one of their competitor was charging about $300 a year.
There's a lot of money in search, apparently.