Matt Noller

2 weeks ago | slantmagazine.com | Matt Noller |Ed Gonzalez

During the troubled production of Ashes of Time, which was supposed to be his third film, Wong Kar-wai took some time off and did what anyone in his position would do: made another movie. And he did it with a fast-paced, highly improvisatory shooting schedule, writing pages of the script during the day and shooting them at night. The result, Chungking Express, is among Wong’s most exciting films and is an early precursor to the expressive odes to romantic longing that have come to define his work.