Learning From Music and Film: Chungking Express and Wong Faye

Today, I've got a double dip of music AND film for you!

On November 25th, one of my favorite Hong Kong films - Chungking Express - gets a reboot and release on DVD, courtesy of Criterion.

Chungking Express combines seven of my favorite things: the neighborhoods and alleys of Hong Kong, director Wong Kar Wai, actors Tony Leung and Brigitte Lin, cinematographer Chris Doyle, superstar singer Faye Wong, and Faye's excellent reworking of the Cranberries song "Dreams".

Here's a montage from the movie, backed by "Dreams". This clip shows Faye sneaking into Tony's apartment (repeatedly) while she cleans it up and tries to get to know him.

As you'll note, she's trying to figure out if he has a girlfriend.

A few notes

• In the opening thirty seconds, you'll notice a 'people mover' or escalator outside the window. This was (maybe still is) the longest escalator system in the world, called the Mid-levels escalator. It moves people up the hill in Hong Kong. Here's a link with more shots.
• This little apartment is a pretty typical one in Hong Kong.
• Learn more about Faye Wong, an icon of the Chinese music industry here 
• imdb entry on Chungking Express
• In 2005, Time Magazine chose Chungking Express as one of the All-Time 100 Best Films.

Range of Vision - The World Through My Lens

This is a continuing series of slideshows from my travels. Enjoy!


Range of Vision 2.o - Wildlife

Here are some of my favorite wildlife photos that I've taken.

Range of Vision 1.o - Images of Asia I meet a lot of people as I travel throughout Asia and the world, and I take a lot of photos of them. Here are 125 of my favorite people photos .





Technical/design note:
I've been struggling for years with how best to present my photos.
I don't like just hanging them up on the web where anyone can download and use them.
On the other hand, I want friends, family and colleagues to be able to see the images.

My compromises has been:

• to post small photos, like I did at rangeofvision (too small)
• to watermark the images, like I do at hues.smugmug.com and deviantart.com (too distracting)
• to use a password-protected gallery and send out invite (too restrictive)

None of these were satisfactory, so I'm trying a different option - photos presented as video, assembled using Picasa software..

Let me know what you think!