Chungking Express

Wong Kar-wai's Hong Kong film is regarded in critical circles as a cult classic and the pinnacle of his formally unconventional style - cinematographers shoot almost exclusively handheld, and the dramatic structure is deliberately loose.

The film consists of two independent stories: both follow police officers dealing with their partners' departures, moving on the margins of society - among drug smugglers and snack bar vendors. Lightly sketched plots serve as a stylized study of loneliness amid crowds, the inability to communicate, and unfulfilled love.

At the same time, the film is a portrait of hectic, overcrowded Hong Kong - the "city of a thousand immigrants", as the former British colony was once nicknamed.