Chungking Express

Consisting of two similar but unrelated stories, Chungking Express details the lonely lives of four of Hong Kong's most isolated, disconnected inhabitants as they cross paths. The characters' sole commonality is Hong Kong's urban landscape, which swoons with neon-lit melancholy thanks to Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle’s eye-popping camerawork. The result is a film infused with the melancholy of random, fleeting urban encounters as it also crackles with a rare vitality, reflecting both the conflicting emotions of city life in general and the bustle and uncertainty of Hong Kong in the anxious years leading up to its 1997 handover to China. (Jonathan Crow)