Dennis Brown: Things In Life
From Hold Tight (Live & Learn, 1986). Also available on Money In My Pocket.
Faye Wong: Dream Person
From Random Thinking (?, 1994). Also available on Chungking Express Soundtrack (?, 2003)
For as much praise as Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai gets for his visual imagination, WKW also showcases a superb taste in music. I was tempted to combine today’s post with music from In the Mood For Love but I’m just going to stick to this pair from his Chungking Express. If you’ve never seen it – dudes and dudettes: walk thee to a video store (or Netflix) and rent that shit. You won’t be sorry (though you may never want to eat a can of pineapples again).
For those who haven’t seen it, the film is split into two distinct vignettes, the first involving Takeshi Kaneshiro and Brigette Lin…and at least two, three times, there is a bar scene where Dennis Brown’s “Things in Life” is playing on the jukebox. This song is so damn infectious: after I played it once, my g.f. Sharon began to singing the first line over and over, almost unconsciously. One of the best songs ever.
In the second vignette, Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Faye Wong’s lives intersect and at the very end of the film, Wong’s “Dream Person,” a cover of the Cranberries’ big hit, “Dreams,” comes on. The moment where it drops in is perfect: there is something so ebullient about this song – even if you don’t understand Wong’s lyrics in Chinese, the feel and spirit just nails down the emotion invoked at the film’s end.
(This goes to out HH, the biggest WKW fan I know)
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