two cops, he qiwu (takeshi kaneshiro) and badge 633 (tony leung), are reeling from the breakdown of their relationships; they also both frequent the 'midnight express' kebab shop and chat with the owner (piggy chan) about their lovelorn lives. qiwu dwells on his loss, buying a tin of pineapple slices each day. all with the expiry date of may 1st 1994. the day when he will have been apart from may (his ex) for one month. when april 30th arrives, he decides he will fall in love with the next woman he sees; this happens to be a chain-smoking woman in a blonde wig, sunglasses and raincoat (brigitte lin). for her, may 1st has a different meaning - it is a deadline for her to complete a drug smuggling operation, which seems to be spiralling out of her control.

badge 633 is cut up about being dumped by the air stewardess (valerie chow) and, when not on patrol, he spends his life moping around his apartment, berating household objects for not dealing well with the split. meanwhile, faye (faye wong), the cousin of the kebab shop owner, who has started working there whilst she saves up money to go travelling, takes an interest in 633. still, he seems too distracted by his own loss to notice, so she decides to start sneaking in to his apartment and playing around with it.

i'm a little shocked to think that it's well over a decade since i last watched this all the way through. it's a great little film and one which shows everyone involved at their best. the cast are great; brigitte lin is glacial, takeshi kaneshiro is like some kind of man-puppy, tony leung exudes some kind of effortless charisma and faye wong is just adorable.

for wong kar-wai and christopher doyle; a somewhat cathartic exercise in film-making, have gone through a protracted shoot and editing (this was actually filmed entirely during a two month break in the editing process) for 'ashes of time'. so, instead of something epic, ancient and filled with fantasy, they went for something, short, modern and daydream-like. wong wrote the script, expanding on a trio of ideas for the film - only two were used here and the third became 'fallen angels' - and it was shot within twenty-three days in tsi sha tsui and central.

any how, a really good fun film to watch, especially as i get to laugh at my brother walking down lan kwai fong (the street the kebab shop is on) as he mooches past tony leung and has a stare at what he said was an unusually relaxed looking cop...

great stuff...