eugène almost entered the shop to say hi to the nice guy behind the hanging animals, he thought he was the one who once, a long time ago, had suggested him to try pizza and fish and chips. there are some people one knows before actually knowing them. eugène believes he knew pc223 and pc633 before chung king express was shot. he would normally leave the telephone behind in order to avoid the pain of its silence, and he came by his own means to the theory of running. having had a few discussions with clothing, seeing the film was almost magic to him. it was also touching, he recalls, to see ashes of time while having pretty much the same regrets as the narrators. one of his last nights in hong kong, after cooking and having dinner with some european girls in a youth hostel, unexpectedly he found himself in front of the tv watching the news that his acquaintances would not miss in order to know about the war and s.a.r.s. it was by chance that he saw a piece of news no one else in the room understood: leslie cheung, who had been the main narrator in ashes of time and to whom he so much identified with, had jumped from a high floor of a hotel by which eugène had just passed by and had seen policemen. in a way mr. Cheung's death lengthened eugène's life, eugène could not help thinking that mr. cheung had done for him what he wanted to do but kept procrastinating. on the other hand, eugène declares he knew hong kong first in films. mainly from chung king express and fallen angels, but also from greenaway's pillow book and from ghost in the shell. his disappointment, besides the fact that he was only a tourist, was to arrive too late to see planes flying among the buildings. even though chek lap kok is not bad, it is definitely too far.

w is for wong kar wai

wong kar wai: Chinese film director, based in hong kong. 1958-