- Two melancholic Hong Kong policemen fall in love: one with a mysterious female underworld figure, the other with a beautiful and ethereal waitress at a late-night restaurant he frequents.
- Wong Kar-Wai's movie about two love-struck cops is filmed in impressionistic splashes of motion and color. The first half deals with Cop 223, who has broken up with his girlfriend of five years. He purchases a tin of pineapples with an expiration date of May 1 each day for a month. By the end of that time, he feels that he will either be rejoined with his love or that it too will have expired forever. The second half shows Cop 663 dealing with his breakup with his flight attendant girlfriend. He talks to his apartment furnishings until he meets a new girl at a local lunch counter.—Tad Dibbern <DIBBERN_D@a1.mscf.upenn.edu>
- Two individual stories of lovelorn Hong Kong police officers are told against the backdrop of the bustling but often lonely concrete jungle that is the city, the two stories loosely tied by the same western fast food stall in the Chungking Mansions they routinely frequent. In the first story, He Qiwu, badge number 223, is a plainclothes officer. On April 1, 1994, May, his girlfriend of five years, breaks up with him. He goes through a daily ritual to deal with the news, he hoping the break up is a joke seeing as to the day she tells him. That ritual will end on May 1 - his twenty-fifth birthday - which if she does not return to him by then, he will come to the conclusion that it is not a joke and try to move on without her. The day of his birthday is altered not by May's return, but by his encounter with an Asian woman wearing a trench coat and a blond wig, to who he is instantly attracted, not knowing that she has had a difficult day in her "job" as a drug smuggler. In the second story, Officer 663, a beat cop, has routinely ordered a chef salad at the stall for his girlfriend, a flight attendant he met on a flight she was working. After they embarked on a relationship, he thought she would be the one. However, she breaking up with him coincides with a young woman, the owner's cousin, starting her temporary employment at the stall, she who has a penchant for listening to The Mamas and the Papas' "California Dreamin'" very loudly. As she and the others working at the stall quietly follow 663 dealing with the break-up, 663 may be too distraught to notice that she might like to take the flight attendant's place in his life, she who is able to insinuate herself in his life in ways he may not fully comprehend. She takes the tact that she does as being in the same position he is with the flight attendant.—Huggo
- Having broken up with his girlfriend, to ease the pain, the lonely, lovelorn police officer, He Qiwu, consumes thirty cans of pineapple in remembrance of her birthday and bygone, once-happy times. In contrast, a mysterious woman hiding behind a pair of dark sunglasses, wearing a blonde wig and an anorak, yearns for closure. Then, by a twist of fate, the two perfect strangers will cross paths, eager to share their loneliness for a while. Elsewhere in the bustling city, gloomy, recently dumped Officer 663 has a chance encounter with quirky Faye, a new girl working at a local lunch counter, obsessed with The Mamas and the Papas' song, California Dreamin'. Now, urban alienation, love, loss, unbreakable life patterns, and faded memories define the existence of four city dwellers. Can their parallel courses intersect?—Nick Riganas
- Two stories, two lovelorn cops, two objects of desire: one a big-time heroin dealer in deep trouble with her boss after the cargo disappears, the other a seriously flaky take-out waitress who inadvertently gets hold of the keys to her admirer's apartment, all shot in a breathless kaleidoscope of color and hand-held camera work to create a mesmerizing portrait of Hong Kong in the 1990s.—Michael Brooke <michael@everyman.demon.co.uk>
- The movie comprises two different stories, told one after the other, each about a romance involving a policeman. Aside for a brief moment when the first story ends and the second begins, the two stories do not interconnect. However, the three main characters from the second story each momentarily appear during the first.
First story
The first story concerns Taiwan-born cop He Qiwu, also known as Cop 223 (played by Kaneshiro). Qiwu's girlfriend May broke up with him on April 1 (April Fool's Day). His birthday is May 1 and he chooses to wait for May for a month before moving on. Every day he buys a tin of pineapple with an expiration date of May 1. By the end of this time, he feels that he will either be rejoined with his love or that it will have expired forever. Meanwhile, a woman in a blonde wig (played by Brigitte Lin) tries to survive in the drug underworld after a smuggling operation goes sour. On May 1, Qiwu, looking for romance, approaches the woman in the blonde wig at a bar (the Bottoms Up Club). However, she is exhausted and falls asleep in a hotel room, leaving him to watch movies alone. She leaves in the morning and shoots the drug baron (played by Thom Baker) who had set her up. Qiwu goes jogging and receives a message from her on his pager wishing him a happy birthday. He then visits his usual snack food store where he collides with a new staff member, Faye. At this point, a new story begins.
Second story
In the second story, the unnamed Cop 663 (played by Tony Leung) is similarly dealing with a breakup, this time from a flight attendant (Valerie Chow). He meets Faye, the new girl at the snack bar (played by Faye Wong). She falls for him in secret, and frequently breaks into his apartment during the day to redecorate and "improve" his living situation. Gradually, her ploys help Cop 663 to cheer up, and he eventually realises that Faye likes him and arranges a date at the restaurant 'California'. However, Faye stands him up after a last-minute decision to see the world before settling down; she leaves him a fake boarding pass with a date a year from now. In the last scene, Faye arrives back in Hong Kong, now a flight attendant; she finds that Cop 663 has bought the snack bar and is converting it into a restaurant. Their future however always remains ambivalent.
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