Wong Kar-Wai's Love Odysseys: Chungking Express: Battle of the BluRays

Chungking Express is the only WKW movie that has gotten two important and really different BD releases so far. All the others are either available in just one single country or the different releases don't differ too much from each other. In December 2008, Criterion put out their BD of Chungking Express in the USA and the British label Artificial Eye followed in the beginning of 2009.

Reviews of the former were overall quite laudatory, whereas the latter was said to be inferior, due to the darker image. Personally, I think that both releases - despite their differences - are satisfying and more. Let's talk about the differences and which one is better regarding several aspects.
First of all, the Criterion disc is double-layered (BD-50) and region-A-locked, the Artificial Eye disc is single-layered (BD-25) and region-free.

IMAGE AND SOUND
The Criterion BD seems to contain an older master of the movie (MPEG-4 AVC, 1080p), as it's not the WKW remaster. We can tell that from the old credits:

The WKW remaster - as used on the Artificial Eye BD (MPEG-4 AVC, 1080p) - has got credits which also contain the English names of the actors:

Now let's talk about the quality of the actual movie. To make it short: Both transfers are clean and show the same amount of detail. While the Criterion BD has got the original aspect ratio of 1,66:1, the Artificial Eye BD appears in 16:9 (1,78:1). It's important to mention that the former gains its aspect ratio by cropping the image on the sides. Anyway, these are quite possibly the correct aspect ratios of the respective movie versions. And there are more differences! The UK BD is darker and rather high-contrast in comparison to its US counterpart. Take a look at these two examples and you should see the differences (first Criterion, then Artificial Eye):

In some instances, the Criterion BD benefits from its brightness and reduced contrast, but sometimes the image is just too bright (example 1). Yet, the high contrast of the Artificial Eye tends to make the film look older (example 2). So, which one is better? I don't know. I probably go for the Artificial Eye, as it contains the movie as WKW wants it to look. Former DVD releases of the WKW remaster look the same regarding brightness and contrast. And even older releases (Artificial Eye DVD of 2004 for example) which weren't remastered by WKW himself look equally dark. In the end, it's a matter of personal taste and if you go for the choice of the director or not. Interesting to note is that the UK BD is a BD-25 only, but the transfer doesn't suffer from that.
Now let's switch to the sound. The sound is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track on both discs. This means that the original stereo mix is not on any version. I haven't compared the two 5.1 tracks yet, but I know that they sound suprisingly great and are probably the same. They are once again the remastered soundtracks by WKW. This means the sound atmosphere has changed a bit. While the dominant song of the second episode of the movie, "California Dreaming", can be heard really, really loud in the old stereo mix, it now appears quieter and with added reverb. Personally, in this case I prefer the old mix. The 5.1 tracks are great anyway, as the sound is cristal clear - it always sounded pretty scratchy with lots of distortion on the stereo mix that I listened to.
Both BDs contain optional English subtitles. Criterion even improved the subtitles and corrected some translations and added subtitles for the Cantonese version of the Cranberries' song "Dreams" whose lyrics differ from the original version.
Additionally, here are some technical aspects for the Criterion disc:
Size: 31.393.892.352 bytes
Length: 1:42:56
Total Bitrate: 40,66 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 34754 kbps / 1080p / 23,976 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: English / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 3654 kbps / 24-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 24-bit / DN -4dB)
Audio: English / Dolby Digital Audio / 2.0 / 48 kHz / 192 kbps / DN -4dB
Subtitle: English / 31,038 kbps

And here's the same information for the Artificial Eye disc:
Size: 19.267.418.112 bytes
Length: 1:42:12
Total Bitrate: 25,13 Mbps
Video: MPEG-4 AVC Video / 20998 kbps / 1080p / 24 fps / 16:9 / High Profile 4.1
Audio: Chinese / DTS-HD Master Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 2079 kbps / 16-bit (DTS Core: 5.1 / 48 kHz / 1509 kbps / 16-bit)
Audio: Chinese / Dolby Digital Audio / 5.1 / 48 kHz / 640 kbps
Subtitle: English / 21,728 kbps

BONUS FEATURES
Guess what? The bonus features of the BDs also differ from each other. Let's take a look at the Criterion release first. It contains an audio commentary by Asian cinema critic Tony Rayns. I have only listened to short pieces of the commentary yet, but it seems interesting. There is also a nice feature called "timeline", where you can bookmark several scenes and there you are also given kind of chapters of the audio commentary, so you can choose what parts of the commentary track you want to hear. Next is a 1996 episode a British television series called "Moving Pictures" (12min, MPEG-2, upscaled to 1080p, but windowboxed). It features WKW and Christopher Doyle at several locations of Chungking Express as they talk about how they shot the movie. They also talk a bit about Days Of Being Wild and Fallen Angels, which was new at that time.

We also get the US trailer for Chungking Express (MPEG-2, 1080p). It's in HD, but it looks used and it can't live up to the quality of the main feature version on the disc. It's nice to have it in HD though.

Last but not least: There is a booklet! It contains an essay by Amy Taubin called "Electric Youth" (to me it was rather boring), a list of chapter, credits and some notes about the transfer: "Chunking Express is presented in the director's requested aspect ratio of 1,66:1. [...] This new high-definition digital transfer was created on a Spirit 2K Datacine from a 35mm internegative and a 35mm interpositive. Thousands of instances of dirt, debris and scratches were removed using the MTI Digital Restoration System and Pixel Farm's PFClean. The original soundtrack was remastered by Tu Duu-chih at 3H Sound Studio in Taipei, under the supervision of Wong Kar-Wai. Audio restauration tools have been used to reduce clicks, pops, hiss and crackle." - Great to get this information!
Now let's take a look at the UK counterpart. There's an introduction to the movie by Quentin Tarantino. Okay, I like Tarantino's movies, but does he have to appear everywhere? He recorded that interview when he released Chungking Express in the USA on DVD in 2001 I think. But hell, it's not too interesting and we don't really need it.

Next is a bonus feature (14min altogether) which is called "Interview with Wong Kar-Wai". This rather is a featurette, containing interview clips and deleted scenes / shots. It's great to see these, as the movie could have easily become something very different. The first chapter is called "The Star" and focuses on the first episode of the movie. WKW explains the original storyline and then we also get to see deleted scenes that were shot for it. "California Dreaming" is about the second episode which basically contains the same kind of plot in the deleted scenes, but with some slight changes. The third chapter, "Baroque", explains how the film was shot. Deleted shots are featured here also. There is also an interview clip with Christopher Doyle where he visits the filming locations of Chungking Express. He seems drunk as always and even has to be pulled away from a girl in a bar. He basically talk about the history of the movie and the ever changing Hongkong. This interview and the one with Wong Kar-Wai were taken from a Japanese WKW DVD collection. Optional English subtitles are provided for all of them. All the interviews are presented in PAL SD.

Then there's a HD trailer, but not the same as the one on the US BD. It's the original one whose quality is better, but not great at all. Only the credits look great, as they were rendered newly.

At last, there also filmographies for both WKW and Christopher Doyle available.
Bonus features are interesting on both releases, but I think the UK BD has a little more to offer. The best is to have everything, of course.

MY CONCLUSION:
Buy both. The extras on either disc are simply too essential not to own them and you won't be able to know which transfer you like better if you haven't seen both of them in moving pictures.