Review: Chungking Express (1994)

“If memories could be canned, would they also have expiry dates? If so, I hope they last for centuries."

This quote resonates throughout Wong Kar-Wai's 1994 film, Chungking Express. While at the surface, the film seems to focus on romance — at its core, it very much highlights themes of loneliness and yearning for love.

Chungking Express adopts a unique structure, telling two separate stories told in a sequence set within contemporary Hong Kong. "Chungking" refers to the Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui, and "Express" refers to the food stand Midnight Express in Lan Kwai Fong.

Of the two stories, the first one focuses on He Qiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), a young cop trying to cope after experiencing a break-up with a woman named May. He inevitably falls in love with a mysterious woman (Brigitte Lin), who sports a blonde wig and red glasses. She's a drug smuggler and prefers to distance herself from other people.

The second story is also about a cop who remains unnamed but is instead called by his police code: 663. He is also trying to recover from a break-up with a flight attendant. He eventually falls in love with a peculiar young woman named Faye (Faye Wong), who works at the fast-food shop he often goes to. Faye instantly falls head over heels for officer 663 (Tony Leaung, a frequent collaborator with Wong Kar-Wai). What would've been seen as a traditional story about love at first sight soon turns invasive when she manages to get into his apartment and ends up cleaning it and redecorating it.

This isn't the type of film you could summarise well into a sentence because it would seemingly be a pretty basic film if you did. Two cops dealing with the heartache of their recent break-up? That's all? The beauty of arthouse and indie cinema is that even the simplest stories can have the most profound themes. They reject what is known as the Classical Hollywood Narrative Paradigm; where there is a clear goal and the protagonist must reach it by defeating the obstacles in the way.

Chungking Express doesn't present itself as a film with an end goal and rather more of a film following the journey of these melancholic characters — like a slice of life film. On paper, the film may seem uncomplicated, but really, it's much deeper than that.

Watching the two separate stories and comparing them, it is clear that the second story is longer in runtime, with the first one running for approximately 40 mins and the second for about an hour. Despite neither of the couples getting together, the story of Faye and officer 663 has a somewhat more apparent ending. Whereas the first story is left very open-ended, mainly because it is the one to open the second story. However, it is a quality of arthouse cinema to have ambiguous endings.

One thing I found myself questioning during the film was why did Wong Kar-Wai decide to have the two male characters be police officers? Was there a specific intention to have these two be so, or was there just not much thought put into it? This is particularly true with the second story and the invasive behaviour Faye possesses by entering officer 663's apartment without his knowledge. As expected from most police officers, which would be to arrest someone for trespassing, officer 663 instead lets Faye go and falls in love with her. She manages to make his apartment alive again, as it was previously a place that was scattered with fragments of his broken relationship, and it continuously reminded him of it.

I appreciate the way Wong Kar-Wai handles the themes of heartbreak and loneliness. A scene that I particularly loved was when He Qiwu is on the phone outside of the fast-food bar and spends an hour or so calling people he knows in hopes to catch up with them, so he doesn't feel alone. Some are either busy or asleep and some he hasn't spoken to in years. This break-up has left him feeling isolated, and he does whatever he can to reach out to someone, which soon changes when he inevitably meets the unnamed woman.

Now looking at the technical aspect of the film, Wong Kar-Wai's stylistic elements simply breathe it to life, with the quirky soundtrack, riveting cinematography and his use of the hand-held camera. Within the first minute of the film, we are thrown into the crowded Metropolis of Hong Kong. Wong Kar-Wai frequently adapts the process of step-printing into his films. This technique requires a scene to be shot in lower frame rates and then duplicated or triplicated to be projected at 24 frames per second. In this case, we witness it in the opening sequence. The unnamed woman with the blonde wig is seen briskly walking before seeing He Qiwu running frantically after someone. Wong Kar-Wai successfully uses the step-printing process to help establish the frantic mood of the urban setting. It's shaky, it's quick, and it can be even overwhelming. I personally thought he did a great job capturing the atmosphere.

But besides its extravagant technical elements, Chungking Express brings forward a sense of realism. It's a film that anyone can simply relate to. We might see ourselves in these characters or at least what they're going through; the heartbreak, the solitude, the yearning for love. Maybe He Qiwu's excessive eating as a coping mechanism is something that resonates with people. The actors' performances also help heighten the sense of realism, their long pauses and shared glances made the film feel a little more authentic — they were subdued, and they weren't over the top. Nonetheless, through the simple but potent dialogue, we see these characters as real people and not just people we're watching through a screen.

This film is so rich both narrative-wise and technically that it has influenced many future directors, such as Barry Jenkins. The award-winning director of the Best Picture winner Moonlight (2016) quoted, "…stylistically it [Chungking Express] was made in a way that was different than any film I've ever seen before." Which relates heavily to globalisation and how that has played a significant factor in Hong Kong cinema's influence on other national cinemas. With it being the 3rd largest film industry after the US and India for decades, there is no denying it has influenced American filmmakers' others worldwide. It is, after all, seen as the hub of Asian filmmaking.

Western pop culture elements are also implemented in the film, which Wong Kar-Wai cleverly puts in. Particularly with the two female characters, we witness Faye frequently playing California Dreamin' by The Mamas & The Papas and her desire to move to the United States. Whereas the unnamed woman from the first story possesses a wig that is a homage to John Cassavetes' Gloria (1980). She's presented as the femme fatale — someone you would see from an Old Hollywood film noir.

Chungking Express is a beautiful arthouse film of Hong Kong cinema about yearning for love, heartache and loneliness. Stylistically and narratively, Wong Kar-Wai tells the story of these characters in an eccentric way which will continue to influence filmmakers from around the world.