chungking express essay

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Chungking Express: Electric Youth

By Amy Taubin

Nov 16, 2008

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C hungking Express (1994) was the Masculin féminin of the 1990s, a pop art movie about cool twentysomethings looking for love in the city that has replaced Paris as the center of the world-cinema imagination. What Jean-Luc Godard did for “the generation of Marx and Coca-Cola” in the mid-1960s, Wong Kar-wai did for restless Hong Kong youth during the anxious decade that preceded the handoff to China. Masculin féminin (1966) and Chungking Express were the first films in which their respective directors focused predominantly on characters who were around ten years their juniors. This generation gap imparts a sense of distance mixed with tenderness, and also focuses the films on the dominant issue for heterosexual young adults: how to negotiate the desire and confusion they feel vis-à-vis the opposite sex. Made while Wong was taking a break from the lengthy, difficult post­production of his only martial arts period picture, Ashes of Time (1994), Chungking Express was intended as a money-generating quickie for the director’s Jet Tone company, and indeed the movie, which was made in three months, start to finish, has a wacky spontaneity that is unique in his oeuvre. Wong piled on the commercial elements: the first half is a nod to the gangster thriller, the second is pure screwball romance. The protagonists of both sections are cops, and the four main actors are all Asian box office attractions: pop music idols Takeshi Kaneshiro and Faye Wong, Hong Kong action/dramatic star Tony Leung Chiu-wai, and veteran actress Brigitte Lin Ching-hsia (the film’s only fortysomething star, coming out of retirement for a cameo appearance as a drug smuggler, fashioned as an homage to another middle-aged cult actress, Gena Rowlands in Gloria ). Again comparing the film with Masculin féminin, the female leads in both are played by singers with youth culture followings. But unlike Masculin féminin ’s Chantal Goya, a pop singer playing the role of a pop singer, Faye Wong in Chungking Express plays a waitress, albeit one who becomes identified with two songs—the Mamas and the Papas’ “California Dreamin’” and a Cantonese cover of the Cranberries’ “Dreams” by a singer named Faye Wong—which accompany her as she works. While the difference in strategy is minimal—at one point or another, both performers either lip-synch or dance to their own recorded voices—the difference between Godard’s and Wong’s depictions of the female characters is enormous. The Goya character is monstrous in her narcissism and vacuity. On the other hand, Wong is as empathetic with Faye Wong’s waitress as he is with the cops played by Kaneshiro and Leung.

In Asia, the film didn’t disappoint, sweeping the Hong Kong Film Awards and doing well at the box office. In the United States, how­ever, the turnout was disappointing, perhaps because Miramax, which distributed  Chungking Express  as a presentation by Quentin Tarantino’s Rolling Thunder company, was perplexed about whether to market it as an art film or an Asian exploitation flick. Nevertheless, the combination of filmmaking pyrotechnics and wistful romance proved irresistible to cinephiles.  Chungking Express  established Wong’s repu­tation as a major auteur, the most glamorous and enigmatic since Godard. It also marked a turning point in his work, a shift in direction that is actually signaled within the film, when the desultory underworld revenge narrative fades away and is replaced by a love story as simple as it is delirious. Writing in 1966 about  Masculin féminin,  Pauline Kael observed that “Godard has liberated his feeling for modern youth from the American gangster-movie framework which limited his expressiveness and his relevance to the non-movie-centered world.” Wong makes the same move in  Chungking Express,  underlining the separation by placing it midway through the film.  The narrative of  Chungking Express  comprises two separate and distinct stories. Although they are thematically related, each has its own central characters and locations. (If you look sharply, however, you can catch glimpses of characters from the second part in a few shots in the first.) The first story harks back to the genre action elements of Wong’s first feature,  As Tears Go By  (1988), while the second section prefigures the romantic yearnings of his later films  Happy Together  (1997),  In the Mood for Love  (2000), and  2046  (2004).  Ashes of Time,  which Wong finally completed shortly after  Chungking Express,  is also a genre action picture but teeters on the brink of abstraction. (In the revised 2008 version,  Ashes of Time Redux,  Wong removes some of the stylistic links to genre, making the narrative even more abstract.) And  Fallen   Angels  (1995), which Wong conceived as the third section of  Chungking Express  but spun off as a separate feature, is a hyperbolic amalgam of gangster violence and mad love, as ungeneric a noir as could be imagined, and not only because the frequent fish-eye-lensed close-ups turn its cast of beauties, male and female, into a bunch of banana noses. Wong’s reputation as an art-house director rests with the three later, increasingly operatic romances— Happy Together, In the Mood for Love,  and  2046 —in part because genre films have never been fully accepted within the art-film canon, and in part because Wong’s mastery of sensuous polyrhythms and lush visual and aural textures was not as fully developed in the earlier films.  Minimally plotted, each section of  Chungking Express  focuses on a lovesick cop who pines for his ex-girlfriend until another woman captures his attention. One might venture that the first section, which opens with one of Wong’s signature step-printed chase sequences, this one through the teeming corridors and blind alleys of Chungking Mansions—a warren of flophouses, cut-rate shops, and import-export “businesses” that is a haven to criminals and the poor of all nations—is something of a blind alley itself, one which Wong drops after less than forty minutes in favor of a more promising romantic situation. It’s as if the film itself is looking for love in the same way that its characters are—by trial and error. The protagonist of the first section is a plainclothes cop, officer no. 223 (Kaneshiro), who is seen running hard in that opening chase scene and in another, shorter chase where he makes a collar, pretty much the only exercise of his profession in the film. Mostly what no. 223 does is obsess about his girlfriend, May, who jilted him on April Fools’ Day. No. 223 has given May until May 1, his twenty-fifth birthday, to come back to him. He marks the days of this countdown by buying cans of pineapple (“May loves pineapple,” he tells us in voice-over), each dated to expire on May 1. If she doesn’t call him on his birthday, the relation­ship will expire as well. It is doubtful that May (whom we never see in the film) knows or, if she did, would care at all about this ultimatum.  But like objects in a dream, the pineapple cans, and their looming sell-by date, condense multiple meanings and associations. May was no. 223’s number-one girlfriend, but he must let go of his love for her (“When did everything start having an expiration date?” he muses) in order to move on to the next stage of his life, a transition marked by his birthday. Then there is the canned pineapple itself, whose mass-produced sweetness is as cloying as the puppy love no. 223 feels. In fact, with May 1 only hours away, he tries to feed some of the syrupy stuff to his dog, who, like May, manifests no interest in such an absurd ritual of devotion. But no. 223’s eating orgy—he downs all thirty cans—transfers his heartache to his tummy, so that in puking up the pineapple he is relieved of the past and immediately fancies himself in love with the next woman he meets.  Hovering over the web of associations that defines the psyche of no. 223 is another countdown: in 1994, the handover of Hong Kong to China was only three years away. Comic anxiety about sex and romance is a front for the deeper fear that political freedom­—an entire way of life—has an expiration date in the near future. The most striking difference between  Masculin féminin  and  Chungking Express  is the constant political activity and chatter in the former and its total absence in the latter. While this difference reflects a change in youth culture from the 1960s to the 1990s, it doesn’t mean that Wong is an apolitical director. Rather, like Eastern European filmmakers of the Soviet era or, more to the point, like some of his Chinese mainland contemporaries, he smuggles politics into his films through metaphor. Thus the loaded meaning of the expiration date of canned goods.

The darker aspect of the collective anxiety about the handover is reflected in the situation of Brigitte Lin’s blonde-wigged gangster. When someone slips her a can of sardines dated May 1, she gets the message: time is running out for her. If she doesn’t deliver the drugs that her two-timing couriers have stolen, she will die. She and no. 223 run into each other—literally collide—in the opening chase sequence. A smart cop would spot that her wig, dark glasses, and trench coat are a disguise, but no. 223 doesn’t realize then, or when he picks her up in a bar exactly “fifty-seven hours later,” that she is potentially the collar of a lifetime. His vision clouded, like so many of Wong’s male protagonists, by déjà vu—by the nearly forgotten “impact” of their first encounter—he fancies himself in love with her. They wind up in a hotel room, where she instantly falls asleep and he consumes four chef salads (there is hardly a scene in the film that doesn’t involve eating), and then removes her shoes and polishes them before leaving. Their relationship is utterly chaste, and yet the small acts of tenderness they extend to each other free them both—her to take care of business and him to resume his search for love. Chungking Express,  the title under which the film was released in the United States, is not a direct translation of the original Hong Kong title,  Chung hing sam lam  ( Chungking Jungle ). The U.S. title suggests the kind of synthetic space that only exists in dreams or movies—Chungking referring to Chungking Mansions, the primary location of the first section, and Express to the Midnight Express, the popular take-out restaurant around which the action of the second part revolves. The Midnight Express has already figured in the first section: it’s where no. 223 goes to call his answering service (his password is “love you for ten thousand years”) to find out if there have been any calls from the elusive May. The proprietor tries to fix him up with one of his waitresses, who is also named May, but no. 223 isn’t interested. When he stops at the Midnight Express after his night with the mysterious blonde, May has moved on, and the proprietor suggests that no. 223 try the new waitress, Faye (Faye Wong). No. 223 accidentally sees an Indian man washing windows and responds, “Do you think I go out with guys?” Hopelessly confused—or maybe just a bit stupid—no. 223 proves himself not yet ready for love. He leaves the Midnight Express and is never seen again. As far as the narrative of the film is concerned, his story is over.

Into his place steps uniform cop no. 663 (Leung), who routinely stops by the Midnight Express to pick up a chef salad for his flight attendant girlfriend. Wong gives Leung, who will become his filmic alter ego, an entrance to die for. The shot is ostensibly from Faye’s point of view, but as no. 663 walks into close-up, she’s not the only one instantly smitten by the most soulful set of peepers in contemporary cinema. There is, however, someone who is immune to his charms, and soon no. 663 is jilted just like no. 223. Faye, using the keys that his ex-girlfriend drops at the Midnight Express, begins visiting no. 663’s apartment while he’s walking the beat, to do a bit of housecleaning. Wong will use this home-invasion ploy to more carnal effect in  Fallen Angels,  but nothing else in his films comes close to the giddiness with which Faye applies herself to housework as transgression, swiveling to the beat of “Dreams” on the soundtrack, or her delirious shift from joy to anguish when, crawling around in no. 663’s bed, ostensibly to straighten the sheets, she finds a woman’s long black hair under the pillow. In her first major acting role, Faye Wong takes over the film and runs with it. Her comic timing and her impulsiveness recall Katharine Hepburn in  Bringing Up Baby —an association underscored when she leaves a huge toy cat, in this case a Garfield doll (the director would never be so obvious as to make it a stuffed leopard), in no. 663’s apartment as a substitute for the large white teddy bear left there by his ex.  As in  Bringing Up Baby,  opposites attract. No. 663, like the Cary Grant character, is an introvert, while Faye, like the Hepburn character, is dizzyingly extroverted. He’s so lost in his own head that he talks to a bar of soap to keep himself company. Not only does no. 663 fail to notice that Faye is gaga over him, he’s unaware that she’s been secretly transforming his apartment, until they come face-to-face at his front door—she’s leaving, he’s arriving, and when she sees him she’s so discombobulated that she slams the door in his face. It may be the only laugh-out-loud moment in Wong’s oeuvre. The two actors have terrific chemistry: their brief scenes together are more than sexy; they have an innocence that never returns to Wong’s movies after  Chungking Express —a fling of a film, where regret is fleeting and joy triumphs, though who knows for how long.

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The Slow-Fast Effect in ‘Chungking Express’ Explained

“At the high point of our intimacy, we were just 0.01 cm from each other.”

Published April 5, 2022 Features , Movies By Meg Shields Disclaimer When you purchase through affiliate links on our site, we may earn a commission.

Welcome to The Queue — your daily distraction of curated video content sourced from across the web. Today, we’re watching a video essay that unpacks how (and why) Chungking Express creates its iconic slow-but-fast effect.

Released in 1994,  Chungking Express tells the story of two policemen in Hong Kong reeling from their respective breakups. Then each of them falls in love, the hot-headed Cop 223 ( Takeshi Kaneshiro ) with a wig-sporting femme fatale who turns out to be a deadly drug dealer and the melancholic Cop 663 ( Tony Leung ) with an ethereal server at a takeaway restaurant. Despite the similarities of their stories, both men have very different relationships with time … and with the way that time inflects their relationships.

Where Cop 223 is decisive and action-oriented, Cop 663 lacks initiative and is a bit of a slow-mover, preferring to give himself over to the regularities of routine than to leap headfirst into the unknown. Chungking Express is a story (well,  two  stories) keenly interested in time, habits, and expiration dates. This is, as is the case with much of Wong Kar-wai’s work, no doubt another refraction of the director’s career-long interest in reifying the anxieties of the infamous British lease on his homeland ; a looming deadline that permeated every aspect of local life.

Both of the stories (and policemen) in  Chungking Express  have very different relationships to the experience of time. And both stories’ cinematographers — Andrew Lau and Christopher Doyle — capture those different experiences with powerful variations of a striking visual trick: a trippy slow-but-fast-motion effect.

As the video essay below explains in further detail, the effect is the result of two related processes: step printing and under-cranking. To make a long story short (and to avoid spoiling too much of the video), step printing has to do with how many frames we’re seeing and the under-cranking affects the blurriness of the movement. But as with most technical explanations, seeing (rather than reading) how things are done is always more fun. So, without further ado:

Watch “How did they do this in Chungking Express?”:

Who made this.

This video essay on the slow-but-fast effect in Chungking Express  is by Canadian video essayist  Alex Boucher . Their videos cover a wide range of topics, from filmography rankings to more theoretical essays and opinion pieces. You can subscribe to their YouTube account here . And you can follow them over at Letterboxd here .

More videos like this

• For another taste of  Alex Boucher ‘s work outside of the Chungking Express time effect, here’s their essay on the subversive cinematography of Peter Bogdanovich’s 1973 dramedy  Paper Moon .
• A Void In Frame  has its own video essay on the more thematic role of speed and time in Chungking Express. 
• Here’s  Spikima Movies  with several answers to the eternal question: why are  Wong Kar-wai films so dreamy?
• Even when he’s working at varying budget levels, Wong Kar-Wai always manages to put his stamp on his work. Here’s  In Depth Cine with a look at how the filmmaker shoots at three different budget levels .

Tagged with: Chungking Express The Queue

Meg Shields

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Table of contents

What is chungking express about, 1. the pain of loneliness, 2. finding your identity, 3. real love takes time, 2. expiration dates, 3. destinations, 5. anthropomorphism.

• Why is the movie called Chungking Express?

Chungking Express is a film about lonely people trying to discover their identity while finding true love. The urban environment of Hong Kong heightens the characters’ sense of loneliness and increases their desire to be in a meaningful relationship.

The movie has two parts with two different stories, but there are several crossover elements between those stories. Common occurrences that link these two tales include diegetic music, expiration dates, speaking and assigning meaning to inanimate objects, etc. These elements bind the stories to show how social isolation and the burning desire to find love affects all kinds of people in different environments.

Director Wong Kar-Wai’s hypnotic stylistic choices highlights the tension of these characters’ lives. At times the film is slow and contemplative, emphasizing the transitory nature of life; while at other moments the pacing is chaotic and disordered, showcasing the manic desire to make sense of every little moment that passes by. Together, these stylistic approaches accentuate the patience required for self-discovery: you can’t find love until you find yourself. You can’t lose sight amidst the chaos, and you must learn to reflect within the solitude. Once you learn to control your surroundings and build your own space, you can create a healthy foundation for love.

• Brigitte Lin – woman in blonde wig
• Takeshi Kaneshiro – Cop 223
• Faye Wong – Faye
• Tony Leung Chiu-Wai – Cop 663
• Valerie Chow – the flight attendant
• Chan Kam-Chuen – the manager Midnight Express

The themes and motifs of Chungking Express

Wong Kar-wai had built a respectable following after his first two films, As Tears Go By and Days of Being Wild , gained the respects of critics worldwide. After the success of those two projects, Wong became the premier face of the Hong Kong New Wave.

But he reached brand new heights with his third film: Chungking Express . Made “like a student film,” Wong crafted together a movie that has stood the test of time better than any of his other work. This affectionate ode to lovestruck young adults is stirring, experimental, and relatable all at once.

With that said… Chungking Express is a strange film, right? The movie contains two stories where characters don’t crossover. There are scenes where the same songs play over and over again. And both stories in the film don’t have any real resolution.

So what exactly is Chungking Express about?

If we observe the main themes and motifs of the film, the answer to that question becomes much clearer. So if this is your first time watching the movie, or if you’re looking for some guidance upon rewatch, then here are the key themes and motifs to watch for that could enhance the viewing experience.

The urban environment of Chungking Express is crucial to understand the three main themes of the film. An abundance of buildings, a lack of space, packed to the brim with people—it’s enough to make you feel small and out of place.

That’s at least the case with the main characters in Wong’s breakout film. They are all disconnected, lonely individuals who believe a romantic partner can break them free of their bleak situations. But until they find that partner, ennui and desolation consumes them.

As the characters of Chungking Express painstakingly attempt to break free from their solitude, we see them trying to discover who they truly are. In their urban environments—where there’s a new person everywhere you turn—this can feel daunting. Two of the characters (Cop 663 and the women in the blonde wig) don’t even have names! This is where several of the motifs come into play (we’ll get to those down below).

Because of each character’s depression, they ironically fail to recognize that a chance at real love is standing right in front of them—which leaves other characters in the cold. Real love can be vibrant and uplifting, but you also need the proper foundation for that love to grow. We see the characters of Chungking Express trying to find each other at the right time and place so that their love can flourish.

An interesting repeating element of Chungking Express is the repetition of certain songs:

• “Things in Life” by Dennis Brown
• “California Dreamin'” by The Mamas and the Papas
• “Dreams” by The Cranberries
• “What a Diff’rence a Day Has Made” by Dinah Washington

These songs are often diegetic, meaning the characters themselves are playing the songs in-scene. We can relate this to the theme of combatting loneliness, as well as the theme of finding your identity. The characters are trying to control the mood and direction of their narratives. They find solace in these songs.

You can think about the soundtrack on a surface level: Faye wants to visit California, so she often plays “California Dreamin.'” Or you can think about it on an emotional level: Faye feels lost in the urban environment of Hong Kong and wishes to escape to the dreamy, sunny land of California.

He Qiwu becomes obsessed with eating pineapple that will expire on May 1 because the woman he loves, May, enjoyed the fruit. The act of eating food that’s about to expire is cathartic for He Qiwu. It’s a strange way of grappling with his loneliness and getting over the breakup.

Meanwhile, we see Faye switch the labels on Cop 663’s sardine collection. This can be seen as Faye’s small way of being part of the cop’s everyday environment. It could also be related to Faye’s inability (and desire) to control time and space in Cop 663’s life.

Two different characters in the movie go to airports: the woman in the blonde wig and Faye. The former uses the airport as a transport for her drug business, while the latter boards a flight to California.

Both instances are revealing of how characters fight their loneliness. The woman in the blonde wig remains in Hong Kong—she stews in her solitude and pushes others away. Meanwhile, Faye needs to escape the urban environment so that she can find herself and be ready to love the cop.

Let’s not forget the final lines of the film (major spoiler alert here, by the way) . While writing a boarding pass for the cop, Faye asks, “Where do you want to go?” To which Cop 663 responds, “Wherever you want to take me.” At the end of the movie, the cop makes it clear that his destination is her destination.

Two women wear blonde wigs; two men are cops; two women are named May; two women become stewardesses; both Faye and Cop 663 work in the kitchen—yes, there are lots of “doubles” in this movie. But what does that mean?

You can see two of the themes at play here. The easy answer is that the doubles represent a search for one’s identity. Often, a character’s new job (like Faye becoming a stewardess) represents a new direction in life (she needs to escape Hong Kong to collect herself). But on top of that, we see characters actively inserting themselves in other characters’ lives by taking on those new roles (a way of fighting loneliness and forcing love).

I know—that’s a big word. But it’s meaning is simple, and it’s something you’ll recognize in Chungking Express : the tendency that some people have to attribute personality and human intentions to inanimate objects.

This, obviously, can be seen as the characters’ struggle with loneliness. The way Cop 663 talks to his towels and soap; the symbolism that He Qiwu acknowledges when eating the pineapple; how Faye interacts with objects in the cop’s apartment. It’s all representative of how each of these characters is dealing with the inability to find romantic connections.

Why is the movie called Chungking Express ?

The words “Chungking” and “Express” are never said together in Chungking Express . But there is both an obvious reason for this title and a symbolic one.

The obvious reason for the title is that each word refers to a key setting in the film. The movie’s first story featuring Cop 223 and the woman in the blonde wig takes place at Chungking Mansions, while the second story featuring Faye and Cop 663 takes place at Midnight Express. The former location is a sprawling, infamous building full of low-budget hotels and shops that used to be rife with criminal activity. While the second location is the restaurant where Faye works and Cope 663 orders his food and drink each night.

But there’s a deeper reason for this title. The “Chungking” in Chungking Mansions refers to the city of Chongqing—a municipality in Southwest China that is currently the fourth largest Chinese city by urban population. Meanwhile, “express” represents something that operates at high speed, such as an express train. These two words accurately capture the lives of the characters, who often feel lost in their giant city, who believe everything is passing by them much too fast. The title refers to the disorientation one feels living in an urban environment while trying to discover your identity, while trying to find true love.

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Movies, tv & music • authentic indie film criticism • forming the future • est. 2014 • rt-approved 🍅, celebrating small moments in ‘chungking express’.

Too often, we fail to recognize the little things. It’s a folly of being human, but rarely has it been  something as felt and pushed against in a fraughtful, isolated year such as 2020. A handwritten letter from a friend lifted my spirits; a response from a panicked text at 2 a.m. offered instant comfort. Some well-timed memes made me laugh , and virtual movie nights fostered a sense of community. These little moments that fit so perfectly in the confines of small spaces –the gaps in life that many overlook in pursuit of greater conquests — have been the lifelines I’ve tethered myself to this year. The beauty in these instances , the gradiosity found in small comforts — these are aspects that have made the work of Wong Kar-wai so formidably moving. He, more than most, understands the humanity found in the mundane and beauty in fleeting, small offerings of kindness. 

The innate sense of loneliness, along with the search for found companionship in all its shapes and sizes, is especially felt in the bustling, crowded and hazy cities with too many bodies and not enough souls. It’s the perfect arena for Wong, a Hong Kong filmmaker, who has a  gravitational pull towards stories of individuals searching for meaning, looking for someone to see them, and uncertain in how to express that want for acknowledgement. He recognizes that “small” isn’t so small at all, but that slight gestures, like handwritten letters, can fill in the gaps, making it so we stay connected, grounded and feel loved . While so many of Wong’s films painstakingly track the day-to-day moments that make a person’s life dynamic, it’s his 1994 classic Chungking Express that executes this type of evanescent storytelling to its fullest potential. 

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If you were to just take a passing glance at the visual artistry of Wong’s work — t ake a look at the images of the breathtaking Criterion box-set coming in 2021  — one would imagine his filmmaking is made up of big moments, the stuff of towering cinema. Again, look to the busy streets of Hong Kong in Chungking Express or the livewire energy of Fallen Angels. The atmosphere could easily be filled with moments that seek solely to take up the visual landscape. Instead, Wong subverts expectations by bringing forth the intimacy of every single moment. Even in the Wuxia epic The Grandmaster, a film that is seemingly built for those highly kinetic fight sequences that barely leave audiences with a second to blink, its best scene is a spar — a dance, really — between Tony Leung’s Ip Man and Zang Ziyi’s Gong Er. Each blow, each sidestep, hints at romanticism; the scene spends almost as much time evaluating facial expressions, like a smirk, as it does on the fight. 

Chungking Express displays that level of unspoken intimacy best. The director features two separate yet slightly connected stories that break the film into pieces. The first is about a woman on the run who meets a heartbroken young man mourning a previous relationship, totally stuck in the past . The second focuses on the mutual attraction between a cop and a young shop attendee. Set in the crowded streets of Hong Kong, Chungking Express tells two stories of found companionship and the unlikely gains that each character gets through them. 

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Dinah Washsington’s “What a Difference a Day Makes” plays in the background at one point in Chungking Express , a line that could become the thesis for the film. Greater still, the movie argues how a moment — a stray look, even — can make an impact. Nowhere is this more finely displayed than in the apartment montage, the film’s most endearing and enduring sequence. The scene is set to Faye Wong’s cover of “Dreams” by The Cranberries. Recall the iconic romantic moments in cinema — the grand declarations , the speeches and dramatic kisses in front of crowds. Few touch the tenderness of the quiet, unseen care that goes into the connection between Wong and Tong Leung as Cop 663. Initially aloof and even cold, Faye demonstrates her affection for Cop 663 by sneaking into his apartment to make slight adjustments to his everyday living — improvements people wouldn’t think about until they were already done — and by doing so, she lifts him out of his earlier heartbreak. 

It would be easy to think of this as the main example — the one big scene — of shared comfort, but Chungking Express is a film that thrives with multiple rewatches to pick up on its wholly humanistic beats. Cop 633’s ex-lover only appears in flashbacks, but the sensual energy between them is still palpable. This isn’t created through any level of gratuity, but images of sweaty bodies in close confined apartments, where they sit close, teasing and sharing intimate glances as the cop pushes a toy car up Faye’s arm. 

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Even the first half of Chungking Express that dedicates itself to Cop 223 (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and the “Woman in Blonde Wig” (Brigitte Lin) takes great lengths to showcase how crucial even fleeting connections can be to a person’s wellbeing. The first part is punchier with a stylized energy that feeds off of Lin’s apathetic, femme fatale persona. Possessing the air of a crime drama — where the protagonist is a lovesick hero, and with a plot that has little actual interest in action — this section’s most poignant sequence isn’t the woman’s runaway or a bar meet-cute drowned in hues of red, but instead the moment in a hotel where the Woman in Blonde Wig collapses, exhausted, and Cop 223 stays up all night watching TV. It’s innocuous at first, resisting immediate impact, but it’s all about the details . Kaneshiro’s character removes the woman’s shoes, and then also cleans them. His hands grasp at fries above his head , and his eyes are solely tuned on the television screen; it’s all so enormously, disarmingly human. Later, when Cop 223 receives a message wishing him happy birthday, the heartbroken young man is given a reason to move forward again. Perhaps it’s optimistic to assume kindness is responded to with kindness , but Chungking Express makes a strong argument for that case. 

All three scenes tie together a film that is both more than the sum of its parts and made impossibly special due to these individual moments. The sequences breathe magic into what was already electric , in-the-moment filmmaking for one of the most romantic productions of Wong’s oeuvre. 

Wong has explored similar concepts in some of his other films, though few capture the same level of whimsy as Chungking Express . Both In the Mood for Love and Happy Together follow individuals lost in a sea of people, either spurned by love , trying to capture new love or holding desperately to a love that’s been nothing but toxic. In the former, so much of the main couple’s troubles and tension come from what is unsaid; they’re simultaneously offering one another a sense of comfort as their respective partners are having an affair with each other, all the while still causing more friction in their lives by not admitting shared feelings. In the Mood for Love is rich in texture and beautifully shot, and so many of the memorable moments can be boiled down to a head on a shoulder , meetings in claustrophobic hallways and near missed opportunities. Happy Together expresses loneliness perhaps the most, and both films highlight the importance of whispers; the characters need to get what they’re feeling out of them, even if no one will hear what they say. Both relationships in the films spotlight what goes unsaid — it’s the empty spaces that are just as important as the over-explained emotions. We need to listen to silence and understand what it’s trying to tell us. 

This sense of isolation could so easily create films that are cold and as desolate as the characters’ emotions themselves, but Wong instead goes for the opposite approach. Heat waves in the films are visceral, and a humid walk at night such as those in Days of Being Wild weigh down the air to cocoon audiences. The warmth in Chungking Express and so many of the director’s films is found in understanding the need for human contact and recognizing how many of us are lonely , even when swallowed whole by crowds of moving bodies, too distracted internally to take notice of one person feeling every bit of weight on their shoulders. What makes Chungking Express so beautiful, so perplexingly formidable, is in how it captures our longing by allowing these lost characters to be noticed. Cop 223 shares spaces with a mysterious woman, and she sees his need for solace by way of kind words. Cop 663 is heartbroken and meandering through life, and Faye offers him a lifeline by way of the simplest small home improvements. The small character gestures in  Chungking Express  give the film its soul, but the spark comes from the act of being seen at all.

Allyson Johnson ( @AllysonAJ ) is the film editor at TheYoungFolks.com as well as a film critic for ThePlaylist.net and CambridgeDay.com. As a member of the Online Film Critic Society and Boston Online Film Critics Association, her writing can also be found at TheMarySue.com and Seacoast Online.

Categories: 1990s , 2020 Film Essays , Comedy , Crime , Drama , Featured , Film Essays

Tagged as: Ally Johnson , Chungking Express , Comedy , Crime , Drama , Wong Kar-wai

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The Film “Chungking Express” by Wong Kar-Wai Essay

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When looking at expectations in terms of editing romantic first meetings, one may assume that people tend to modify their perceptions of the individuals who attract them. In particular, upon encountering someone appealing, a person is likely to think of the situation in an idealistic manner by anticipating the upcoming relationship as pleasant and satisfying. However, love is not always enjoyable and may cause harmful feelings. For instance, while being one of the most romantic movies in cinematography, Chungking Express demonstrates the side of love that society rarely considers (Prince). People form certain expectations of love by editing their first meetings into anticipation of pleasure, but the editing of Chungking Express twists these perceptions by illustrating romance in quite tragic ways.

Chungking Express presents love not simply through the story but primarily based on how the film is edited. The movie has two distinct sections, each being minimally plotted and following a man left by his girlfriend and about to start a new relationship (Taubin). The first fellow is Cop 223, and he is heartbroken and misses his former lover when he meets and then falls for a mysterious woman in a blonde wig (Risley). The second man, Cop 663, is also sad about his past romance when he encounters Faye, a new employee at the snack bar where Cop 663 regularly buys a salad (Risley). Accordingly, as the two stories are not extremely complicated, the film’s unique portrayal of love lies in it is presented. The movie involved a non-linear editing process that encompassed three editors who created remarkable pacing, with some scenes shown in a fast and quite shaky manner and others moderately slow and smooth (Shiwakoti). Consequently, the editing demonstrates that while being in love, both Cop 223 and Cop 663 feel lonely (Risley). Therefore, Chungking Express illustrates that romance is not always affiliated with something pleasant.

Furthermore, Chungking Express’s editing shows that not only past relationships but also new romantic first meetings may lead to negative feelings as well as good ones. As Cop 223 and Cop 663 are still recovering from being left by their prior girlfriends, the two men do not have many expectations about encountering their potential love interests. There are no truly deep confessions of woes, and the movie expresses romance in the least sensual form (Prince). Nonetheless, the pacing of the story suggests that love can be found in the most unlikely places (Prince). Accordingly, Chungking Express portrays quite different emotions, depicting tragedy, loneliness, grid, and mourning, while also exhibiting hope, desire, and acceptance (Prince; Risley). Consequently, the movie presents that love can be perceived in ambiguous ways that are not always positive.

To conclude, the editing of Chungking Express twists the perception that people form pleasant expectations of love by editing their first meetings based on illustrating romance in an unusual manner. Cop 223 does not have truly optimistic anticipations when encountering the woman in a blonde wig, and neither does Cop 663 upon seeing Faye. The reason the two men do not expect much from the meetings is because of experiencing heartbreaks from prior relationships. The film implies that perceptions of potential love interests are not always associated with joy but does so not through the plot but rather through the editing that creates a unique pacing of the story.

Works Cited

Prince, Karen. “ Chungking Express Is Romance in Its Rawest Form .” Goggler , Web.

Risley, Matthew. “ Matthew’s Video Store: “Chungking Express” and Wong Kar-Wai’s Intimate Explorations of Love .” The Guardian , Web.

Shiwakoti, Romash. “ A blog on the film form of “Chungking Express” (1994) (Director: Kar — Wai Wong) .” Medium , Web.

Taubin, Amy. “ Chungking Express: Electric Youth .” Criterion, Web.

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In the Mood for Love

Evaluating 'chungking express' and 'in the mood for love': wong kar-wai’s love stories of loneliness lucas beccaro college.

“The best approach is to let the film make itself, to let it grow organically, day by day.” -Wong Kar-Wai

Wong Kar-Wai is considered to be one of the most influential Asian filmmakers in history, shaping the filmography of directors 20 years later on the other side of the world such as Quentin Tarantino or Barry Jenkins. Through a comparative analysis of Chungking Express (1994) and In the Mood for Love (2000), this essay illustrates how Wong Kar-Wai’s decision to come back to the essence of cinema, with a liberated and innovative approach towards filmmaking, functions to portray the complex components of romantic relationships. On the surface, both of these films are love stories, but the richness of Wong Kar-Wai’s visual poetry and vocabulary makes it impossible to label them. Chungking Express deals with a youth distressed by a generational malaise in Hong Kong; one that is extremely isolated and that cannot connect emotionally with each other anymore. In the Mood for Love portrays a more settled and mature generation, but one that is still influenced by the landscape of its country, facing betrayal and the disillusionment of their marriage. Both being part of the director’s return to an organic cinema, the two films explore...

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