Watching certain films makes one feel empty, maybe because it resonates with the emptiness already embedded inside them or perhaps it becomes an outlet for a viewer to drain all their repressed emotions, however, this cathartic experience doesn't release the heaviness a heart holds rather consolidates it with the solace that probably this is the way of life and no matter what it goes on. Chungking Express directed by Hong Konger auteur Wong Kar-wai feels like a letter for the heartbroken. Wai's films generally include innovative slow-motion shots, handheld cameras and nonlinear storytelling. He is a poet at heart and his films explore themes of love, loss and memory with a melancholic tone.
Cultural Context
Hong Kong New Wave was a film movement that began in the late 1970s and lasted till the early 2000s. The films of this era were characterized by synchronous sound, new editing techniques and filming movies on location. The movement was divided into two distinct periods- The First Wave and the Second Wave which began in 1984. Wong Kar-wai belonged to the second wave of the movement which explored the different spaces of the city and its residents.
Hong Kong, a British colony for over 150 years from 1841 to 1997, underwent a significant transition blurring the lines between imperialism and globalism. The city has long been a cosmopolitan space, accommodating residents and immigrants from surrounding countries like India, Taiwan, and the Philippines. Wong Kar-wai's film Chungking Express explores this aspect, depicting a Hong Kong where Indians were visible in various professions, including some involved in the illegal drug trade.
The film's opening sequence showcases a chaotic cosmopolitan atmosphere, with the camera rapidly shifting between subjects in a frenetic rush. This signifies the confusion and turmoil experienced by Hong Kong citizens during the 1997 handover and subsequent cultural shifts. Wai employs stutter-step editing, symbolic colours (such as excessive blue to represent loneliness and expiration), lights, and exotic music to depict the unsettling physical environment.
Wong selected two locations to portray the claustrophobic and mundane urban life: Chungking Mansion, characterized by its unsanitary conditions, prostitution, illegal immigration, poverty, and uncertainty; and the Mid-Level Escalator, which plays a crucial role in the second narrative.
Content, Themes & Symbols
The film opened with a monologue of Cop 223's internal voice stating, "We rub shoulders with each other every day. We may not know each other but we may be good friends someday", The use of internal voice reflected the sheer loneliness surrounding the characters of Wong Kar-wai's films. The four main characters in this film are the two cops(Cop 223 / He Qiwu & Cop 663) and the two women( woman in blonde wig and Faye). The narrative was split into two stories sharing common themes of loneliness, unrequited love, heartbreak and loss.
The first story revolved around Cop 223 and the blond wig woman- two people coping with their personal and professional adversities of life. Cop 223 was enduring a hard breakup, he was in denial and therefore couldn't accept his situation. On the other hand, the lady in the blonde wig was having a hard time surviving in the drug underworld after a smuggling operation went sour. Cop 223 was mostly seen in his apartment gulping cans after cans of pineapple (since pineapples were his ex girlfriend May's favourite) with the expiration date of 1st May, his birthday. These scenes symbolized his entrapment in the memories of his past, becoming more evident when he said, "If memories could be canned, would they also have expiry dates? If so, I hope they last for centuries". However, he breaks free from the shackles of his past when he had this chance encounter with the blonde wig woman on his birthday i.e. 1st May. Cop 223 chose alcohol as a medium to redeem his sorrows stating, "I will fall in love with the first woman who walks into the bar". Seeing the blonde wig woman walking into the bar, Cop 223 took his chance however the lady wasn't in a talking mood and therefore didn't indulge much in the conversation, they shared a comforting silence just by sitting next to each other. While Cop 223 in between went on blabbering about his ex-girlfriend who loved pineapples, the blonde wig woman's internal voice could be heard stating, "Knowing a person doesn't mean you'll be able to win his love. A person changes. He may like pineapples today. Tomorrow he'll like something else." Both of them embraced a change from here onwards in their life. They spent a night together in a hotel room, the woman exhausted from running fell asleep meanwhile He Qiwu aka Cop 223 ordered food and watched old movies.
The next morning cuts to glimpses of a shaky, handheld shot tracking Qiwu running across the road abiding by his own words, "We're all unlucky in love sometimes. When I am, I go jogging. The body loses water when you jog, so you have none left to tears." In the multiple jogging scenes the camera featured Cop 223 in the centre frame as he jogged, creating the image of him getting nowhere in his desperation to reach his ex-girlfriend. In the following scene, Cop 223 was seen leaving the running field, which indicated that he was leaving his past behind. As the pager rang, Qiwu retrieving it, received an earlier message from a woman wishing him a happy birthday. The film then abruptly cuts to the drug baron, the employer of the blonde wig woman and the bartender who was the mediator. The baron heading outside for a drink and crouching down noticing something well this whole sequence acted as a premonition of his impending doom. The camera suddenly shifted to the woman pointing a gun at him. A series of low frame-rate blurred images unfolded next depicting scenes of chaos: people trying to escape the rain. The woman in the blonde wig finally dropped her wig and her real hair could be seen for a split second. This signified the woman freeing herself from the chains of her past. A few scenes back the drug baron was seen putting an identical wig on the bartender, the wig acting as a symbol of the baron's current lover, simultaneously hinting at his xenophobia. The action of dropping the wig symbolises the freedom the blonde wig woman achieved by killing the baron. The following close pan shot of the tin can with the expiry date of 1st May 1994, beside the dying baron indicated the importance of this particular date- a recurrent trope of the narrative that marked a new beginning for both Cop 223 and the blonde wig woman.
One of the main characters of the second story was Cop 663, who was also going through a breakup with a flight attendant. It's officially the season of heartbreak. He talked to the soft toys of his girlfriend which she left in his apartment and played with toy airplanes. Like Cop 223, Cop 663 was ensnared too in his apartment, in the mundane routine of his life. His conversation with the inanimate objects clearly emphasized his loneliness and his ordering of the same "chef salad" and "black coffee" signified his emotional stasis. His first encounter with Faye(the other main character of the second story) was nothing extraordinary except she was dancing on California Dreamin' by The Mamas & the Papas. Faye was an admirer of loud music since it kept her away from thinking much. The use of the particular song symbolized the Western influence prevalent in Hong Kong through the decades as well as indicated a cultural exchange between the English and the Chinese.
Faye instantly fell in love with the policeman who was too invested in his sorrow to acknowledge her feelings. The letter that his ex-girlfriend (the flight attendant) left containing a set of keys to the officer's apartment acted as a knot consolidating the relationship between Faye and Cop 663. The most iconic scene that echoed the situation of the four characters from both stories took place when the camera focused on Cop 663 sipping his coffee and Faye gazing at him, the frame consisting of both of them fixed at the centre and shot in slow motion and the juxtaposition of people in the same frame moving in different directions, signified passing away of time while they are stuck. Faye's unrequited love for Cop 663 is evident in a sequence of scenes where the camera follows Faye entering Cop 663's house using the keys that his ex-girlfriend left with the letter. She renovated his entire apartment by changing the shabby, worn-out objects. It felt like she infused life inside the dead apartment bringing the much-needed change that Cop 663 needed. There were instances when Cop 663 nearly caught Faye breaking into his apartment but he could never find his way, a strange romance brewed between them and their relationship was starting to evolve when Faye left for California chasing her dreams, her wanderlust. Women in Wong Kar-wai's films are either femme fatale or unattainable figures for men who love them but can never be with them.
A year later Faye returned to Hong Kong as a flight attendant( her choice of the same profession as Cop 663's ex-girlfriend reflected her desperation to be with Cop 663) and found Cop 663 in the buffet of her cousin where she previously worked. Her cousin sold the place to him and he was converting the place into a restaurant. This time Cop 663 was listening to California Dreamin' the same song that Faye was listening to when they first met, the song previously foreshadowed Faye's abrupt escape to California and one year later the repetition of the same song indicated how Cop 663's heart had been smitten by Faye, that he was enjoying the same music, she admired. He then invited Faye for the grand opening also asking her to send a postcard before she left. Before leaving Faye wrote in a wrinkled and water-stained napkin, presenting the boarding pass asking him, "Where do you want to go", he replied, "Wherever you want to take me to"
The ending of the film is both hopeful and ambiguous to some extent. Hopeful in the sense that maybe Faye and Cop 663 would end up together and ambiguous in the sense that it's just an assumption we don't know for sure if they are going to end up together. This kind of maze and incomprehensibility is typical of a Wong Kar-wai film.
Being residents of this chaotic world, where we are all lonely in some way or the other, surviving through the chaos, films like Chungking Express pierce through one's heart, because we see a part of us in the characters, and we feel the uncertainties they undergo. Very few movies can stir one’s emotions so that they will always go back to a film whenever they want to share their melancholy, Chungking Express is the epitome of one such film. A film that is a saga of heartache mixed with angst and desire.
About the contributor:
Srilekha Mitra is an overthinking cinephile who occasionally seeks refuge in poetry. Prefers to bask in the reel world of film, football, and food over reality. Words are her antidote on bad days.