Chungking Express (1994)

★★★½
Chungking Express is uniquely Hong Kong. It is a movie that captures the essence of the city during its late colonial period. As I write this, the city is in the news constantly for its seemingly never-ending demonstrations, a reaction to the Communist Chinese’s steady encroachment on the territory. I understand the pushback against the Chinese. Freedom is far more desirable than living under a brutal collectivist tyranny. I don’t know where this is all going, but luckily, we have this little gem from Wong Kar-Wai to remind us of a time when the city wasn’t tearing itself apart. Chungking Express pulsates with life. It’s crowded, sometimes hectic. A city of millions crammed into a small area will have its problems, but there’s also an identity that will inevitably emerge from the chaos. We see that here, with the bustling Chungking Mansion shops and the nightlife of Lan Kwai Fong. We also see how loneliness can still prevail in this urban jungle. Wong Kar-Wai examines the lonely lives of two Hong Kong cops and does so with an eye towards the surroundings. This is probably the only movie that I’ve seen that made me want to visit the locations. They are as much a part of the story as the dialogue.

The story is divided into two halves. The first half concerns cop He Qiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro). His girlfriend broke up with him and he gives himself 30 days before he will finally come to terms with it. During that time, he will snack on one can of pineapples per day, as a ritual to cling to the past (she loved pineapples) before preparing for the future. Nearby, a mysterious woman (Brigitte Lin) is part of a drug deal that goes south when her employer betrays her and she has to fend for herself while avoiding Indian hitmen. Their lives eventually intersect and they take something away from the experience. The nameless woman recognizes compassion probably for the first time in ages, while he realizes that he need not feel so alone anymore.

This is a simple story, and if it comes across as ending too quickly, then the second story will fill the void. The second half of Chungking Express follows another cop, known as just Cop 663 (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), who underwent a break-up of his own but unknowingly wins the heart of a cute food counter worker named Faye (Faye Wong). He spends his duty nights at the Midnight Express shop to purchase chef salads for his meals. Faye is a new worker who takes a liking to him. When she comes across his apartment key, left at the shop by his former girlfriend, she uses it to enter his apartment while he’s away and cleans it up. This becomes a daily routine, as she does everything from cleaning the floor to buying new fish for his fish tank. The lovesick Cop 663 is too distracted to notice any big changes and is merely confused when he notices small details out of place.

These two stories overlap in various ways. Characters from one story make brief appearances in the other, while the Midnight Express owner (Chan Kam-Chuen) figures prominently in both stories. By connecting the two stories subtly like this, Wong Kar-Wai ensures a smooth transition from one core group of characters to another. I suspect there’s another reason for this break in the two narratives. Wong Kar-Wai might be suggesting that despite the large population (around 6,000,000 in 1994), the small land area forced residents to cross paths often. When Cop 663 is assigned a new beat and gets lunch at another restaurant, Faye runs into him there purely by coincidence.

There is also a difference in mood between the two stories. He Qiwu’s tale is absent any humor and more focused on his loneliness. He checks his voicemail frequently, dismayed that his ex-girlfriend hasn’t called him. When his favorite store stops stocking his preferred pineapples (they must have an expiration date of May 1, his birthday), he is upset at the clerk. Brigitte Lin’s character wears a blonde wig and must maintain full awareness of her surroundings, the possibility of getting shot looming large around every corner. Much of her story takes place in Chungking Mansions, a residential and commercial complex packed with stores selling cheap goods. The haphazard editing employed here, as she frantically weaves her way through the crowd, gives us a microcosm of the city at large. When it’s busy, it’s a heck of place to navigate.

Faye’s actions are the opposite. She is a joyous young woman. She loves “California Dreamin’” by The Mamas & the Papas and plays it constantly at work. If the first story is a cautionary tale of Hong Kong life, the second story is more optimistic. Faye Wong is a pleasure to watch, as she tidies up the cop’s apartment with gusto. She even lends her voice to the soundtrack, giving us a lovely Cantonese cover of The Cranberries’ “Dreams.”

These events take place in a city that has forever changed. The iconic Kai Tak Airport gets a small cameo. It is now an empty lot, with its replacement—the Hong Kong International Airport—located on its own island miles away. The Midnight Express has long since closed. The location is a 7-11 these days. I finally visited there in 2017 to see it for myself. It would have been nice to order a chef salad, like Cop 663 did so long ago. The Central–Mid-Levels escalator, seen outside of the cop’s apartment, is still there, busier than ever. What hasn’t changed is the compact nature of the walkways and the pedestrians that fill them.

Chungking Express is a whimsical and quirky little film, written and put together quickly while Wong Kar-Wai was still finishing up another movie. The stories aren’t very deep, but the movie is unhurt by it. Instead, we can appreciate it more for its themes of loneliness and the gorgeous cinematography by Christopher Doyle. The movement of the camera is often fast-paced, and he experiments with a variety of visual techniques to give the film a look that is less conventional and more like eye candy.

Chungking Express came to the attention of American audiences thanks to Quentin Tarantino, who was a huge fan and created Rolling Thunder Pictures in order to distribute it. I didn’t see it until 2000, and I admit that it didn’t strike a nerve in me. Seeing it again in 2019, I can view it as a window into the past, when life wasn’t perfect but still content. That brings me back to current events. I hope Hong Kong maintains its uniqueness and finds a way to co-exist with its Communist rulers.* That’s a two-way street, of course. Like it or not, Hong Kong was shaped by over 150 years as part of the British Empire, and China should, however begrudgingly, back away from these attempts to chip away at its foundations. It’s a great city. I’d love to visit again.

© 2019 Silver Screen Reviews

* Going independent is not an option. As my tour guide helpfully explained, nearly all the water comes from mainland China. All China has to do is turn it off.