Chungking Express: A Review

I was first introduced to Wong Kar-Wai through the film In the Mood for Love. Initially, I hated this film. I thought it dragged on, I was disinterested in the adulterous romance of the two main characters, on top of that was the repeating soundtrack. Hearing it over and over again, I nearly lost my mind.

But then again, that was years ago, and since my taste and knowledge of cinema has changed, I should probably give it a second chance, and one that is outside of a film classroom.

But instead, I watched Chungking Express.

And holy shit.

Everything clicked.

I don't know how to describe the feeling I have for this picture. It's a weird sense of melancholy and pure joy. I just had so much fun watching it.

Maybe it's the frantic pace that the film opens with. Christopher Doyle perfectly captures the nitty gritty of Hong Kong through his fast paced, unwavering free-handed camera work. The lighting, the framing of characters to their surroundings. It's all so surreal.

Kar-Wai seemingly is able to vividly portray this sense of melancholy and longing the film has. A line repeated in the film is "Just 0.01 cm between us, and I knew nothing about her…" marking the beginning of each story.

Here I go gushing about the film, and I haven't even explained the story yet.

Simply put, the film splits its time between two different romances that center around police officers. Well, one is more of a detective rather than a cop, and I would argue that the second story is much more about Faye than it is Policeman 663.

The first story follows the recently dumped He Zhiwu, who, when not jogging to de-stress, is purchasing expired cans of pineapple and chasing after a mysterious blonde wigged woman.

What interests me so about this first story is, one, how Zhiwu tries to come to terms with it. What at first seems like a harmless April Fools, turns out to be a real break up. Denying and denying it, he instead chooses to buy a can of pineapple that expires on May 1st; " May loves pineapple, and May 1 is my birthday. If May hasn't changed her mind by the time I've bought thirty cans, then our love will also expire". This first story of the film is very much about love lost.

Then, of course, there is the love interest, the Woman in the Blonde Wig. We're introduced to her in a drug smuggling attempt gone awry, and she now has a ticking clock. This is also in the form of an expiration date, except I believe it was on a can of fish.

What's most interesting about this first love story is that they both know it's not going to work. Zhiwu has been wooed by the mysterious woman, but not through her attempt, but through looks alone. The fascination lies in the disguise she wears, even when given the chance to discover what is beneath, he chooses not too. Instead, he orders room service and watches movies until he, well, just leaves. It was all about the chase to him, so why end it.

The story is different, but in its own way, the same for the Blonde Wig. How I took it, it was the last night of her life. At the very least, her life in Hong Kong, as she knew that she would be either dead, or someplace far away come the next day. Why not spend the last night drinking it away before deciding to kill your ex-lover?

The first love story is a theme of forgetting, or at the very least, coming to terms with what was lost. The loss of love is the same as the loss of a life, that loss being your old life. No matter what, or how you try, it will never be the same. Kar-Wai presents it in such a way that maybe, just maybe, this change is for the best.

The second half of the film is the one most people are familiar with.

Especially Kar-Wai's use of a recurring soundtrack.

Thus we are barraged with the constant playing of California Dreamin' By the Mama's and Papa's. However it play's nicely to the core themes this half, as well as the fact that it's an absolute banger of a track.

Where the first half can be described as how the loss of love affects our life, this second half is more about how love in our life changes the way we perceive the world around us. Both emotionally and quite literally.

We are introduced to Faye. A lost soul working for her cousins hole in the wall restaurant. Of course, she is listening to California Dreamin'. She catches the eye of a regular, Policeman 663. Who, just as her luck would have it, has recently split with his air hostess of a girlfriend, and thanks to that girlfriend, Faye has the key to his apartment.

Here the movie gets, romantic? I kid, borderline psychotic, but in a good way. Slowly, Faye removes the traces of his old love, and slowly begins adding traces of her own. As well has drugging his water bottle so he sleeps better at night. It's the little things, right?

As she becomes more and more reckless with her trips to his apartment, she is eventually caught, and runs away.

Here, the Policeman 663, his collection of stuffed animals, decides that if she is trying this hard, why should love between them be a thing? So they set up a date. At a bar called California.

Here's the thing. The entire time of this story, Faye is deeply interested in California (hence the song) and wants to leave Hong Kong. She's just a soul that wants to enjoy life.

So the date comes, and our dear officer is stood up, alone with a letter left to her cousin, he finds inside a plane ticket to anywhere written on a napkin.

Thing is, they were both at the California, just different ones. Just as how they treated their fleeting, intimate, yet distant romance.

Of course, these two meet again at the end of the movie. Our dear police officer has taken over the restaurant, and Faye has become a airline stewardess. So she writes him another plane ticket to anywhere and the movie ends.

What this movie accomplishes is a view of romance seldom portrayed, and in such a way, that you can't look away. You know what's going to happen. You know the beats. Yet these characters are so relatable, so familiar, that one can not see themselves in their shoes. Unsure of the future, especially when the love of your life may be sitting across from you.

The worst trick life pulls in meeting the right person at the wrong time. It's about the fleeting moments, and Wong Kar-Wai portrays these moments with excellence and a somber happiness.

4.5/5

PLAY IT AGAIN WONG.