ASSAM UNIVERSITY, SILCHAR

ABANINDRANATH TAGORE SCHOOL OF CREATIVE ARTS

AND COMMUNICATION

A Movie Review on CHUNGKING EXPRESS directed by Wong

Kar-Wai

SUBMITTED TO: PROF. PAROMITA DAS

SUBMITTED BY: ALTAF HUSSAIN

ROLL NO.: 04
SUBJECT: FILM STUDIES (302)

THE CHUNGKING EXPRESS (1994)

By Wong Kar-Wai
Movie Review

About the director:

Born in Shanghai in 1958, Wong Kar-Wai (Wang Jiawei) emigrated to Hong Kong with his
parents at the age of five, leaving behind siblings he did not see again until he his mid-teens.
While studying graphic design at the Hong Kong Polytechnic, Wong developed a deep
passion for photography and the works of Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Richard
Avedon. After graduating in 1980, he enrolled in the production training course at television
station TVB, working as production assistant on drama serials. Two years later, he took up
full-time scriptwriting for feature films; of the ten feature scripts he wrote during the mideighties, Wong considers Final Victory (1986), directed by his mentor Patrick Tam, to be his
best

script.

Though his first feature, As Tears Go By (1988), bore a heavy debt to Scorseses Mean
Streets, the film revealed a stunningly original visual style and was a hit with local
audiences. Wong has since been hailed as an important director of the second New Wave,
among directors such as Eddie Fong, Stanley Kwan and Clara Law who inherited and
developed the aesthetics of the New Wave (Patrick Tam, Tsui Hark and Ann Hui).
Despite an all-star cast and success at the Hong Kong Film Awards, his second work, Days of
Being Wild (1990) was less popular at the box-office. Wongs international popularity,
however, was firmly established by Chungking Express(1994) and Fallen Angels (1995).
Both were developed during breaks in the post-production of his period martial-arts
film Ashes of Time (1994). Happy Together(1997), a bold exploration of the relationship
between two Chinese homosexuals, earned Wong the Best Director award at Cannes, and
both In The Mood For Love(2000) and 2046 (2004) have been offically selected for the
Cannes Film Festival. Attributing the influence for his non-linear story-telling to the
Argentine writer Manuel Puig, Wongs style is instantly recognisable for his use of colour and

music to convey emotion, his emphasis on detail over the whole, and his preoccupation with
time

and

memory

in

the

context

of

loneliness.

Acknowledged as one of the most exciting directors in contemporary cinema, Wong Kar-Wai
has fuelled a growing interest in Asian film and is becoming one of the most influential
directors in modern times.

Crew:
Director- Wong Kar-Wai
Written by- Wong Kar-Wai
Producer-Yi-Kan Chan, Jeffrey Lau, Pui-Wah Chan
Music by- Frankie Chan, Michael Galasso, Roel. A Garcia
Cinematography by- Christopher Doyle, Wai-Keung Lau
Film Editing by- William Chang, Kit-Wai Kai, Chi-Leung Kwong
Production Design by- William Chang
Art Direction by- Wai Ming Yau

Cast:
Brigitti Lin as Woman in Blonde-Wig
Tony Chiu Wai Leung as Cop 663
Faye Wong as Faye
Takeshi Kaneshiro as He Zhiwu, Cop 223
Valerie Chow as Air-Hostess
Jinquan Chen as Manager of Midnight Express
Lee Na Kwan as Richard
Zhiming Huang as Man

Review:
The Chungking Express is a movie by director, Wong Kar Wai. This is considered to be
among Wongs most exciting films and is an early precursor to the expressive odes to
romantic longing that have come to define his work.
The title is symbolic of the film's lively, anything-goes sensibility, representing the pair of
largely unrelated stories that make up its bifurcated narrative.
The grainy rushing scenes in the movie which capture bits and pieces of Hong Kong street
life and the seedy inhabitants, and the environs of Chungking Mansions are a parody of the
pretty postcard images that tourists see of the Colony in brochures and advertisements. The
collaboration of the accomplished cinematographer Chris Doyle with Wong brings up darkhued textures and moody compositions -- here is the city pulsating with the vast sea of
humanity's lust for commercialism and social intercourse.

Chungking Express consists of two separate stories linked thematically about four individuals
trying to connect or break away in Hong Kong.
The two stories are tied together by just a single sentence at the transition point. The
transition occurs when the first Cop 223, brushes past Faye, the new waitress at the Midnight
Express, and observes that At the high point of our intimacy, we were just 0.01 centimetres
from each other. I knew nothing about her. Six hours later, she fell in love with another man.
Then, immediately, the film shifts to the story of the waitress and the second Cop 633.
The first story (Chungking House) centres on two characters, the young policeman, 223, and
a mysterious woman (Brigitte Lin) in a blond wig and perpetual sunglasses . She and Cop
223 almost meet: At the closest point of our intimacy we were just 0.01 centimetres from
each other. Fifty-six hours later, I fell in love with this woman. We learn that the mysterious
woman is a drug trafficker, using a group of Indian immigrants to smuggle packets of white
powder concealed in their clothes and luggage. At the airport, however, the Indians doublecross her. The Brigitte Lin character tracks down her betrayers and shoots several of them
before finding herself in turn hunted but she eludes her pursuers by jumping onto a subway
train. The film also follows the story of Cop 223, who has been rejected by his former
girlfriend, May. He still hopes that she will have a change of heart and call him, so he checks

his message service frequently. The second story is lighter in tone. Faye Wong gives a
spirited performance as a fast-food waitress who becomes obsessed with another policeman
(Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and who goes about like a playful fairy rearranging and meddling
with his set-up at his home.
With the two different stories, Chunking becomes almost fractured and schizoid -- torn apart
in tone, rhythm and texture. While Faye Wong is delightful with her neurotic spontaneity and
comic persona, Lin Ching-hsia looks laboured and weighed down by the anxiety of being
pursued by a killer for fouling up a drugs consignment. There is a sense of time running out
on her as she fights for her survival to stay above the fray, romanticism being furthest from
her obsessed mind. This is an apt metaphor for the Crown Colony's uncertain future and a
reflection of the jittery Hong Kongers' psyche. Even the love-sick anti-hero Aniki who only
devours canned food with the particular expiry date is telling. The date might as well be 1st
July 1997. And again shots of Father Time in the form of the Mass Transit Railways clocks
remind

us

of

the

director's

leitmotif.

Wong Kar-wai's justly acclaimed montage of the conclusion of the first part and the start of
the second story is almost seamless. Cantonese pop-star Faye Wong's rendition of her hit
"Dreams" and the Mamas and Papas' haunting "California Dreaming" (at times tediously
repetitious) further reinforce the idea of the second part being a dream-like fairy tale
transplanted onto a modern setting. Hailing from Beijing and not a Hong Kong national
herself, Faye impresses as a highly talented comedienne in the calibre of the popular Crown
Colony actress Do Do (Carol) Cheng. In Chungking Express, Faye reveals her talent for
mime and spontaneity in her debut as an actress. Counterpointed by Lin Ching-hsia's
fatalistic persona, she is as fresh and original as a life-invigorating summer breeze.
Also, for the first time the director plays with the audience's memory. When watching the
film for the first time, it is easy to be mesmerised by its sense of timing and to miss the initial
encounter between characters from both stories. As Aniki narrates his love fable, for a
fraction of a second, Cop 223 crosses path with Lin Ching-hsia only a hair's-breadth apart
from each other. Six hours later the narrator would fall for her in a pub.
In Chungking Express, Wong ignores the usual representational approaches that underpin
classical narrative cinema. His film has two sets of protagonists and two plots. There is no
attempt to offer one of these plots as a subplot. One plot finishes and another begins at an

apparently arbitrary point in the film, although the two stories are linked far more subtly, as
repeated viewings reveal. The essential paradox which Wong draws our attention to in
Chungking Express is that, although densely populated societies like Hong Kong force us
together, we are less able to communicate and form meaningful relationships with other
people.
Our sense of our own individuality is maintained only by the mass-produced consumer
goods with which we surround ourselves. We see inside both cops flats and note the toys and
gadgets they have assembled there to assert their own threatened sense of individuality - just
as disenchanted computer operators working for faceless corporations will surround their
workstations with toys, mascots and charms.