Hong Kong cinema. Chances are that what those words conjure up for most Americans are associations with martial arts, Jackie Chan, John Woo action films, or tough-girl action films like the “Angel” series or Naked Killer. The overheated Hong Kong film industry has made a mark for itself and a buck or two cranking out hyperkinetic action thrillers for mass consumption. More and more, these films are being aimed at or, at least, released onto the gluttonous American market. How do you like your chances of finding an “art film” coming out of Hong Kong these days? Well, actually, the odds aren’t nearly as bad as you might think. It is perhaps an indication of the vigor and maturity of the Hong Kong film industry that a cinematic counterculture has emerged. One of its darlings is Wong Kar-Wai, already something of a favorite among art film aficionados. Wong’s filmography at present includes As Tears Go By (1988), Days of Being Wild (1990), Ashes of Time (1994), Chungking Express (1994), Fallen Angels (1995), Happy Together (1997), and In the Mood for Love (2000).

Wong’s recognition factor in The States got a big lift from Quentin Tarantino, long a booster of Hong Kong cinema. After Tarantino’s success with Pulp Fiction, Miramax Films was anxious to express their gratitude and agreed to let Tarantino set up a subsidiary label, called Rolling Thunder, that would distribute relatively obscure foreign films and off-beat American cult features. Tarantino selected Chungking Express for his new label’s inaugural release.

The Stories: Note that I’ve entitled this section “The Stories” in the plural because one of the more distinctive aspects of this film is that it is really two shorter films joined together by only the thinnest of threads. Both stories take place in part at a fast-food take-out counter called the “Chungking Express”, both stories involve forlorn young cops who have just been dumped by their girlfriends, and both relate the male protagonist striking up a new romance. Otherwise, the two stories are entirely separate, the first taking up the first 45 minutes or so of the film and the second the remainder. The two stories are tied together by just a single sentence at the transition point. The transition occurs when the first cop, #233, brushes past the new waitress at the Chungking Express and comments that the small distance was as close as he ever came to meeting her but six months later, she fell in love with another cop. Then, immediately, we’re on to the story of the waitress and the second cop, #633. Other films have strung together multiple stories, including Yesterday, Today, and Tomorrow (1963). There, however, each segment began with its own title screen and all three segments were completely independent stories though utilizing the same pair of lead performers in all three. The jarring transition of Chungking Express is clever, but throws viewers a curve ball that is hard to pick up the first time by.

The first story (“Chungking House”) centers on a handsome young plainclothes policeman named He Zhiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro) or Cop #223. It’s been several weeks since the poor lad was dumped by his former girlfriend, May, but he still clings to the hope that she will call, wanting to get back together. He checks his message service frequently, calls May’s parents to chat, and otherwise just frets. She broke up with him on April Fools Day and his birthday is May 1st. He figures that he’ll give it thirty days – until his birthday – and if she hasn’t called by then he’ll admit to himself that it’s over. In the meantime, he’s buying one can of pineapple slices per day (which was May’s favorite fruit) with an expiration date of May 1st, planning to eat all thirty cans on his birthday if she hasn’t called. Symbolically, for Cop #223, the pineapple is May and the expiration date is the expiration date of his hopes for her. Zhiwu desperately tries to line up an alternative date, calling up one old flame (who has married and already has two kids) and another girl that he knew in fourth grade (who doesn’t remember him at all). The fateful birthday comes with no call from May, so Zhiwu wolfs down the thirty cans of pineapple and goes to a bar to drown his sorrow in booze. After hurling the pineapple and the booze in the mens’ room, Zhiwu vows to hit on the first woman that he sees.

That woman happens to be a somewhat distinctive older woman who we have already met via a side plot. She is a woman (Brigitte Lin) in a blond wig and perpetual sunglasses, who is a drug trafficker. We have watched packets of some kind of white powder (probably heroin) tucked into hollow shoe heels and sewn into luggage linings by a group of Indian immigrants under her direction. At the airport, however, the Indians split, leaving her high and dry. She had tracked them down and shot several to death before outrunning her pursuers and hopping a subway. She shows up at the same bar where Zhiwu sits sulking having had a busy day to say the least! She is not much in the mood to be hit on by a pathetically forlorn younger man. Nevertheless, she is dead tired and half drunk with nowhere to go, so she ends up at Zhiwu’s place, where she crashes into exhausted unconsciousness. Zhiwu has to settle for wolfing down several sandwiches and salads. In the morning, Zhiwu goes jogging but discovers that the woman has left him something to cheer him up. You’ll have to watch the film to learn what it was. Zhiwu stops at the Chungking Express, where the manager (Chen Jinquan) suggests he ask out the new girl, Faye (Faye Wong). She’s not his type, however.

Instead, Faye figures into the second story (“Midnight Express”) along with forlorn cop #633 (Tony Leung Chiu Wai). Faye is a young free spirit, full of life, without a care or thought in the world. She loves loud music because, as she says, it keeps her from thinking. Her favorite is an old surfer classic by the Mamas and Papas called “California Dreamin’,” which serves as something of a theme song for the film. Cop #633 has just been dumped by his flight attendant live-in girlfriend (Valerie Chow). Each night for weeks, he had bought her a salad at the Chungking Express but at the suggestion of the manager, he had, on one occasion, bought a second item to give her a choice. Apparently, the idea of another choice had taken root in her thinking and she had decided that it was also time for another choice in boyfriends. His distress is beyond mere sulking. He has taken to talking to various object around his apartment, such as dish rags, towels, bars of soap, and the like, urging them not to cry, to buck up, to pull themselves together, and so forth. The flight attendant stops by the Chungking Express and leaves a Dear John letter for the poor guy, with her key to his apartment enclosed. One by one, the manager, the cook, every other employee at the Chungking Express, and Faye last of all steams open the envelope and reads the rather vicious farewell note. The next time they spot cop #633 approaching, they all take off, leaving poor Faye the job of handing the sad sack the poisoned missive. Luckily for her, he refuses it, telling her to hold onto it for awhile.

Faye is starting to feel some kind of mix of pity and attraction for cop #633 and takes it upon herself to be his fairy godmother for awhile – albeit in a rather bizarre manner. Faye takes the key to his apartment from the Dear John letter and wheedles his address out of him. She then starts visiting his apartment when he’s not home, tidying it up, freshening up the fish tank with some new goldfish, redecorating a bit, washing, scrubbing – all without his knowledge. Cop #633 is in such a state of distraction that the changes don’t even fully register. What he does notice he chalks up to his having been unobservant. Inevitably, he comes home at an unexpected time and finds her there. She flees and when he catches up with her at the Chungking Express, he asks her out for dinner. Does she show up? I’ll leave that much for you to discover on your own.

Themes: Wong hits on a few themes in this artsy film. One common link between the two segments is loneliness and disconnectedness in the fast-paced, impersonal, bustling city atmosphere of Hong Kong, obviously made acute by being dumped by one’s lover. It’s the old heartbreak and alienation of modern life theme. A second theme might be called near misses or the unpredictable intersections of human lives. Every day, each of us walks by dozens or hundreds or, in big cities, even thousands of other people, most of whom we don’t know and don’t acknowledge but each of whom has their own ongoing story. There are multiple narratives intersecting throughout human society every day. We might pass an individual we don’t know and later that person becomes our best friend or spouse. Or, we might never meet them again. Wong uses the Chungking Express as one of those intersection sites to connect his two stories in the flimsiest of ways. A third theme is the invasion of American pop culture into Hong Kong. We see it in the get-up of the woman in the blond wig and sunglasses (who actually looks more Caucasian than Asian in the outfit) and we see it in Faye’s appearance as almost a kind of a California go-go girl.

Production Values: Like the directors of the French New Wave, Wong diminishes the importance of narrative in his film in order to emphasize other aspects of filmmaking. The camera technique is highly kinetic. In the action scenes, Wong uses a combination of a blurry image and stop-action shots to mimic the kind of memory people experience during adrenaline-charged events. Certain key moments get frozen in time while much of the rest seems like a confused blur. The film also has something of the style of realism of the Italian master directors in the period immediately following World War II. We see Hong Kong in all its gritty naturalness, from the shopping malls to the greasy kitchen of the Chungking Express to the dirty subway tunnels. There is also some resemblance to film noir in mood, dark tone, and low contrast. Although neither of the male protagonists fits the model of a noir anti-hero, the lady in the blond wig might suffice.

The narrative technique is also unusual, using a lot of interior monologues (for several of the characters) via voiceover narrative. Then again, there’s not a lot of action or character development, so we really need those inner thoughts for interest. All in all, this is a film with plenty of energy and technical novelty, but little story.

The cast of Chungking Express are good looking people – the men and women alike. Tony Leung Chiu-Wai appeared in Hard-Boiled (1992), Cyclo (1995), and In the Mood for Love (2000). Takeshi Kaneshiro’s resume includes Fallen Angels (1995). Faye Wong is best known as a singer and made her debut film appearance in Chungking Express. She has something of a boyish look about her (short hair, minimal curvature) but nevertheless a pleasing look. It’s hard to know, on the other hand, exactly what Brigitte Lin looks like, based on this film, since she was never without her shades or blond wig. Valerie Chow, in her bit role as the air hostess, had the look of an ice queen – pretty but cold. Chen Jinquan, as the manager, provided a nice steadying influence on the film.

Bottom-Line: Consider this hypothetical issue in relation to the rating of films. Suppose you want to become well acquainted with two newly purchased films, A and B. You make a commitment to yourself to watch each film three times, with a week between viewings, and to grade each viewing experience independently using the five-star Epinions scale. You rate film A at four stars on first viewing, but in sinks to three stars and then two in the subsequent exposures. You rate film B at three stars the first time around but it grows on you, reaching four stars by the third viewing. Which film is the better film? You could argue that the final ratings are the most germane since your knowledge of each film was stronger after three viewings. On the other hand, most film viewers watch most films only once, so you might just as well argue that the rating after the first viewing is most relevant.

Chungking Express, in my opinion, is like film B in the foregoing example. It is a difficult film to get full value from the first time around. The jarring transition halfway through from one story to a largely unrelated second story is a tough adjustment. We are trained, as viewers, to expect new elements to tie back in with what has already occurred, so we spend much of the second half searching for that connection. Also, I think for non-Asian viewers, there can be a bit of that phenomenon (that we’d all prefer not to acknowledge) of people of another race or ethnicity tending to all look alike (or, at least, similar). It’s humiliating, in a way, that it happens, because it seems to imply ethnocentricity or bigotry, but I think, in reality, it’s mainly that capacity to differentiate beings or objects increases as a function of familiarity. It took me a while to be certain that the second cop was not the first cop with a new uniform and a bit of a change in his look (maybe to emphasize that some time had passed). I had a similar problem with the Korean film Shiri distinguishing between the two lead males.

I bought Chungking Express almost a year ago and watched it twice shortly thereafter. I watched it for a third time today in preparation for writing this review. I’ve gotten more out of it with each viewing because of better understanding of its structure and approach. Since the plot is of minor importance to this film, knowing the outcome of each segment is really not much of a “spoiler.” In short, this is a film that improves with repeat viewings. I imagine that few viewers would rate this film higher than three stars after a single viewing because of the difficulties in following the plot and adjusting to the mid-film shift. Viewers will get much more from this film either by watching a second time or by reading a review of the film before seeing it. This is one instance where I think knowing something about the film in advance is an advantage and poses minimal risk of spoiling surprises.

Chungking Express is rated PG-13 for violence, sex, and drugs. It is in Cantonese with English subtitles and has a running time of 104 minutes. I recommend watching the film twice or acquainting yourself a bit with the content of the film via a review before the first viewing.


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You might want to check out these other excellent films from China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan:

Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Eat Drink Man Woman
The Emperor and the Assassin
Fallen Angels
Farewell My Concubine
Hero
In the Mood for Love
To Live
Raise the Red Lantern
Red Sorghum
Road Home
Shanghai Triad
The Story of Qiu Ju
Temptress Moon
Together
What Time is it There?
The Women From the Lake of Scented Souls
Yi Yi

Recommended:
Yes

Video Occasion: Fit for Friday Evening
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children Age 13 and Older