Post Details

I haven’t done a movie in a while, so I’ll go back to an old favorite: Chungking Express. I’m pretty sure I wrote about it a long time ago for import.BOOST, maybe. This is the first Wong Kar Wai film I ever saw, and I have to say the guy is good at making you utterly riveted and absorbed by a film about nothing. I picked up the Criterion Collection’s Blu-Ray release just recently. The transfer to high definition does not hurt its raw, amateur look in the slightest. Christopher Doyle’s superb cinematography is largely responsible for the distinct look of the film, but Wong’s direction is also palpable. The two make a great team.

The story is split into 2 segments, the first involving Takeshi Kaneshiro and Brigitte Lin. Kaneshiro turns in a solid performance as He Qiwu, a fresh faced young cop who isn’t ready to admit that his relationship with his girlfriend May ended a month ago. By chance he runs into Lin, a drug trafficker in a blonde wig, and decides to fall in love. The second part features Tony Leung as an unnamed cop and Faye Wong as Faye, a girl working at a food stand. Leung’s character recently had his girlfriend leave him, and Faye’s infatuation with him leads her to sneak into his apartment.

I know, the story isn’t desperately complicated. Chungking Express is more about the ideas that can only be captured visually, and the great characters. Kaneshiro’s He Qiwu is charismatic and sympathetic. Lin is probably the weakest link, as I didn’t find her stone faced stoicism that appealing. Part of that may have to do with the hideous combination of hair style, big shades, and a raincoat that isn’t flattering of her figure. Knowing Wong Kar Wai, this fashion design had to have been intentional.

The real stars are the electric performances turned in by Tony Leung Chiu Wai, one of my absolute favorite actors, and Faye Wong, whose boyish look in this movie add to her innocence and energy. Faye is cute, obnoxious, and possibly even half-retarded at the same time. Leung’s “officer 633” appears jaded at first, but also intimates that he’s a lonely man afraid of seeking out love. The scenes where he projects his feelings onto inanimate objects around his apartment are hilarious yet heart wrenching at the same time.

The Hong Kong backdrop is a sensual spectacle, bustling with people, cheap food, and a humidity that you almost feel on your own skin. Wong Kar Wai does to Hong Kong here what Martin Scorsese does for New York—he turns it into an infection, something which permeates and saturates every character in the film. To enjoy Chungking Express, you shouldn’t really be looking for anything. You just have to let yourself be pulled in by the charming characters and the bleak reality of the story. Because of this, you can’t really call it entertainment. It’s an examination of the vagaries of infatuation, perhaps even a Zen-like meditation on transience. This movie is something only Wong Kar Wai could have made, a loveless film about love.

Tags: Chungking Express, Cinema File, Wong Kar Wai, Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Faye Wong, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Brigitte Lin