CHUNGKING EXPRESS Decrypted: Alienation In The Urban Jungle

Not just any film, but a sequel to Chungking Express from 1994, which is set to take place in the near future in Chongqing. The story will focus on a woman and a man who decide to help fate along and find happiness in love on their own terms. It’s possible that the Hong Kong director might employ the same technique as in 2046 and tell the stories of the characters years later.

However, given Wong Kar-wai’s statements that he sees a spiritual continuation of Chungking Express in his later Fallen Angels, it’s uncertain if he will indeed be the one to bring the sequel screenplay to life. Nevertheless, we have every right to expect another visual symphony of love and loneliness in the urban jungle. This news inspired me to take another look at the film’s original version, a work that, with its unique narrative and unconventional approach to romance, changed my perspective on cinema.

Wong Kar-wai weaves his story from a combination of two novellas, each focusing on different pairs of characters. In the first, policeman 223 has just broken up with his longtime girlfriend. He wanders aimlessly through the streets of nighttime Hong Kong, trying to fill the void left by his ex, whom he undeniably still loves. The policeman hopes his girlfriend will return to him by May 1, his 25th birthday. When this doesn’t happen, he decides to keep himself company with another woman, eating 30 cans of pineapple beforehand. He roams the city and ends up in a bar, promising himself to fall in love with the first woman who walks in. That’s how he meets a mysterious femme fatale in sunglasses and a blonde wig, unaware that she leads a gang of drug smugglers.

The second, longer novella also revolves around a policeman with a broken heart. Officer 633 is suddenly and unexpectedly left by the girlfriend with whom he had a happy and successful relationship. Unable to move on from the loss, he falls into a rut. Meanwhile, Faye, who works in his favorite fast-food bar, falls for him. She becomes his secret admirer, not stopping at shy glances or clumsy attempts to get his attention at the bar or tender thoughts anchored in the policeman. Due to an unexpected turn of events, she comes into possession of the keys to the object of her affection’s apartment. She visits it several times in the policeman’s absence, trying to cleanse the atmosphere of sadness, depression, and lethargy. The man, unaware of the whole situation, slowly forgets about the breakup and pays increasing attention to Faye.

It’s impossible not to mention the style Wong Kar-wai used in his film. The first few seconds leave the viewer thinking they’re about to watch a thriller with a crime story in the background. Hasty, blurred shots, the constant impression of motion, the sense of chaos, a fleeing woman, and an armed man. But the director quickly and playfully turns the story 180 degrees to overshadow the criminal plot with the melancholic confessions of policeman 223. Though the two novellas differ in their pacing, the film ultimately becomes a slow-paced and atmospheric melodrama.

It focuses attentively on the mundane everyday activities of the main characters. It patiently observes the aimless wandering policemen, Faye mixing sauces, or daydreaming behind the counter of one of the thousands of street bars in Hong Kong. Accompanying these are tasteful shots where neon lights and smears of blurred light cut through the city’s nighttime landscape. Wong Kar-wai chooses the shots very specifically. In many scenes, like the drinking scene in the bar in the first novella, the director allows for artistic overhead shots. He plays with reflections of light, mirror images, and colorful filters. Often, the camera watches the characters as if from hiding, from a voyeuristic perspective, such as in the scene where Faye spends time with the policeman in his apartment.

This voyeuristic view further enhances the sense of excitement and intensifies the mood of intimacy between the characters. This is often accompanied by the shaky handheld camera. Chungking Express differs significantly from the elegant and stylish In the Mood for Love. It is more modern and experimental, with a dynamic yet poetic atmosphere of a big city. Chungking Express tells about the routine of four randomly chosen characters from the streets of Hong Kong, but does so in a captivating and charming way.

Wong Kar-wai employed an interesting formal experiment in his film. He combined the two above novellas, which share a lot but remain separate independent stories. The director leaves many traps and clues in the film, leading us to believe that the two stories will eventually reveal a intricate web of connections, harmoniously merging into one logical whole. But this does not happen. There are many similarities, but none affect the overall story. The protagonists of both stories are policemen experiencing heartbreak. We are not sure if they know each other. Although it seemed likely, the men do not meet on screen. They only pass each other unknowingly, like everyone else, including Faye and the woman in the blonde wig.

The camera captures these two women in the same frame, but they never confront each other. The criminal activities of the woman from the first story never become the focus of interest for either policeman, although it seemed plausible.

The most distinct point of contact between the two stories is the brief relationship between policeman 223 and Faye. The characters from the two different stories did not know each other but were aware of each other’s presence. At the end of the first novella, the policeman even showed interest in the woman, but the viewer quickly realized that she was meant for a completely different story. The two stories are linked by the same setting. Hong Kong, the Midnight Express bar, frequented by both officers. Furthermore, policeman 223 mentions that this bar was where he met his ex-girlfriend. Another similarity is the narration by the characters. The four main characters share their thoughts and comments with the viewer from off-screen.

Sometimes these comments reveal a broader knowledge of the characters, extending beyond the story they are involved in. For example, policeman 223 at the end of the first novella, upon making eye contact with Faye, says from off-screen: We were only separated by a millimeter. I knew nothing about her. Six hours later, she fell in love with someone else, although nothing indicates that the man knows policeman 633 or is aware of the relationship that is about to develop between him and the bar employee.

There are moments, however, when the two stories contrast sharply with each other. They share a nostalgic mood, a palpable sense of longing, thoughtful cinematography, atmospheric play with light, and an eclectic soundtrack. The flagship song of the first story is the reggae track Things in Life by Dennis Brown, while the second features California Dreamin‘ by The Mamas & the Papas. The first story, however, clearly fits into the stylistics of film noir. We have a typical crime story here. Police officer 223 patrols a much more dangerous neighborhood of heightened crime, where a wig-wearing heroine oversees a drug cartel, recruits people for smuggling, and even kidnaps a child for ransom, ultimately killing her employer.

The second story unfolds in what seems like a different, much quieter place. Police officer 633 never has to use his weapon even once. It even seems like he lacks things to do while patrolling the area, as most of his screen time is spent wandering aimlessly, eating meals in bars, or leisurely sipping coffee in front of Faye, who is captivated by the sight. The novellas also differ in their timelines. The first one tells of events unfolding over just four days. The second novella’s action spans a period longer than a year, focusing on the significant moments in the development of the relationship between the police officer and the bar employee.

Nevertheless, Wong Kar-wai leaves the viewer with a certain sense of deception and dissatisfaction by not unifying the stories of the two pairs of protagonists. They remain separate, individual tales with a few insignificant points of intersection. Why, then, did the director choose to combine these stories into one film? There is no doubt that the on-screen story is driven by the poetics of chance. At the beginning of the film, there are many people on the streets, yet for some unknown reason, the camera stops on just four faces and later focuses on them. Chance also decided the meeting of the protagonists of the two novellas. If the story had gone differently, the main pair of protagonists might have been Police officer 223 and Faye.

Fate, however, decreed otherwise. By placing the protagonists in unconscious proximity to each other, interweaving their fates on the streets of Hong Kong, the director encourages viewers to seek and create their own connections between the on-screen characters. He suggests that everything happening on screen is nothing but a matter of whimsical fate.

The most important protagonists of Chungking Express can be narrowed down to four, but they do not seem to be the only key figures. The city is also a key character—the arena of intertwined narrow, claustrophobic streets. Hong Kong intersects its streets in such a way that the fates of the protagonists overlap. It twists its paths so that the woman in the wig ends up in the bar where the troubled police officer 223 sits. It sets its districts so that police officer 633 is assigned to the one where Faye works. Although the director presents its different sides—the more criminal and the less—it is presented as an anthill of millions of people passing by each other daily. As the arena of chance encounters, from which arise relationships as extraordinary and unique as those from the two presented novellas.

Chungking Express is essentially a film about people isolated in a multimillion-city, seeking solace and satisfaction in love. The protagonists from whom each story begins are two police officers suffering from unrequited love. Hong Kong comes to their aid, which, by the force of chance, introduces two unusual women to the protagonists. Women who not only help heal broken hearts but also leave a clear mark on their memory. Police officer 223 admits that although he spent one night with the woman in the wig, she will remain in his memory forever, and Police officer 633 waited for the return of the girl from California for a whole year, constantly listening to her favorite song and buying the bar where they met.

The theme of separation and mourning is crucial in Chungking Express, from which the two novellas derive. Wong Kar-wai tells of coming to terms with change, transience, and the fading of feelings that lead to the breakdown of relationships. We meet Police officer 223 when he slowly begins to accept the cruel state of affairs. It is just one month since his beloved left him. This month, the officer spent on repetitive activities that fueled a spiral of stagnation and lethargy. He bought cans of pineapples every day, ran, and called his ex-girlfriend’s family daily, hoping for renewed contact. On screen, we see him wandering aimlessly around his apartment, the streets of Hong Kong, and repeating failures in subsequent phone contacts with women from his notebook.

Only an exciting nighttime escapade with a mysterious girl in a blonde wig and the birthday wishes he receives in the morning on his pager help him break free from mourning. His memory ceases to be limited by the ruthless deadline of May 1st. At one point in the film, the man asks himself: In time, everything loses its importance. […] I wonder if there is something in the world that doesn’t lose its importance. He answers it himself at the end of the novella. On May 1, 1994, a woman wished me a happy birthday. For this reason, I will remember her for a lifetime. If you could put this memory in a can, it would have no expiration date. Or you would have to write: forever. The protagonist will keep the memory of the enigmatic woman from the bar for the rest of his life.

Similarly, Police officer 633 experiences a breakup. The overwhelming emptiness of his apartment and the belongings left by his ex, hiding in the closets like ghosts, do not help the man understand the motives of the woman who left him. The man falls into a routine, and subsequent days blur into one—lazy patrols of the streets, followed by solitary time spent in the apartment, where he engages in conversations about life with everyday objects. The cluttered psyche of the officer, filled with thoughts of the past, reflects the state of his apartment, whose mess only reminds him of the girl’s departure. With Faye taking care of the apartment, airing it out, cleaning it, and decorating it, the officer lifts his spirits, gathering the energy needed to rebuild his emotional life.

An interesting point of reference is also the food motif running through the entire film. Moreover, not only in Chungking Express are food and dishes important elements of the film. This also plays a crucial role in In the Mood for Love. This film was initially supposed to be a simple story about food, focusing on Hong Kong’s culinary culture. It turned out to be an intimate, poetic melodrama, yet food still plays a key role in the film. For example, the meals eaten by the lovers in silence or the outings of the main character for noodles, which daily took the form of an enigmatic ritual, being, alongside solitary walks to the cinema, the only reason for the beautifully dressed woman to expose herself to the public with her captivating femininity.

It is similar in Chungking Express, but instead of the elegant dinners of the characters in In the Mood for Love, we have quickly eaten dishes in street bars, kebabs, and fish and chips wrapped in silver foil or quick snacks eaten in a room of a night hotel.

Both stories of the officers begin with the food theme. In the first novella, it is a bizarre ritual of buying cans of pineapples with the date of May 1st. When this date arrives, Police officer 223 spends a lonely evening gorging himself on 30 cans of pineapple, symbolizing a kind of reconciliation with the irreversible departure of the girl who loved pineapples. The first question the officer asks the woman in the bar will be, “Do you like pineapples?” The blonde woman in sunglasses does not share such an extreme attachment to this fruit as the man. Her words, heard from behind the frame, sound: Just because you know someone doesn’t mean you can keep them with you. People change. Someone today may like pineapples and something else tomorrow.

This quote, although said by the protagonist of the first novella, perfectly relates to the situation of the officer and his girlfriend from the second novella. The story of Police officer 633 also begins with meals. Visiting the Midnight Express bar daily, the man buys dinners for himself and his girlfriend. It is invariably the chef’s salad. When the bar’s owner persuades the officer to try something new and buy fish and chips for the girl, this unusual departure from the norm becomes an impulse for the woman to leave. The salad was good until the fish and chips arrived, says officer 633. The pineapple quote from the first novella can be paraphrased: People change. Someone today likes the chef’s salad, and tomorrow they crave something entirely different. The officer 633’s partner probably concluded that if she could choose between varied dishes, she could similarly swap men.

The attachment of the two men to strictly designated dishes (pineapples and the chef’s salad) perfectly reflects how conformist and unprepared for change they are. The replacement of old, soggy soap with new, round bars is perceived by Officer 633 as a hostile attack on his stable order of things. Such drastic changes, like the replacement of torn towels with fresh ones, took away the man’s ability to wallow in self-pity. He could no longer say that the towel cried with him, and the soap, like himself, was wasting away. The improvement of his surroundings suggested to the man that even though changes were happening around him, he must remain grounded. The entry of two women into the men’s world signaled an expansion of their stale and impoverished menu.

As a line from Dinah Washington’s song What a Diff’rence a Day Made, which is repeatedly heard in the film, says: “Find romance on your menu.” The women, like battering rams, break the routine of the two men and open them up to new experiences. Officer 223 frees himself from obsessive longing for his ex, and Officer 633 opens up to a new relationship with Faye, agreeing to go with her wherever she wants to take him. It took him some time, just like learning to enjoy California Dreamin’. In Wong Kar-wai’s film, women are depicted as much more open to change, courageous, and adventurous. Their symbol is airplanes—the woman in the blonde wig kills her employer and flies out of the city, Officer 633’s ex-girlfriend is a stewardess, and Faye flies to California for a year and returns as a stewardess as well.

An essential element defining Chungking Express is also the subtle humor that creeps into these unconventional love stories. The world depicted in the film is somewhat like a reflection of the world we know, but seen in a distorted mirror. The characters do strange and absurd things, yet they accept them with stoic calm as if they were unremarkable actions. This refers, for example, to Officer 223, who buys cans of pineapples with the date of May 1st every day for 30 days. The fact that he eats all 30 cans in one evening is a charming sign of desperation after realizing that his beloved has definitively ended their relationship. Or Faye and her way of improving Officer 633’s mood after a breakup.

When a person cries, a few tissues are enough. When a house is drowning in tears, you have to work hard, says Officer 633. Faye sneaks into the man’s apartment daily, cleans, decorates, replaces cheaper sardines with better ones, releases new fish into the aquarium, buys plush toys, changes the bedding, and hangs new shirts in the closet. The newly organized space suggests to the man that he has worked through the breakup and can enter a new relationship. His runway is ready for the next flight. Scenes where Faye delights in just being in her beloved’s apartment and the clueless reactions of Officer 633 to the changes in his apartment—conversations with the new bar of soap or pondering the new taste of sardines—are playfully absurd and comical.

Nevertheless, they address serious matters, such as processing trauma or loneliness affecting many in million-strong cities. The subtly colorful absurdity and the playful subversiveness of the film, stemming from creating hope in the viewer for the connection of the two novellas or abandoning the crime theme in favor of a nostalgic melodrama, add freshness and eccentricity to the film.

Chungking Express can be interpreted in various ways. The first is a story about solitary individuals anchored in bustling, multi-million cities. Although the characters surround themselves with many different people daily, they search in vain for kindred spirits. It’s all the more difficult to find such a thing on the crowded streets of Hong Kong, where anonymity and loneliness are natural, yet this happens to the main characters. Chungking Express is a portrayal of completely random and utterly unpredictable love. Love that happens to ordinary people trapped in their gray realities. The relationships formed between the pairs of characters are mere strokes of fate, yet they leave a noticeable mark that helps the characters accept changes in their love lives and prepares them for new ones.

Therefore, the power of chance is such an important aspect of the director’s storytelling. Chance as a tool determining the fate of the main characters. Every day we brush past other people without knowing each other. Maybe one of them will become close to us someday? is an unintentional line that opens the film. Wong Kar-wai proves that great capricious love can hide even under the guise of the most obvious and mundane things, like buying fish and chips at a favorite fast-food joint. After all, an equally important, if not crucial, theme is the acceptance of changes in love. Obsessive love with its highs, lows, and states of piercing grief and loneliness. About the despair caused by the departure of another person and ways to come to terms with it. About changes, evolutions, and passing as inseparable elements of human relationships.

Wong Kar-wai’s film is for those incurable romantics who, like Margarita walking with a bouquet of hideous, unsettlingly yellow flowers, hope that someone will one day lay eyes on them in a line of street passersby, buy coffee at the same café, or show up in the same bar with alcohol that one night. The director suggests that if we are unlucky in love, we can always work at a kebab stand and leave ourselves in the hands of fate, looking out for our Officer 633.