Chung King Express

Chungking Express [Online Image]. (1994). Retrieved August 17, 2015 from http://www.iubfilmclub.org/2015/03/14/the-narrative-analysis-of-chungking-express/

    Chung King Express was directed by the famous Hong Kong filmmaker, Wong Kar-Wai which greatly influenced by the French Impressionism.

    The overall film was divided into different two stories which involved two cops. The first half deals with Cop 223, who was unable to recover from the broken relationship with her past girlfriend of 5 years. He would only purchased pineapple tin everyday with specific expiration date which is 1 May, his birthday. He believed that by the end of that day he would be either rejoined with his girlfriend or their relationship would expire forever. On that night of 1 May, Cop 223 met with another mysterious blonde lady who wore a blonde wig in a bar. The mysterious lady was actually working for the drug smuggling operation but unfortunately it went sour. Although they eventually spent the night in one room, there was nothing happen between them and in the end the blonde lady wished Cop 223 happy birthday by leaving a message on his pager. There, Cop 223 went to visit his usual snack food store where he collides with a new staff member. The next story began at that point.

    The next story surrounds the relationship between the Cop 663 and the new staff member at a snack food store. At the beginning of the story, Cop 663 was dealing with the hard time of breaking up with his girlfriend who was a flight attendant. During that time, he met the new girl ( played by Faye ) at the snack food store who secretly falls for him. On one occasion where Cop 663’s girlfriend leaving an envelope with his apartment key enclosed inside at the snack food store, Faye had the opportunity to intrude secretly to Cop 663 apartment after he rejects to take the envelope from Faye. After Cop 663 found out about Faye’s action, he finally realized his feeling for Faye and invited her to the “California” restaurant. However, Faye turned down his date by not showing up on that day. She flew to California and asked his cousin, the snack store owner to transfer the message to Cop 663. A year later, Faye now working as a flight attendant came back to the snack food store where Cop 663 had bought it from the last owner. This time, Cop 663 requested Faye for a new boarding pass as the old one was wet and wrinkled. Faye asked him where he would want the destination to be in the new boarding pass, he just answered wherever she would be. Again, their ending was ambiguous. 

    In Wong Kar-Wai’s film, he ignored the usual representation approaches that one could usually found in classical Hollywood film. Indeed, he was an expressionist and he sees film as a tool to express the art and to portray the message. The four main characters of Chung King Express were fairly photogenic in the whole film. The two cops’ character – Cop 223 and Cop 663 spend most of their time preoccupied with recalling back their past relationship with their broke-up girlfriend. The first cop character, Cop 223 (played by Takeshi Kaneshiro) was unable to part from his last relationship and was preoccupied with the pineapple tin’s expiration date of 1 May. He viewed the pineapple tin’s expiry date as a portrayal of the deadline of their relationship, betting on whether they would rejoined love or expired forever. Besides, he spend his time preoccupied with cold-calling old girlfriends or crushes from yesteryears in an attempt to forget the heartbreak moment. He also replaced his loneliness by seeing the pineapple tin as a substitute for his past girlfriend as he remembered her being fond of pineapple very much.

Cop 223 attempt to rejoin with his past love. (1994) [Image, screen capture]

The expiration date of 1 May on pineapple tin. (1994) [Image, screen capture]

    Despite, Cop 663 preoccupied himself with having conversations with his household objects in order to overcome the hard time of breaking up from a relationship. He sees every household objects as a significance of his heart-broken emotions. The old rag that soaked with water represented his crying heart while he felt that his past girlfriend’s flight attendant’s suit was feeling cold, which is the representation of his cold and miserable feeling. 

Cop 663 talking with his household objects. (1994) [Image, screen capture]

    The two lead female characters were rather similar in some ways. Both of them left from the male characters and continue to pursue their own lives. Wong director gave these both female characters a mysterious atmosphere around them. The woman in a blonde wig gave Cop 223 a mysterious background as she was working under a smuggling operation with her immigrants assisted. On the other hand, Faye’s character was created to be more complex than the woman in blonde wig as her vague motivation to “improve” Cop 663 house. It could be reckoned that she did this was hoping that her presence of changing the house would change his heart as well or is it only for her consistent psychology of visiting his house. 

    Although the four characters in two different stories were seem to be not connected, there were some shots proved that they were not directly related but were living in a same space. For instance, in one of the scene when the woman in blonde wig smoking in front of a toy shop, Faye bought a big plushy toy and came out the store. In the latter story, we saw that the plushy toy that Faye bought appeared at quite the end of the story after Faye started intruding Cop 663’s house. This scene implying that both the story events were chronologically happened quite the same time. 

Both lead female characters appeared in same scene. (1994) [Image, screen capture]

    There were also some parts of the location that linked them in the overall flow of the narration. The snack food store was the place that involved both the cops and was the beginning stage for the audiences to understand their stories behind. Moreover, the snack food store’s name was Midnight Express which referred to the title of the film. Thus, it could prove that the Midnight Express snack food store was an important location for the characters and the story. 

   In terms of cinematography, Wong director portrayed the chaos streets of Hong Kong through multiple neon streaks and by using the technique of stutter-step effect. This effect somehow created a temporal distortion to the streets of Hong Kong and also built up a profound impression for the overall film.  The effect also implied that Cop 223 was somehow dislodged from space but not from time. For example, though during the chasing after a criminal, the background was rather distorted in each frames and eventually only showed streaks of neon lights over the screen, yet the camera was still able to focus on Cop 223. 

Cop 223 chasing after a criminal. (1994) [Image, screen capture]

    Chung King Express could be said that it was strongly applied with this stutter-step effect and Wong director employed it, either in slow-motion or fast-motion, to show the disassemble of the characters with the space and time around them thus intensified their emotions thinking. To take an example, in one of the scene when Cop 663 was drinking his coffee at the snack food store while Faye staring at him behind the counter, the pedestrians outside were in fast-motion yet the time inside the store was in slow-motion speed. If we as the spectators viewed from the point of view of Faye, we would realize that the whole scene was mainly to think from the perspective of Faye. Faye also was wearing a big ol’ heart on it, crying out loud, desperate for the attention of Cop 663 of forgetting his past love. In the psychology moment of one is in nervous or anxious state, one would realized that the time past around them would seem to be never ending. It was what Wong director wanted the audience to ponder on and to feel in this scene. 

One of the scenes with stutter-step effect. (1994) [Image, screen capture]

    Furthermore, the lighting expressions were also one of the traits that Wong director employed it to express the mood and tone of the movie. When Cop 663 converse with his household objects, there was blue halo permeates his cramped kitchen and living room which created the miserable feeling of the character in the meanwhile showing the surreal transformation of ordinary objects into Cop 663’s confidant. The hyperreal objects accenting the mundane and placed meaning in the insignificant which portrayed the permeation of the character’s imagination outside the suffocating Hong Kong’s life. 

    In the second half stories, the two most repeated pop tune were “California Dreamin” by the Mamas and the Papas, as well as Faye Wong’s cover of “Dreams”. Both tunes were the depiction of dreams and also to symbolize the “dreaming” sickness every character were into. For instance, Cop 663 and Cop 223 were in the dream of their past love while Faye was in her dream of pursuing her ultimate dream. 

    There were some visible traits that defined Hong Kong’s culture could be found in the lead female characters. Generally, Hong Kong’s women were recognized as strong and independent. These characteristics could be found in both lead female characters where they could abandon love for the sake of pursuing their future path. It did not show the classical romance female character in most Hollywood movie where they could sacrifice for love. By constructing the female characteristics into typical Hong Kong women, it added as a trademark for Hong Kong’s culture. 

    Chung King Express was definitely a film that needed to be watched repetitively in order to fully understand the meaning and message Wong director intended to convey. The “Chung King” of the title was referring to Chung King Mansions whereas the “Express” referring to the Midnight Express of the snack food store. The film’s title “Chung King Express” was showing to a location that was not existed and indicated as a dream. A place for the four characters to live in, escape from the cramped Hong Kong’s reality.

References:

Maslin, J. (1994, September 26). The New York’s Times. Chungking Express (1994) FILM REVIEW; Mocking MTV Style And Paying Homage to It. Retrieved August 17, 2015, from http://www.nytimes.com/movie/review?res=9503E2DA133AF935A1575AC0A962958260

D'Angelo, M. (2013, October 16). The Dissolve. How Wong Kar-Wai turned 22 seconds into an eternity. Retrieved August 17, 2015, from https://thedissolve.com/features/movie-of-the-week/221-how-wong-kar-wai-turned-22-seconds-into-an-eternit/