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Chungking Express
US theatrical release poster
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese重慶森林
Simplified Chinese重庆森林
Literal meaningChungking (Chongqing) Forest
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu PinyinChóngqìng Sēnlín
Yue: Cantonese
JyutpingCung4 Hing3 Sam1 Lam4
Directed byWong Kar-wai
Written byWong Kar-wai
Produced by
Starring
Cinematography
Edited by
Music by
Production
companies
Jet Tone Production Co., Ltd.
Release date
  • 14 July 1994 (1994-07-14) (Hong Kong)[2]
Running time
98 minutes
CountryHong Kong
LanguagesCantonese[3]
Mandarin
Box office
  • $600,200 (United States)[4]
  • HK$7.6 million (Hong Kong)[2]

Chungking Express is a 1994 Hong Kong arthouse[5] romantic comedy-drama film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai.[6][7] The film consists of two stories told in sequence, each about a lovesick Hong Kong policeman mulling over his relationship with a woman. The first story stars Takeshi Kaneshiro as a cop obsessed by his breakup with a woman named May, and his encounter with a mysterious drug smuggler (Brigitte Lin). The second stars Tony Leung as a police officer roused from his gloom over the loss of his flight attendant girlfriend (Valerie Chow) by the attentions of a quirky snack bar worker (Faye Wong).[8]

"Chungking" in the title refers to Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui, Hong Kong, a place with a reputation as a dark underbelly rife with crime, sex and drugs.[9] "Express" refers to the food stand Midnight Express, located in Lan Kwai Fong, an area in Central, Hong Kong.[10][11]

The film premiered at Hong Kong on 14 July 1994 and received critical acclaim specially for its direction, cinematography and cast performances. Since then it has been regarded as one of Wong's finest works, one of the best films of 1994, of the 1990s, of the 20th century and of all time, as well as one of the best anthologies and romantic comedies ever made.

In 2022, the film appeared at number 88 on the decennial Sight and Sound critics' poll of the greatest films of all time.[12]

Plot

[edit]

First story

[edit]

Hong Kong police officer He Zhi Wu's girlfriend, May, breaks up with him on 1 April. To verify her earnestness in ending the relationship, Zhi Wu chooses to wait for a month.[13][14] Every day he buys a tin of pineapples with an expiration date of 1 May, because May enjoyed pineapples and 1 May is his birthday. Meanwhile, a woman in a blonde wig tries to survive in the drug underworld after a smuggling operation goes sour.

On 1 May, Zhi Wu approaches the woman in the blonde wig at the Bottoms Up Club. However, she is exhausted and falls asleep in a hotel room, leaving him to watch old films and order food. He shines her shoes before he leaves her sleeping on the bed. She leaves in the morning and shoots the drug baron who set her up. Zhiwu goes jogging and receives a message from her on his pager wishing him a happy birthday. He visits his usual food store in Chungking Mansions where he collides with a new staff member, Faye.

Second story

[edit]

Another police officer, Cop 663, is also dealing with a breakup—with a flight attendant. Faye secretly falls for him. One day, the flight attendant visits the store and waits for the man. She learns he is on his day off and leaves a letter for him with the buffet owner containing a set of keys to the officer's apartment.

Faye tells the officer of the letter, but he delays reading it and asks the buffet to keep it for him. Faye uses the keys to repeatedly enter the man's apartment to clean and redecorate. Gradually, her ploys help him cheer up. He finds Faye coming to his apartment and realises that she likes him; he arranges a date at a restaurant named California. Faye does not arrive, and the buffet owner, her cousin, goes to the restaurant to tell him that Faye has left for the US state of California. She leaves him a boarding pass drawn on a paper napkin dated one year later.

Faye, now a flight attendant, returns to Hong Kong. She finds that the officer has bought the buffet and is converting it into a restaurant. He asks her to stay for the grand opening, and asks her to send him a postcard if she leaves. As Faye is about to leave, he presents the boarding pass, wrinkled and water-stained, and she writes him a new one. She asks him where he wants the destination to be, to which he replies, "Wherever you will take me".

Cast

[edit]
  • Brigitte Lin as woman in blonde wig
  • Takeshi Kaneshiro as Ho Chi Moo / He Zhi Wu (Chinese: 何志武; pinyin: Hé Zhìwǔ, Cantonese Hòh Ji-móuh), nicknamed Ah Wu (Cantonese Ah Mouh), Cop 223
  • Faye Wong as Faye
  • Tony Leung Chiu-wai as Cop 663
  • Valerie Chow as flight attendant who breaks up with Cop 663
  • Chan Kam-chuen as manager of the takeaway restaurant Midnight Express
  • Thom Baker as double-crossing drug dealer
  • Kwan Lee-na as Richard
  • Wong Chi-Ming as man
  • Leung Sun as the second May, who works at the Midnight Express
  • Choh Chung-Sing as man

Theme

[edit]
  • "Chungking Express tells its story of love, loss, and memory through the romance of goods". In the first story, He Zhi Wu desires closer social contacts but can only depend on desperate phone calls to May's parents and cans of pineapples (May's favourite food) as substitutes for actual physical and emotional contact and intimacy.
  • "At our closest point, we were just 0.01 cm apart from each other." 0.01 cm is an urban space of possibilities—separation or connection, strangers or friends. This is a form of urban space that is of interest to Wong—that physical gap between busy passers-by in the city.
  • "In the first story, Wong suggests that the sharing of 0.01 cm in a busy city can produce an affect. In the second, the possibility of sustaining a relationship through the non-simultaneous sharing of space is posited."[15]

Production

[edit]
Shops inside Chungking Mansions
Central–Mid-Levels escalators
The departure hall of the former Kai Tak Airport is featured in the film

Wong Kar-wai made Chungking Express during a two-month break from the editing of his wuxia film Ashes of Time. He said: "While I had nothing to do, I decided to make Chungking Express following my instincts,"[16] and that: "After the very heavy stuff, heavily emphasized in Ashes of Time, I wanted to make a very light, contemporary movie, but where the characters had the same problems." Originally, Wong envisioned the stories as similar but with contrasting settings: one in Hong Kong Island in daylight, and the other in Kowloon at night. He felt that "despite the difference, they are the same stories": one was about encountering love in the tight city, the other was about the keeping love without physical connection.[16][14]

The screenplay was not finished by the time filming began; Wong finished it when filming paused over New Year. He wrote the second story in a single day.[16] He developed a third story, about a love-sick hitman, but as he felt it would make Chungking Express overlong, he produced it as a separate film, Fallen Angels (1995).

Wong wanted to film in Tsim Sha Tsui, since he grew up in the area and felt a strong connection to it. He described it as "an area where the Chinese literally brush shoulders with westerners, and is uniquely Hong Kong." He was drawn to Chungking Mansion for its many lodgings, mix of cultures, and its significance as a crime hotspot; he felt that, as a "mass-populated and hyperactive place", it worked as a metaphor for Hong Kong itself.[16]

The director once talked about his inspiration by the works of Haruki Murakami.[17] As an example, the original title of the film is "重慶森林", while the Chinese title of Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Wood" (1987) is "挪威的森林".[18]

The second story was shot in Central, including Lan Kwai Fong, near a popular fast food shop called Midnight Express.[19] "In this area, there are a lot of bars, a lot of foreign executives would hang out there after work," Wong remembers. The fast food shop is forever immortalized as the spot where Tony Leung and Faye Wong's characters met and became attracted to one another. Wong was also drawn to "the escalator from Central to the mid-levels. That interests me because no one has made a movie there. When we were scouting for locations we found the light there entirely appropriate."[16] The apartment of Tony Leung's character was cinematographer Christopher Doyle's apartment at the time of filming.[20]

Wong narrates the story in a fragmented structure and connects the fragments through monologues. By looking at the pictures created by Wong, the emotions and themes central to the story become clear.[21]

Marketing

[edit]

The film's marketing posters were designed by artist Stanley Wong, under his pseudonym "Another Mountain Man".[22]

Soundtrack

[edit]

The main recurring music for the first story is Dennis Brown's "Things in Life".[23] The song "Baroque", composed by Michael Galasso, can be heard twice during the first part of the movie: during the opening and when Brigitte Lin's character takes the gun in the closer. This track does not appear on the soundtrack album, although three other tracks are similar to it: "Fornication in Space" (track 3), "Heartbreak" (track 8) and "Sweet Farewell" (track 9), played respectively on synth, guitar and piano.[24]

The song "California Dreamin'" by The Mamas & the Papas plays in the key scenes in the second story, which also features Faye Wong's Cantonese cover version of "Dreams" by The Cranberries, which is also played over the end credits (titled "Mung Zung Yan", it is also included in her 1994 album Random Thoughts while her next album, Sky, includes a Mandarin cover).[25]

"California Dreamin'" is played numerous times by Faye Wong's character, indicative of "the simultaneity of her aversion to and desire for change".[26] "What a Diff'rence a Day Made", performed by Dinah Washington, is played during a scene between Tony Leung and Valerie Chow's characters, as well as during an encounter between Tony Leung and Faye Wong's characters later in the film.[27][28]

The film's soundtrack is also widely credited with introducing Dream Pop to the Hong-Kongese market. Bands featured in the soundtrack, including The Cranberries and Cocteau Twins, saw significant commercial success in Hong Kong following the release of Chungking Express, and contemporary Canto-pop stars such as Candy Lo began adopting a more dream-pop sound, such as in Lo's 1998 EP Don't Have to be... Too Perfect and subsequent album Miao....[29]

Distribution

[edit]

On 8 March 1996, the film began a limited theatrical run in North America through Quentin Tarantino's Rolling Thunder distribution company under Miramax. The Region 1 DVD was distributed by Rolling Thunder as Tarantino is an admirer of Wong Kar-wai.[30][31]

Chungking Express was later released by The Criterion Collection on DVD and Blu-ray Disc (their first release on that format) in 2008.[32] Criterion has since reclaimed the rights and the film is currently available on its streaming platform, the Criterion Channel (as of July 2022).[33] In March 2021, it was remastered and re-released by Criterion as part of their Blu-ray box set, The World of Wong Kar Wai.[34][35]

Reception

[edit]

Box office

[edit]

Chungking Express earned HK$7,678,549 during its Hong Kong run.[2] In the United States, opening on four screens, it grossed $32,779 ($8,194 per screen) in its opening weekend. Playing at 20 theatres at its widest point, it went on to gross $600,200 total.[36]

Critical response and legacy

[edit]

During its release in North America, Chungking Express drew generally positive, sometimes ecstatic reviews from critics. On review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 88% based on 65 reviews, and an average rating of 7.80/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Even if all it had to offer were writer-director Wong Kar-wai's thrillingly distinctive visuals, Chungking Express would be well worth watching; happily, its thoughtfully drawn characters and naturalistic performances also pack a potent dramatic wallop."[37] On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 18 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[38]

Film critic Roger Ebert was measured in his praise (giving the film three out of four stars):[39]

This is the kind of movie you'll relate to if you love film itself, rather than its surface aspects such as story and stars. It's not a movie for casual audiences, and it may not reveal all its secrets the first time through . . . If you are attentive to the style, if you think about what Wong is doing, Chungking Express works. If you're trying to follow the plot, you may feel frustrated ... When Godard was hot, in the 1960s and early 1970s, there was an audience for this style, but in those days, there were still film societies and repertory theaters to build and nourish such audiences. Many of today's younger filmgoers, fed only by the narrow selections at video stores, are not as curious or knowledgeable and may simply be puzzled by Chungking Express instead of challenged. It needs to be said, in any event, that a film like this is largely a cerebral experience: You enjoy it because of what you know about film, not because of what it knows about life.

Rolling Stone's Peter Travers praised the film as both "exasperating and exhilarating":[40]

There is no mistaking Wong's talent. His hypnotic images of love and loss finally wear down your resistance as seemingly discordant sights and sounds coalesce into a radiant, crazy quilt that can make you laugh in awe at its technical wizardry in one scene and pierce your heart in the next.

Janet Maslin of The New York Times criticized the film's MTV-like "aggressive energy":[41]

Mr. Wong has legitimate visual flair, but his characters spend an awful lot of time playing impish tricks. A film in which a man talks to his dishtowel has an overdeveloped sense of fun.

In a 2002 poll published by Sight and Sound (the monthly magazine of the British Film Institute) asking fifty leading UK film critics to choose the ten best films from the previous 25 years, Chungking Express was placed at number eight.[42] In the magazine's 2012 poll to find the most acclaimed films of all time, Chungking Express ranked 144.[43] The film was included in Time's All-Time 100 best movies list in 2005.[44] The film ranked 56th in BBC's 2018 list of The 100 greatest foreign language films voted by 209 film critics from 43 countries around the world.[45]

Academy Award-winning director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) is said to be influenced by this film.[46][47][48]

Awards and nominations

[edit]
  • 1994 Stockholm International Film Festival
  • 1994 Golden Horse Awards
    • Winner – Best Actor (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai)
  • 1995 Hong Kong Film Awards
    • Winner – Best Picture
    • Winner – Best Director (Wong Kar-wai)
    • Winner – Best Actor (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai)
    • Winner – Best Editing (William Cheung Suk-Ping, Kwong Chi-Leung, Hai Kit-Wai)
    • Nomination – Best Actress (Faye Wong)
    • Nomination – Best Supporting Actress (Valerie Chow Kar-Ling)
    • Nomination – Best Screenplay (Wong Kar-wai)
    • Nomination – Best Cinematography (Christopher Doyle, Andrew Lau Wai-Keung)
    • Nomination – Best Art Direction (William Cheung Suk-Ping)
    • Nomination – Best Original Film Score (Frankie Chan Fan-Kei, Roel A. Garcia)

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ "Chungking Express" end credit (Miramax/Criterion version) (DVD/Blu-ray). Miramax/Criterion.
  2. ^ a b c "Chungking Express". Hong Kong Film Archive. Archived from the original on 18 December 2012. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
  3. ^ "Chungking Express". BBFC. Archived from the original on 22 September 2024. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  4. ^ "Chunking Express". Box Office Mojo. Archived from the original on 21 November 2011. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
  5. ^ Ebert, Roger. "Chungking Express (1994)". Chicago Sun-Times. Archived from the original on 14 April 2021. Retrieved 25 March 2024 – via RogerEbert.com.
  6. ^ Blaise, Judd. "Chungking Express (1994)". AllMovie. Archived from the original on 24 May 2012. Retrieved 11 January 2013.
  7. ^ "The Cinematheque / Chungking Express". Archived from the original on 29 November 2020. Retrieved 23 January 2021.
  8. ^ "10 iconic looks in Asian cinema, including that Bruce Lee jumpsuit". South China Morning Post. 14 March 2024. Archived from the original on 24 March 2024. Retrieved 24 March 2024.
  9. ^ "Then and Now: Iconic locations from Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express". Time Out. Archived from the original on 10 November 2022. Retrieved 9 October 2024.
  10. ^ "Poet of time: Wong Kar-Wai on Chungking Express | from the Sight & Sound archive". British Film Institute. 21 May 2020. Archived from the original on 9 August 2022. Retrieved 9 August 2022.
  11. ^ "Then and Now: Iconic locations from Wong Kar-wai's Chungking Express". Time Out Hong Kong. Archived from the original on 3 March 2021. Retrieved 9 August 2022.
  12. ^ "Chungking Express (1994)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 22 September 2024. Retrieved 2 December 2022.
  13. ^ "Chungking Express". Criterion Collection. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
  14. ^ a b Gan, Wendy (November 2003). 0.01cm: Affectivity and Urban Space in Chungking Express (PDF) (Thesis). University of Hong Kong. Archived (PDF) from the original on 15 February 2021. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  15. ^ "Bettison, Gary. Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai : Film Poetics and the Aesthetic of Disturbance. Hong Kong University Press, 2014". Archived from the original on 15 June 2020. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  16. ^ a b c d e Lafrance, J. D. (2004). "Cinematic Pleasures: Chungking Express". erasing clouds. Archived from the original on 17 March 2017. Retrieved 9 October 2006.
  17. ^ "Poet of time: Wong Kar-Wai on Chungking Express | from the Sight & Sound archive". British Film Institute. 21 May 2020. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
  18. ^ Lin, Ho (6 October 2024). "Life Is But a Dream: "Chungking Express"". Camera Roll. Retrieved 16 October 2024.
  19. ^ ""Wong Kar Wai's Midnight Express… now a 7–11?", hongkonghustle.com, August 4, 2008". Hongkonghustle.com. 4 August 2008. Archived from the original on 23 March 2012. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
  20. ^ "Painting With the Camera" – Christopher Doyle on cinematography Archived 27 September 2011 at the Wayback Machine. Berlinale Talent Campus, 13 February 2005
  21. ^ "郭乃荣. 浅析王家卫电影的叙事策略[J]. 科技传播,2020,12(04):154–155". Archived from the original on 22 September 2024. Retrieved 15 June 2020.
  22. ^ "頭條日報 頭條網 – 黃炳培 一半一半 還是百分之五". Headline Daily. Archived from the original on 30 March 2017. Retrieved 11 October 2015.
  23. ^ "Things In Life by Dennis Brown – Topic on YouTube". YouTube. 29 March 2018. Archived from the original on 4 July 2022. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  24. ^ "Chungking Express - Original Soundtrack". AllMusic. Archived from the original on 22 September 2024. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  25. ^ Chow, Vivienne (16 January 2018). "What Hong Kong's Cantopop scene owes to the Cranberries". Quartz. Archived from the original on 22 March 2020. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  26. ^ Bettinson, Gary (November 2014). The Sensuous Cinema of Wong Kar-wai: Film Poetics and the Aesthetic of Disturbance. Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 9789888139293. Archived from the original on 22 September 2024. Retrieved 22 August 2020.
  27. ^ Hyden, Steven (5 October 2009). "Song And Vision No. 5: "California Dreamin'" and Chungking Express". AV Club. Archived from the original on 17 November 2023. Retrieved 9 May 2024.
  28. ^ Baines, Josh (22 June 2018). "The 'Chungking Express' Soundtrack Makes Repetition Beautiful". VICE. Archived from the original on 6 March 2024. Retrieved 9 May 2024.
  29. ^ Balmont, James (13 February 2021). "How Chungking Express brought dream pop to Hong Kong". Little White Lies. Archived from the original on 22 December 2022. Retrieved 22 December 2021.
  30. ^ "TCM.com". Retrieved 20 October 2019.[dead link‍]
  31. ^ "AV Club". Archived from the original on 20 October 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  32. ^ "Out of Print – Criterion Collection". Archived from the original on 5 July 2022. Retrieved 4 July 2022.
  33. ^ "Chungking Express (1994)". The Criterion Collection. Archived from the original on 5 March 2016. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  34. ^ "World of Wong Kar Wai". Archived from the original on 12 December 2020. Retrieved 13 December 2020.
  35. ^ "World of Wong Kar Wai Blu-ray Release Date March 23, 2021". Archived from the original on 22 April 2022. Retrieved 9 April 2021.
  36. ^ "Box Office Mojo". Archived from the original on 5 February 2019. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  37. ^ "Chungking Express (1996)". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 22 September 2024. Retrieved 24 November 2022.
  38. ^ "Chungking Express Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 22 September 2024. Retrieved 22 September 2020.
  39. ^ "Review by Roger Ebert". Chicago Sun-Times. 15 March 1996. Archived from the original on 20 March 2013. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
  40. ^ "Chungking Express". Rolling Stone. 8 March 1996. Archived from the original on 15 February 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  41. ^ Maslin, Janet (26 September 1994). "FILM REVIEW; Mocking MTV Style And Paying Homage to It". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 15 February 2021. Retrieved 21 February 2019.
  42. ^ "Modern Times". Sight and Sound. British Film Institute. 25 January 2012. Archived from the original on 13 October 2018. Retrieved 3 February 2012.
  43. ^ "The Greatest Films Poll – Chungking Express". Sight and Sound. British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 20 August 2012. Retrieved 12 March 2014.
  44. ^ Corliss, Richard (13 January 2010). "Chungking Express". Time. Archived from the original on 31 July 2021. Retrieved 27 May 2021.
  45. ^ "The 100 Greatest Foreign Language Films". bbc. 29 October 2018. Archived from the original on 25 December 2020. Retrieved 10 January 2021.
  46. ^ "What Wong Kar Wai Taught Barry Jenkins About Longing". Criterion Collection. 29 November 2016. Archived from the original on 24 March 2021. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  47. ^ Bauer, Alex (1 March 2017). "The Influential Powers of 'Chungking Express'". Medium. CineNation. Archived from the original on 22 September 2024. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
  48. ^ O'Falt, Chris (31 May 2017). "Barry Jenkins' 'Moonlight': See the Seven Foreign Films That Inspired the Oscar Winner". IndieWire. Archived from the original on 26 October 2020. Retrieved 20 October 2019.
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