Chungking Express - Wong Kar Wai

It’s no wonder that Chunking Express is about relationships, (infact this is about two separate, disconnected ones) – almost all Wong Kar Wai movies are. Its simplicity, however, is truly differentiating. And this simplicity reflects in Wong Kar Wai’s statement about Chungking Express, “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." And honestly, this is perhaps his tribute to Hollywood – with its blond Marilyn-like heroines, American songs playing over and over like a broken record, glimpses of people from all races, and suave but banal characters. It’s a delight for anyone, simply because it is straightforward without any clichés, deep without any complexity, and restrained without any overflowing enthusiasm. Perhaps that’s why it comes across more as a juvenile (NOT in a bad way) woolgathering than starkly intense tales of love lost and found - with the protagonist walking around in his underwear, playing with toy planes, speaking to inanimate objects like soaps and clothes and women crooning Chinese renditions of American songs – all this and more make it strangely alluring. Chungking Express manages to scrape the bottoms of the psyche of its characters, with the scalpel of an expert storyteller like Wong Kar-Wai.

Two stories, both same on the surface but with different undercurrents, revolve around two men, both cops, dealing with the issues of love.

Part 1

In the first story, a cop, He Qiwu, referred to numerically as number 223, is obsessing over his ex-girlfriend May, who dumped him unceremoniously on April fool’s day. He, though, like a maudlin fool, is waiting to have her back in his life. He purchases canned food everyday, which is due to expire on the 1^st of May. Equating the shelf life of his love to the shelf life of a pineapple can, he believes that he will get his closure on or before 1^st May – getting back with her or moving on. Come May 1^st and he realizes that the expiry date for their relationship is up as well.

Down in the dumps, heartbroken, mawkish 223 comes across the a woman (Chinese answer to Marilyn Monroe) – a blonde wig wearing drug peddler who has been framed for a drug deal gone horribly wrong – in a night club. They both end up in a hotel as she crashes after some heavy-duty binge drinking. He eats the whole night (like he has a bottomless pit for a stomach) while his newfound love snores away all through the night. 223 soon receives a note from the stranger woman on his birthday, and ostensibly, this short lived romance dies a natural death too. At this point, the first story ends without any concrete answers to what ensues as 223 introduces the two central characters in the second story.

Part 2

The second story is about another cop, number 633, who is similarly reeling over from his break up with his airhostess ex-girlfriend. As he valiantly tries to get over his relationship ruminating on his moments spent with her, sulking about the longevity of his relationship with notions like “I thought we’d stay together for the long haul, flying like a jumbo jet on a long flight, but we changed course”, he catches the eye of the young, peppy waitress, Faye, at a food shop he routinely visits. Faye, a rather weird, dreamy but endearing character, gets hold of a spare key to his apartment and sneaks in regularly in his absence to clean and play around in his apartment. As the smoke of his previous relationship clears up, he starts realizing that Faye has feelings for him and he begins to see her differently as well. But as soon as fixes a rendezvous with her, she stands him up, sends him a fake ticket (some details scribbled on a paper resembling a ticket), and leaves to fulfill her dream of traveling before she settles down.

A year later, Faye comes back to the shop, now a stewardess, where she worked and finds 633 renovating the whole place. He tells her that he bought the shop and is redecorating it.

They take over from where they left off, and all looks good for them…All’s well that ends well.

Someone described this movie once as cinematic improvisation, and I couldn’t think of a better description for it. The whole movie is practically a collage of images that have been concocted and stitched together spontaneously, without any thought or measure of love and longing, but magically ends up as a delectable treat. It is perhaps the simplest movie ever made by Wong Kar Wai (I may be too presumptuous here), but it has all the ingredients of out-of-the-box cinema. His characters have certain innocence and naiveté about them, but the lack of complexity doesn’t translate to monotony. Au contraire, it manages to surprise the viewer with the freshness of the four key characters, and one empathizes, yet smiles at them. There is a certain nostalgia floating around in the air and it makes one sit up and think, “I’ve been there, done that”, even though one hasn’t. Many few works strike such an intimate chord without being too representative of the natural progression of events in anyone’s life.

The screenplay is very unique, the characters always seem to be moving slowly, mechanically between flashing backgrounds that seem to be speeding past, as it the director is stressing on the their lingering nature against the backdrop of a world changing too fast for them.

One of my most favorite scenes is a flashback where 633 is "canoodling" with his girlfriend, playing with a toy plane, and the actions seem to correlate with the voice of a steward instructing passengers to buckle up. The action ends with the plane landing on her back. Its simply brilliant. Here’s a verbal glimpse of the scene:

Your seat belts are fastened like this [gripping her tightly, pinning her against a surface], , and unfastened like this[fiddling with her clothes]…please sit back, relax and enjoy the flight [some passionate fondling]…

So my advice to you is - dump your baggage, sit back, relax and enjoy the journey Wong Kar Wai takes you on with this memorable off-the-cuff flick.

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