Chungking Express
Chungking Express is a French New Wave film that delivers
the love story of four persons. In the
first story, cop 223 (Qiwu) broke up with his girlfriend, May on 1 April. His birthday
is on 1 May so he decided to wait for her a month. Each day he will buy a can
of pineapple that expires on 1 May. As days goes by, he feels that if their relationship
are unable to move on, the relationship will be forever expired. On the other hand, a mysterious woman with a
blonde wig that wear raincoat and sunglasses every days and nights is surviving
in the drugs underworld. On 1 May, Qiwu is seeking for love in a bar and he
approaches the mysterious woman. The second story started with cop 663 has
dumped by his ex-girlfriend. He meets a new girl in the snacks bar named as
Faye. Faye fall in love with him, therefore she did something insane such as
breaks in to his house and help him to clean his house. 663 caught her doing
that and wanted to dates her as he is also interested on her. But, Faye didn’t
come to the dates because she wants to discover her dreams in California.
Mostly, Hong Kong pictures are related with gangsters and
cops that have some mafia kind of genres. Martial arts are also used a lot in
the Hong Kong cinema. Somehow, Chungking Express directed by Wong Kar Wai has an
outstanding style that presents romance and the daily lives of Hong Kong
society around Hong Kong’s Chung King Mansions, the area of some shabby
hostels, bar, club, and also the area that gather up many illegal immigrants.
Hong Kong is a British colony from 1841 to 1997. Therefore, Western
cultures have change and influence the culture of Hong Kong. In Chungking Express,
the setting and location such as bar, club and fast food store are related with
western culture. When Wu and blonde wig lady in the hotel with westernize
interior, Wu ordered foods and eat it while he is watching Chinese classic movie,
shown the mixture of culture. The character of blonde wig drug dealer, costume
is similarly like the fashion in the 50’s of western where remind me of Marilyn
Monroe , the American actress. Many English songs are used in the film and the
multi-cultural aspects are emphasized by speaking many different languages in
the film. The blonde wig lady speak English with the Indians drug smuggler and
Wu speak multiple languages such as Japanese, English, Mandarin and Cantonese.
Furthermore, the blonde wig lady which is a drug dealer are arranging
drug trafficking with the Indians shows the dark side of Hong Kong where is
some illegal activity happening. Human and drug trafficking is running around
the area, this illegal immigrates are known as “cheap labor” where is hard to support
the living expenses in Hong Kong, they are force to corrupt in drug trafficking
due to their hardness on living in Hong Kong. On the other side, Faye snacks
store has employed many Indian workers which shows us this foreign workers
salary is lesser than the local workers. Also Faye cousin can’t find a local
worker to work in front the counter so he hired Faye, show us now there are
less local people willing to work in the lower position such as cleaner, kitchen
staff and more. In the film, they also
show how the local communication and interact with the foreigner. Mostly they
have to use English for communication and sometimes the foreign language is
hard to understand by the local. As the blonde wig lady feels hardly to speak
with them.
The loneliness and isolation may be the theme of the film.
The characters are all insecure and confuse on their feeling. A lovesick cop, a
lonely drug dealer, a heartbreak cop and a snack bar worker, four different
characters are living in the big city in Hong Kong. The rush and busy city have
lose the time of building friendships and bonds with each other. All of them
are desire for love than lived. Both of the cops are still recover for their
heart breaking relationship while they meet the two female characters. When Wu
meet the blonde wig lady, he first question is “Do you like Pineapple?”, means
he is still missing his ex-girlfriend and concern about the next girl have the
characteristic of his ex- girlfriend. 663 talk with the non-living things and treat
them like person have shown he have no one to talk with and integrating his
sadness to all the non-living things. People are hard to express their feeling
which they need to hide themselves. Many
monologues have used frequent in the film as to express all the lonely people
run around to city. Wu hide his feeling, he refuse to cry so he would like to
use his method to recover his sadness by jogging to sweat out all the tears. The
blonde wig lady cover herself with a pair of sunglasses and rain coat, she
feels afraid, insecure and conscious in the city. She feels harmful and threatens
by the big crowd city. Faye is the opposite of the lady in blonde wig which is
active, young and naïve. Her crazy idea of breaking in to 663 house has shown
her naïve and cheeky personality. She hope and want to travel to California,
but also miserable about her future.
There are shots I personally find it interesting that how there
takes it in the film. When Wu and 663 talks about their ex-girlfriends in the
snack store, they cover the screen and left a narrow space of themselves that
show how insecure and narrow their feeling it.
Chungking Express is a successful film to show the period of
Hong Kong citizen feeling. British are going to let China to handover Hong Kong
at the period of the film releasing , whereby Hong Kong citizens feels fear and
insecure about the huge changes that will manipulate the whole Hong Kong. They
are unable to find their identity and there is confusion of their identity.
Wong Kar Wai has successfully to portray the unique mixture
of different culture in Hong Kong through Chungking Express. Chungking Express
storyline are related to everyone feeling of love, dedication, worries and hope
with an open ending that let the audiences to imagine and think about the
destiny of each character.
References:
http://www.wongfaye.org/cke1.htm
http://www.filmeducation.org/pdf/film/Chungking%20Express.pdf
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