Film Review: 'Chungking Express' (1994/Hong Kong)

Film Review: 'Chungking Express' (1994/Hong Kong)

1994/Hong Kong/100 minutes Director/Screenplay: Wong Kar-wai Cinematography: Christopher Doyle/Andrew Lau Cast: Tony Leung/Faye Wong/Brigitte Lin/Takeshi Kaneshiro

Vivid colors and neon captured through handheld camera work, blur, step-printing, and wide-angle lenses. A camera and people moving wildly through the bustling crowd. A collaboration between the camera and the actors. Even the most trivial movements are calculated and fit into the aesthetics of the composition. The next scene lies just beyond the gaze or movement. 'Oh, someone moved over there,' the camera follows. 'Oh, they moved over there,' the camera follows. The camera moves as if following human intuition. As if the camera itself were the protagonist. The sensibility literally flows. At a speed you cannot catch up with. The flow never stops. Because of this, you can watch it all at once without ever getting bored. It is an expression pursued to the extreme. People move restlessly. The sense of presence and tension in the visuals is incredible. The opening scene in the crowd. The sequence of movements as he is chased by men and gets on the subway. The depiction of the crowd is also wonderful. Officer 663 seems to be the only one standing still while drinking a beer, while the people around him pass by at high speed. A year later, Faye is waiting in the same shop in the same way. This step-printing depiction of the crowd is very effective. The feeling of being the only one left behind among people moving restlessly. The sense of presence and tension in the visuals directly express the inner lives of the characters. The quiet depictions are also deeply flavorful. It feels familiar, like a documentary or an autobiographical novel. The scene where he sits at the entrance of a convenience store with expired canned goods. The scene where he eats canned pineapple. The scene where he talks to a dog or a stuffed animal. Stillness and motion. Both feel like craftsmanship, an aesthetic sense built with great care. This film was actually made in two months. What I thought was careful was perhaps not because there was time, but because due to the lack of time, the director's sensibility and the techniques of the actors and the camera exploded, resulting in the capture of a momentary aesthetic sharpened to the smallest detail. What did he express in that short shooting period? The story is simple. A flow of two medium-length stories connected together. Both involve a policeman who has just been heartbroken and his missed connections with respective women. Unable to face reality, the lover still disappears into a dream. What is unfolding before our eyes—is it a story, or a monologue? The part where the trajectory of the hearts of these introspective people, which we have never seen before, is carefully depicted is the greatest charm of this film. A personal act. Without intersecting with others, a quiet ideal, hope, and one's own obsessions. The first encounter is between a policeman and a criminal. It is a difficult encounter from that point on. He, played by Takeshi Kaneshiro, believes that his girlfriend will return within 30 days until his birthday, and every day he buys canned pineapple with the same expiration date as his birthday. Along with a quiet obsession, it is hope, and since there is no connection in the first place, it is simultaneously despair. Without gaining anything, something evaporates. The contrast between Takeshi Kaneshiro's natural acting and Brigitte Lin's tense acting as a criminal is amazing. Their contrast at the bar showed a fleeting moment of contact, but it ended in a complete missed connection. As if caring for a companion in the same situation who was hurt, rather than a target of love. Nevertheless, a moment of connection was brought about for an instant by a pager. The next policeman, played by Tony Leung, and Faye, played by Faye Wong, also continue to miss each other. Faye Wong's boyish movements are good whenever you see them. She enters the room without permission and is absorbed in redecorating it to her own taste. While feeling elated. While mixing dreams and reality. What was she redecorating? It was for him, too. But for herself as well, wasn't she reconstructing her own complex, wavering self—what her own ideals, tastes, and obsessions were? Wasn't the place called California set as a destination rather than a desire to escape? Only the loneliness accelerates. No conversation, just missing each other. A faint moment. Throughout the film, something is being lost. The talent to depict the scene beyond the screen as a real experience for the audience. The creators love cameras, they love film, and they love humans. They also love the sadness within loneliness. What floats in the darkness is sad, yet it touches a chord somewhere deep in the audience's heart. It is a mysterious experience. Redecorating the room. An act of repainting the world. Re-examining oneself and moving forward as is. Further away. The connection of hearts is for an instant. Holding one destination and ideal that refuses to settle down. The landing is for an instant. Almost remaining in takeoff, without even passing each other. Just going far away. Even so, hope appears at the end. The boarding pass is for today. Perhaps there was an ideal place she really wanted to go, and although she took off toward it, the day of landing had been decided in advance. A year later, he does not come to the 8 o'clock meeting written in the letter. He couldn't read the letter, but he could read the date. Various obsessions and understanding of each other. He must have interpreted her letter as meaning 'wait a little,' and waited. Along with a unique aesthetic, that room, and this shop. To the point of getting used to the Beatles. Even while missing each other, it is reaching. She realizes that he kept the boarding pass properly, and that it was blurred and unreadable. Here, the heart that was perhaps disappointed faces him again. So, she writes a boarding pass again in front of him. 'Where do you want to go?' 'Wherever you want to go.' And then, Faye Wong's 'Dream Person' plays. Is it love, is it romance, is it a dream, is it sadness, or did it sing of the meaning of people's lives? I don't really know. But this is a beautiful ending. And it is a gentle film.