CASE STUDY
CHUNGKING EXPRESS
Wong Kar-wai
1994 Hong Kong
Chungking Express tells two stories about
two policemen, Cop 223 and Cop 663,
and their love lives. The stories are
independent from each other, but both are
set in the bars, restaurants and hotels of
Hong Kong. The mise-en-scène creates a
vivid picture of a modern, cosmopolitan
city.
It is a low-budget film and uses many
techniques associated with New Wave
filmmaking - handheld camera, jump cuts
- but adds new kinds of discontinuities
such as the slowing down and speeding up
of the film stock.
Chungking Express is a visually striking
film which uses a variety of film language
styles and has been compared to a music
video. As with Breathless, at times it
seems that Wong wants the audience to
appreciate the form of the film more than
the content.
Having watched Chungking Express,
think about which of the two story
segments you preferred. What do you
think appealed to you about that one?
Consider plot, character, genre.
The narrative form - two stories in one
film - could be one of the ways in which
Wong Kar-wai foregrounds the film
language, reminding the audience that
they are watching a film.
In this respect, Wong may be compared to
Godard - the form of the film, the film
language, is as important as the content.
However, the subject matter in this film
does seem to be important to the director and very carefully thought through and
structured.
For example, the two stories are not
completely separate but are linked through
a variety of settings, characters and
themes which may not be immediately
apparent.
Watch Chungking Express and make notes on
the following for each of the stories:
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Write a brief synopsis of each story.
List the main characters. Who are they? What do
they do? What are their names? What is their
relationship with each other?
Describe the main settings which feature in each
story.
How does each story end?
What other forms of narrative structure could be
used to tell these stories? Why do you think this
particular structure was chosen?
Hong Kong: East and West
Hong Kong is often seen as representing a
crossroads between Eastern and Western
culture due to its history as both a Chinese
and a British colony. Britain invaded Hong
Kong in 1842 during the war with China
(known as the Opium Wars) over the free
movement and trade of opium.
It remained under British rule - which
oversaw a liberal economy - until 1997,
when Hong Kong was ‘handed back’ to
China.
This influence of different - often
contrasting - cultures is evident
throughout Chungking Express in the
setting, costume, dialogue and musical
soundtrack.
The appearance of Brigitte Lin in her
trench coat and blonde wig, the corporate
logos and the use of American pop songs
on the soundtrack are just a few
examples of this.
This representation of Hong Kong as part British, part Chinese - also infects
the characters.
In Chungking Express, Hong Kong is a city
which lacks an identity and is a place of
anxiety in the buildup to the handover to a
communist state.
This is also evident in the characters. In
both stories the policemen are filled with
longing for something which has gone,
they are unable to think or act rationally,
they are in state of complete selfabsorption and isolation - perhaps Wong is
using the characters as a metaphor for
Hong Kong at the end of the twentieth
This theme of the the conflicted state of
Hong Kong as it faces an uncertain future
is also found in other films of this period:
Made in Hong Kong (Fruit Chan, Hong
Kong, 1997); The River (Ming LiangTsai, Taiwan, 1997); and Suzhou River
(Ye Lou, China, 2000).
Defining a new wave: Chungking
Express and Hong Kong Cinema
As is evident in Chungking Express, Hong
Kong Cinema is characterised by its
mixture of references from Eastern and
Western culture. These include the kung fu,
gangster and thriller genres as well as
influences from Chinese folklore and ghost
stories.
Chungking Express has to be studied in
the wider context of the Hong Kong film
industry in the 1980s and 1990s which is
unique in East Asian cinema.
Hong Kong was one of the ‘economic
dragons’ of the 1980s, along with South
Korea, Taiwan and Singapore. These
countries experienced a rapid economic and in some cases social - development
throughout the period.
However, of this group only Hong Kong
developed a successful film industry
(which has also been affected by the
economic recession in the late 1990s;
Wong Kar-wai has difficulties getting
funding for his films now) and there are
various possible reasons for this.
In Hong Kong, filmmakers have been
free to express themselves with little
interference from the state and
censorship is very relaxed. This marks
them out from other East Asian cinemas
- particularly Singapore and China,
where directors work within statecontrolled, heavily-censored industries.
Another reason for the continued
popularity of cinema-going in Hong
Kong is that it is a small city with a highdensity population where the social
experience of the cinema has meant that
it has remained dominant in the face of
competition from TV and video.