CHUNGKING EXPRESS |
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"What
is amusing when watching Chungking Express is that you realise that THIS is the
movie that all Godard's fans and followers have dreamt to make but somehow never did. So,
they have apparently in HK the New Wave that we were unable to keep in France."
- CHRISTOPHE GANS |
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Introduction by
Christophe Gans
 As an introduction to Chungking Express and
for those who never came to watch this masterpiece, here is an interview from director
Christophe Gans. This transcript is from the programme Mon Ciné Club, where Chungking
Express were presented, broadcast on French national channel Canal + in 1996.
"What
is amusing when watching Chungking Express is that you realise that THIS is the
movie that all Godard's fans and followers have dreamt to make but somehow never did.
So it's quite strange to realise that in HK, they manage to make films that we should be
doing in France. In this respect, one can say that they make action films in HK that
Hollywood filmmakers cannot make. So, they have apparently in HK the New Wave that we were
unable to keep in France. […]
 It's a trendy and modern movie. This is interesting when
you watch this Wong Kar Wai movie. You don't really know if it is a trendy and modern film
that is supposed to be a cop & gun movie or if it's a cop & gun movie that is
supposed to be trendy and modern. There is this kind of Dandy's flavour coming from Chungking
Express. [..]
What must be said is that it
is a 'post-genre' movie. I mean it's apparently an action movie with cops, vamps,
villains, smugglers and guns. But actually nothing really happens. These people aren't
involved in criminal activities, they just wander around. That's the main idea. It's a
sort of existential chaos where people, who are supposed to drawn their gun, to fight, and
to have very tough relationships, are simply hanging around! […]
 
It's a film divided into two
interconnected sketches. It was supposed to be a three-sketch movie, but the third one
became Fallen Angels. What Wong Kar Wai actually
does is that he mixes the characters all together and sees what happens. This makes an
absolutely free-wheeled unconventional cinema, which represents exactly what you have in
HK, not only with Wong Kar Wai, but also with John Woo or others. It's a real mix of
styles. I mean it's a movie with a totally free editing, directing, and everything gets
mixed up in the process. And it's incredibly beautiful."
Christophe
Gans is not only a film director (Crying Freeman, Brotherhood Of The Wolf), but he
is also manager of a video collection dedicated to Far East cinema (HK Extreme Orient Cinema), and chief editor of the
magazine HK Extreme Orient Cinema. He is a pioneer in the promotion of Far East films in
France.
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Introduction by Christophe Gans - Elements from the movie - Credit
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Elements from the movie
Wong Kar Wai is eager
to make a light and modern movie, after a painful experience with the lengthy and
stressful production of Ashes Of Time (two years where he's got to think about a
commercial way to make a personal movie). The two movies are very close in many respects.
Wong needs to find a new project in order to freed himself from all his frustrations. He
wants to make a modern movie that corresponds to his own desires, regardless the audience
reception, and where the characters share the same existential problems as in Ashes Of
Time. He then joins his mate Chris Doyle in Japan and explains him that he wants a
fast paced movie, with a hand held camera work, a bit like a TV report on the field.
 
Duality
 A few years prior to the production of Chungking Express,
Wong wrote two little stories. He has never really made any film out of it yet. He decided
then to reunite the stories and to make a two-sketch movie. Chungking Express keeps
however a good homogeneity in substance and form, despite the two separated sketches and
the use of two Director Of Photography (DOP). Andrew Lau Wai Keung was DOP on the first
part and Chris Doyle was DOP on the second.
 The two stories are actually independent, but both
tell about love. Chungking Express has a dual structure in its substance and form.
There are two cops, two Mays, two wigs, two air hostesses, two couple splitting up, two
painful break ups… There are two sketches, one is shot in the Chungking Mansions in
Kowloon, at night. The second one is shot in Central in daylight. But despite all
differences, these are two similar stories, with the same themes that are recurrent in all
Wong Kar Wai movies: rejection and treason.
Situation
 The Cantonese title means Forest Of Chungking. The Chungking
Mansions are buildings in the Tsim Sha Tsui area that correspond to a microcosm equivalent
to a miniature Hong-Kong, according to Wong Kar Wai. Wong spent his youth in such hot
quarters of the city, where Chinese were mixed with westerners. He chose the Chungking
houses as the site where action takes place, because it's a real breeding ground of
'hongkies' and 'gweilos', where he really feels at home. It's indeed a legendary place in
HK, a hot and cosmopolitan spot, a kind of metaphor of HK, since it's overpopulated and
hyperactive.
Originally, Wong Kar Wai
wanted to make a road movie with Ashes Of Time. Swordsmen were supposed to move
from the Yellow River to Hukou. But it was impossible for Wong to require from over-booked
superstars such as Brigitte Lin and Tony Leung to do such movie. Then Wong casts just
about the same people and creates Chungking Express in a very short lap of time,
like a road-movie between Central and Tsim Sha Tsui. Chungking Express is a
non-scheduled film, it's an improvisation. It's a results of circumstance, hence the
coolness emanating from it.
 " I shot Chungking Express in less than three
weeks. I deliberately chose to make the movie with a low budget and to shot most of the
time with a hand held camera. I wanted to recall the cinema basis. I could only count on
my creativity and instinct. Most of the action took place at night. This gave me the
opportunity to write during the day and to shot at night. Sometimes, I had the feeling to
be a student in cinema again, and it was a really refreshing, thrilling and revealing
experience. I realised that I came closer to the Hong-Kong pulse by working at such pace."
once stated Wong Kar Wai.
Characters
Wong started on the basis of two cops, two
characters equivalent to Ouyang and Huang from Ashes Of Times. He wanted to cast
first as cop 663 Leslie Cheung Kwok Wing, who had to decline the proposition due to a
heavy schedule. Wong cast then Tony Leung Chiu Wai who has, according to Wong, "a
natural copper look" and "he beautifully wears the uniform". In Chungking
Express the two cops don't have a name but two id numbers. Wong Kar Wai gave them
numbers the way Kafka gave his heroes simplified names.
  
Wong cast as well canto-pop
singer Faye Wang, who has a very intriguing personality according to him. She is a huge
chart topper and extremely well respected in the HK music industry. She actually performed
the Cranberries and Cocteau Twins covers for the Chungking Express soundtrack. Wong
techniques, to put actors at ease and to make them give the best of themselves had allowed
to reveal Faye Wang serious comedian skills. The second vamp is Brigitte Lin, who is an
incarnation of Faye Wang ten years later. This is pretty obvious when both meet at the
toyshop.
Feelings
 The Chungking Express characters transpose their
feelings to different objects and things (piece of soap, planes, pineapple can…). As
far as Wong is concerned, Hong-Kong people have a lot of feelings but don't really know
how to express and handle them. They are eaten alive by this huge money urban machine,
always going faster and faster. These pineapple cans are good examples. They symbolise the
cop-223 love for May. Wong Kar Wai and his crew shot at night very quickly and with very
little added lights. A good trick to get cheap light is to shot in convenient stores. That
where they found the weird ideas of the out-of-date pineapple cans. Everything has a
freshness limit, even love…
The only character that
doesn't really show her feelings is Brigitte Lin. She is a heroine smuggler, and she
thinks that survival in this urban jungle is much more important than feelings. She is
like an animal hanging around the Chungking jungle.
 
As a conclusion, let's note
that Chungking Express represents the two feelings of Wong Kar Wai toward the film
HK industry at the time of the making of the movie. Firstly, he expressed the resentment:
he tried to escape from a situation and got stuck (by making a movie that he cares of, but
that must make money at the box office). Secondly, he has a strong desire to carry on
doing what he really wants, but still, he needs to attract further investors for future
productions. These two aspects are more and more important in Wong Kar Wai's following
films as the 1997-handover approaches.
Written by Thomas in
1999, translated and updated in July 2002.
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CREDITS
HONGKONG/ July 1994.
 Cantonese:
Chung Hing Sam Lam. Literally: Chung King Forest Written by: Wong
Kar-wai. Directed by: Wong Kar-wai. Producer: Chan Ye-cheng. Excecutive
Producer: Wong Kar-wai (Jet Tone). Director of Photography: Lau Wai Keung,
Christopher Doyle. Art Director: William Chang Suk-ping, Qiu Weiming. Editor:
William Chang Suk-ping, Kai Kit-wai, Kwong Chi-leung. Music: Frankie Chan, Roel A.
Garcia. Assistant Director: Zeng Shaoting, Jiang Yuecheng.
 Starring: Brigitte Lin
Chin-hsia (blonde-wigged woman), Takeshi Kaneshiro (Ho Chi-wu, cop 223), Tony Leung
Chiu-wai (cop 663), Faye Wong (Faye), Valerie Chow Kar-ling (air hostess), Chen Jinquan
(Midnight Express manager), Lau Wai Keung.
Running Time: 103 min. BO in HK: from 14/07/94 to 04/08/94. 41st out of 164.
Gross: HK$ 7,678,549 (Best gross HK$ 52,529,768). Awards: Best Movie at the
HK Film Festival Awards.
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