453 Chungking Express

[kupo]

Having heard so much about Godard's tumultuous relationships, I realize I know little about Wong Kar-wai's personal life. Not to spark some papparazzi interest, but I do sometimes wonder what the man's love life is like.

To my knowledge he is happily married with a son. I'm basing that off a 10+ year old interview, so I suppose that status could have changed. But, from everything I've read, Wong's personal life doesn't strongly reflect the content of his films. Besides the fact that he makes every one of his characters a chain-smoker like himself.

[Michael]

Answering my question, a few posts ago:

It looks like that shot of Faye Wong is among the film's deleted scenes.

[Murdoch]

Thank you so much for that, Michael!

I've been puzzled over that picture for years and now I finally know! I'm usually ambivalent about deleted scenes but those made me love the movie even more. (I didn't think it possible)

[cdnchris]

Hmm, I wonder why Criterion didn't include them on the DVD.

[domino harvey]

The disc was already crammed with so many other extras

[Matango]

The escalator/travelator is still here, as is the apartment beside it (empty). And girls like Faye Wong are a dime a dozen in Hong Kong, even just on the escalator in fact. So now you all know where to come for your next vacation.

[Foam]

For me, this is an example of a movie that uses pop music perfectly. However, I have heard people say they think that the use of "California Dreamin'" is more than excessive. For me, I don't know, I think it makes sense to have a character who would play a song over and over, especially a song like that--where while there's certainly a lot of songs like it, it's arguably the best example of that type of song. But I digress.

[Michael]

Sometimes we hear a song then no other songs matter for some time. We play that song over and over again until it sails away. I think that's the case with Fay Wong and California Dreamin'.

[zedz]

Sometimes we hear a song then no other songs matter for some time. We play that song over and over again until it sails away. I think that's the case with Fay Wong and California Dreamin'.

That's it exactly, I think. It's the song that character is marinating herself in at that point in her life. The song with which she's having such an intense emotional relationship she has to hear it over and over and over again. It can't just be you and me and Fay who go through this!

(And if you're looking for an intense, consuming pop relationship, you could do a lot worse than California Dreamin')

[Foam]

I only saw this movie for the first time a month ago, and while I enjoyed it quite a lot (I just lurve Faye Wong, or at least her character), the music is the thing that has really stuck with me. Michael Galasso's "Baroque" is just perfect, as is "Things in Life". But "California Dreamin'" is used so well. I had heard the song before obviously, like on the radio, but I had never really listened to it. At first I started playing it over and over because I heard it in the movie and thought it was neat, but then I started listening to it because it sort of reflects how I feel in my life right now--in the cold of Missouri in a podunk conservative college town, where it's snowing in April, far from the comforts of any city, studying in an area I'm not sure I want to devote to, not knowing what to devote to, just wanting to be elsewhere doing something or being a part of something more meaningful--and the feel of the song and the first line just resonate with me. And I guess that's what Wong's character felt like. I mean, obviously she was in a city, but the song is I guess about being dissatisfied with where you are and wanting to be somewhere else, and for each individual listener that doesn't necessarily have to be California. And that's a lot of why it works in the movie, I guess.

[oldsheperd]

I guess I'm amongst the small minority that thinks that the first story was better than the second. Romantic stories that pay off in the end I just can't relate to too much. It's probably the fact that I'm more of a pessimist and a big loser when it comes to women.

Anyway I thought Faye Wong's character was kind of annoying and was teetering on the brink of being mentally ill. It was a good film overall. The small subtext of the treatment of Indian Immigrants was interesting.

[Michael]

Anyway I thought Faye Wong's character was kind of annoying and was teetering on the brink of being mentally ill. .

That proves your pessimism.

[Matango]

She was certainly very self-absorbed, which is a quality that shouldn't figure too highly on any guy's list of wants in a woman.

[oldsheperd]

You're right with that one, Michael. I would just find it slightly irritating and psychotic if some woman came into my house and changed things and swapped things out in some attempt to influence my life. I mean if some pixie-ish girl came in and decided to replace my Battleship Potemkin and L'Argent posters with something else in an effort to change some sort of out look I'd be a bit upset. Besides I don't think I saw any real connection between Wong and Leung's characters. They have pretty banal conversations but for some reason Wong is supposed to be this life changing character for Leung at the end of the film.

This is a bad comparison but it's like the idea behind that sit-com Dharma and Greg. He's straight as and arrow and she's a free spirit! What kind of wacky antics will they get into next? Now in my opinion if Wong ended the picture after she left and didn't show up in the bar then that would have been a better ending. And although the real ending is still open ended it's still drives the viewer to a narrower conclusion about what will happen between May and 663.

The liner notes' comparison to Hepburn in Bringing Up Baby is also a stretch. Cary Grant is sort of a captive to Hepburn's whims and decisions and there is more screen time for them to develop a rapport where May and 663 I think are deprived of showing any connection due to the fact that it would be an entire in itself. I don't fauly Wong Kar-Wai for that. Don't get me wrong I liked this film. The first story was extremely strong. The first cop's strange and absurd ideas were a perfect characterization of how a break up creates one to think weirdly and irrationally. The second story does have it's redeeming qualities. It's not an entire pisser. I just wasn't as overwhelmed by it's charms as much as others.

[Jun-Dai]

She was certainly very self-absorbed, which is a quality that shouldn't figure too highly on any guy's list of wants in a woman.

Nor on a woman's list of wants in a guy, but they're so often willing to settle—else they wouldn't have a long list of guys to choose from.

[Michael]

Chungking Express is so unique and magical that it's easy to forget every thing in the film is presented metaphorically - pineapple, expiration dates, running soaked in the rain, California Dreaming, the blonde wig/trenchcoat, breaking & entering the apt., the flight attendant's uniforms, the black coffee...just about every single thing. It's not to be taken literally, that means breaking into the apt to create a fantasy world within that space is not to be taken literally, it stands for a lot of things, such as the Cop's slow recovery from the heartbreak as his apartment slowly transforms with the help of Faye. Of course in reality, she would be portayed as nutso but not so in WKW's world.

[oldsheperd]

I understand what you're saying, Michael. However I've met women that encompass a lot of May's qualities and they comes across as irritating and off-putting.

[Jun-Dai]

I understand what you're saying, Michael. However I've met women that encompass a lot of May's qualities and they comes across as irritating and off-putting.

I'm pretty sure if some guy broke into stores and ran them during the night, accosting strangers and forcing them to be his unwilling customers, that would be pretty irritating and off-putting (not to mention that such a person would be behind bars before long). But in Fallen Angels it's positively charming. Very few things in cinema should be thought of as a good way to lead one's life, and there's a big difference between behavior in films that we are meant to sympathize with and behavior in life with which we cannot (at least, not without a great deal of work and missing details that are unavailable to us). In life we would rarely sympathize with hired killers, but in films we do it all the time.

Getting to the problem you had with the film: If I knew a few hired killers, and couldn't sympathize with any of them, perhaps it would become very hard for me to sympathize with the hired killers in the movies too?

[knives]

The question I'll relay you is why should we sympathize with a hired killer? That, hired killing, is such an undesirable trait that being jesus, and few films have tried this, shouldn't even make up for that.

[oldsheperd]

It's not a matter of sympathy. I just don't think Wong's character is all that great. Because she's fancy free and unique I'm supposed to think that she's a great character expressing some sense of liberation that Officer 663 is lacking? I mean obviously 663 was coping with his break up in some sort of way, albeit a strange way. And then May comes along and all of a sudden she cleans his apartment and all of a sudden he experiences some sort of enlightenment. Aesthetically the film throughout looks great.

I enjoy Wong Kar Wai's idea of taking a criminal and a cop out of their respective dramas and dropping them into a love story. The quirkiness was excellent. However, if you strip the second story down to it's bare essentials. Take away the cinematography, California Dreaming, etc., etc., the story barely becomes better than some sort of Matthew McConaughey/Kate Hudson romance flick. There's just not much there. One moment there is a cop who is oblivious to anything then the next moment he's all of a sudden totally enamored with this crazy woman who breaks into his house, changes his stuff and I guess only has California Dreaming on cd single in her music collection. I assume it may have a bit to do with the fact that from start to finish the whole production was only 3 months and therefore wasn't flushed out enough.

And just to make sure. I liked this movie a lot. It's beautifully shot and all that. I just think the second story was the weaker of the two.

[fiddlesticks]

However, if you strip the second story down to it's bare essentials. Take away the cinematography, California Dreaming, etc., etc., the story barely becomes better than some sort of Matthew McConaughey/Kate Hudson romance flick.

But why would you want to do that? Cinema art has many elements, and narrative is just one of them. In a great film like this, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. So this story is unrealistic or even absurd. For some of us, that adds to the charm of the film; but even you yourself seem to admit that there's much more to this film than the story and characterizations. When the other aspects of a film work as beautifully as they do in Chungking Express, I find it easy to suspend disbelief of the plot and characters and just let the filmic experience wash over me.

[oldsheperd]

I appreciate the absurdity and charm of the first story. I still like Tony Leung in the second story and the whole idea of him talking to inanimate objects is a nice touch. The issue I have is with the main krux of the story. The relationship between the May and 663. There's just not much there and I can't disregard my opinion that May is completely irritating. If you break it down:

SpoilerShow

A beat cop shows up to his usual lunch spot where there is a new waitress. She immediately becomes enraptured with him. Not 10 words are spoken between them when the next thing you know she begins going to his apartment to clean the place and switch out items in some sort of attempt to exorcise his existential funk. This works and he realizes she is the one. They meet one year later and his life since this revelation of romance has taken such a turn he has now bought the food bar. The movie ends with him saying he is basically endeared to her despite him not knowing anything about her beside the fact that she some hybrid of interior designer/cleaning woman in his apartment

Sorry, in spite of it's beauty and quirkiness, I can't bring myself to get past the flimsiness of this. I didn't hate it, I just don't think I care for it as much as most and don't see the fascination with this part of the story.

Bottom line: IMO the first story: excellent! The second story: Above average due to the visuals and Tony Leung.

I haven't listened to the commentary yet so perhaps Tony Rayns can help give me a better appreciation of the film.

[kaujot]

Rayns commentary is very, very good, and certainly gave me more of an appreciation for the film (and I already really liked it!).

[Shrew]

I agree with oldsheperd that there is not much of a relationship between Tony and Faye on the surface. They don't really talk or get to know each other much. Their interaction is all very banal... on paper.

But it's the language of cinema that firmly establishes this relationship and invests me in it every single time. When the pair leans over the counter as California Dreamin' blasts, I can't help but feel I'm looking at a romance, even if what they're saying is as plain as "I like Caesar Salad".

[Rich Malloy]

So, Wong's made a practice of populating his movies with aloof, troubled males who all seem to be in the throes of their last failed romance and utterly unmoored from the natural flow of life. As romantic partners, they're mostly impossible and tend to wreak havoc on the lives of the unfortunate females they encounter. Nonetheless, we identify with them, root for them, tolerate their abuses, and empathize with the lovelorn loneliness that causes their pathologies. We've all been there, or at least somewhere near there... with less evocative lighting, of course.

But that Faye Wong character in "Chungking" ... she's just mentally ill, right? And totally self-absorbed! Self-absorbed in a totally annoying way! And completely unlike any of Wong's broken, self-absorbed, romantically-obsessed male heroes!

A woman's perspective might be interesting here.