| Chungking Express | |||||||||||
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| Chinese name | |||||||||||
| Traditional Chinese | 重慶森林 | ||||||||||
| Simplified Chinese | 重庆森林 | ||||||||||
| Literal meaning | Chungking (Chongqing) Forest | ||||||||||
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| Directed by | Wong Kar-wai | ||||||||||
| Written by | Wong Kar-wai | ||||||||||
| Produced by |
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| Starring | |||||||||||
| Cinematography | |||||||||||
| Edited by |
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Production companies | Jet Tone Production Co., Ltd. | ||||||||||
Release date |
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Running time | 98 minutes | ||||||||||
| Country | Hong Kong | ||||||||||
| Languages | Cantonese[3] Mandarin | ||||||||||
| Box office | |||||||||||
Chungking Express (traditional Chinese:重慶森林;simplified Chinese:重庆森林;Jyutping:Cung4 Hing3 Sam1 Lam4;pinyin:Chóngqìng Sēnlín) is a 1994 Hong Kongarthouse[5]anthology[6]crime[7]comedy-drama film written and directed byWong Kar-wai.[8][9] The film consists of two stories told in sequence, each about a different lovesickHong Kong policeman mulling over his relationship with a woman. The first story starsTakeshi Kaneshiro as a cop obsessed by his breakup with a woman named May and his encounter with a mysterious drug smuggler (Brigitte Lin). The second starsTony Leung as a police officer roused from his gloom over the loss of his flight attendant girlfriend (Valerie Chow) by the attentions of a quirky snack bar worker (Faye Wong).[10]
"Chungking" in the title refers toChungking Mansions inTsim Sha Tsui,Hong Kong, where much of the action in the first story transpires. It is a place with a reputation as Hong Kong's dark underbelly, rife with crime, sex, and drugs.[11] "Express" refers to the food stand Midnight Express inLan Kwai Fong, an area inCentral, Hong Kong.[12][13]
The film premiered in Hong Kong on 14 July 1994 and received critical acclaim, especially for its direction, cinematography, and performances. Since then it has been regarded as one of Wong's finest works, one of the best films of 1994, of the 1990s, of the 20th century, and ofall time, as well as one of the bestanthology films andromantic comedies ever made.
In 2022, the film appeared at number 88 on the decennialSight and Sound critics' poll of the greatest films of all time.[14]
Hong Kong police officer He Zhi Wu's girlfriend, May, breaks up with him on 1 April. To verify her earnestness about ending the relationship, Zhi Wu chooses to wait for a month.[15][16] Every day he buys a tin of pineapples with an expiration date of 1 May, because May enjoyed pineapples and 1 May is his birthday. Meanwhile, a woman in a blonde wig tries to survive in the drug underworld after a smuggling operation goes sour.
On 1 May, Zhi Wu approaches the woman in the blonde wig at theBottoms Up Club. She is exhausted and falls asleep in a hotel room, leaving him to watch TV and order food. He shines her shoes before leaving her still asleep. She leaves in the morning and shoots the drug baron who set her up. Zhi Wu goes jogging and receives a message from her on his pager wishing him a happy birthday. He visits his usual food store inChungking Mansions, where he collides with a new staff member, Faye.
Another police officer, Cop 663, is also dealing with a breakup—with a flight attendant. Faye secretly falls for him. One day, the flight attendant visits the food store and waits for the man. She learns it is his day off and leaves a letter for him with the store owner containing a set of keys to the officer's apartment.
Faye tells the officer of the letter, but he delays reading it and asks the store to keep it for him. Faye uses the keys to repeatedly enter the man's apartment to clean and redecorate. Gradually, her ploys help him cheer up. He finds Faye coming to his apartment and realises that she likes him; he arranges a date at a restaurant named California. Faye does not arrive, and the store owner, her cousin, goes to the restaurant to tell him that Faye has left for the US state of California. She leaves him aboarding pass drawn on a paper napkin dated one year later.
Faye, now a flight attendant, returns to Hong Kong. She finds that the officer has bought the food store and is converting it into a restaurant. He asks her to stay for the grand opening, and to send him a postcard if she leaves. As Faye is about to leave, he presents the boarding pass, wrinkled and water-stained, and she writes him a new one. She asks him what he wants the destination to be, to which he replies, "Wherever you want to take me."
Wong Kar-wai madeChungking Express during a two-month break from editing hiswuxia filmAshes of Time. He said: "While I had nothing to do, I decided to makeChungking Express following my instincts",[18] and "After the very heavy stuff, heavily emphasized inAshes of Time, I wanted to make a very light, contemporary movie, but where the characters had the same problems." Originally, Wong envisioned the stories as similar but with contrasting settings: one inHong Kong Island in daylight, and the other inKowloon at night. He felt that "despite the difference, they are the same stories": one was about encountering love in the tight city, the other about keeping love without physical connection.[18][16]
The screenplay was not finished by the time filming began; Wong finished it when filming paused over New Year. He wrote the second story in a single day.[18] He developed a third story, about a love-sick hitman, but felt it would makeChungking Express overlong, and produced it as a separate film,Fallen Angels (1995).
Wong wanted to film inTsim Sha Tsui since he grew up in the area and felt a strong connection to it. He called it "an area where the Chinese literally brush shoulders with westerners, and is uniquely Hong Kong." He was drawn toChungking Mansion for its many lodgings, mix of cultures, and significance as a crime hotspot; he felt that, as a "mass-populated and hyperactive place", it worked as a metaphor for Hong Kong itself.[18]
Wong has said he is inspired by the works ofHaruki Murakami.[19] As an example, the film's original title "重慶森林" (which translates into "Chungking Forest") mirrors the Chinese title of Murakami'sNorwegian Wood (1987), "挪威的森林".[20]
The second story was shot inCentral, includingLan Kwai Fong, near the fast food shop Midnight Express.[21] "In this area, there are a lot of bars, a lot of foreign executives would hang out there after work", Wong said. The shop is where Tony Leung's and Faye Wong's characters meet. Wong said he was also drawn to "theescalator from Central to the mid-levels. That interests me because no one has made a movie there. When we were scouting for locations we found the light there entirely appropriate."[18] Leung's character's apartment was cinematographerChristopher Doyle's apartment at the time of filming.[22] Wong narrates the story in a fragments connected by monologues.[23]
The film's marketing posters were designed by artistStanley Wong, under his pseudonym "Another Mountain Man".[24]
The main recurring music for the first story isDennis Brown's "Things in Life".[25] The song "Baroque", byMichael Galasso, is heard twice during the first story: during the opening and when Brigitte Lin's character takes the gun in the closer. This track does not appear on the soundtrack album, but three others are similar to it: "Fornication in Space" (track 3), "Heartbreak" (track 8), and "Sweet Farewell" (track 9), played respectively on synth, guitar and piano.[26]
The song "California Dreamin'" byThe Mamas & the Papas plays in key scenes in the second story, which also featuresFaye Wong'sCantonese cover of "Dreams" byThe Cranberries, which is also played over the end credits (titled "Mung Tsung Yan", it is included in her 1994 albumRandom Thoughts, while her next album,Sky, includes aMandarin cover).[27]
"California Dreamin'" is played numerous times by Faye Wong's character, indicating "the simultaneity of her aversion to and desire for change".[28] "What a Diff'rence a Day Made", performed byDinah Washington, is played during a scene between Leung's and Valerie Chow's characters, as well as during an encounter between Leung's and Faye Wong's characters.[29][30]
The film's soundtrack is widely credited with introducingdream pop to the Hong-Kongese market. Bands featured in the soundtrack, including The Cranberries andCocteau Twins, saw significant commercial success in Hong Kong afterChungking Express came out, and contemporary Canto-pop stars such asCandy Lo began adopting a more dream-pop sound, such as in Lo's 1998 EPDon't Have to be... Too Perfect and subsequent albumMiao....[31]
In August 1994, the film was selected to compete for theGolden Leopard at the 47thLocarno Film Festival.[32]
On 8 March 1996, the film began a limited theatrical run in North America throughQuentin Tarantino'sRolling Thunder distribution company underMiramax. TheRegion 1 DVD was distributed by Rolling Thunder as Tarantino is an admirer of Wong Kar-wai.[33][34]
Chungking Express was released byThe Criterion Collection on DVD andBlu-ray Disc (its first release in that format) in 2008.[35] Criterion has since reclaimed the rights and the film is available on its streaming platform, the Criterion Channel (as of 2022).[36] In 2021, it was remastered and rereleased by Criterion as part of its Blu-ray box setThe World of Wong Kar Wai.[37][38]
Chungking Express earned HK$7,678,549 during its Hong Kong run.[2] In the United States, opening on four screens, it grossed $32,779 ($8,194 per screen) in its opening weekend. Playing at 20 theatres at its widest point, it went on to gross $600,200 total.[39]
During its release in North America,Chungking Express drew generally positive, sometimes ecstatic reviews from critics. Onreview aggregator websiteRotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 89% based on 70 reviews, and an average rating of 7.90/10. The website's critical consensus reads: "Even if all it had to offer were writer-director Wong Kar-wai's thrillingly distinctive visuals,Chungking Express would be well worth watching; happily, its thoughtfully drawn characters and naturalistic performances also pack a potent dramatic wallop."[40] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 18 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[41]
Film criticRoger Ebert was measured in his praise (giving the film three out of four stars):[42]
This is the kind of movie you'll relate to if you love film itself, rather than its surface aspects such as story and stars. It's not a movie for casual audiences, and it may not reveal all its secrets the first time through . . .If you are attentive to the style, if you think about what Wong is doing,Chungking Express works. If you're trying to follow the plot, you may feel frustrated ... WhenGodard was hot, in the 1960s and early 1970s, there was an audience for this style, but in those days, there were still film societies and repertory theaters to build and nourish such audiences. Many of today's younger filmgoers, fed only by the narrow selections at video stores, are not as curious or knowledgeable and may simply be puzzled byChungking Express instead of challenged. It needs to be said, in any event, that a film like this is largely a cerebral experience: You enjoy it because of what you know about film, not because of what it knows about life.
Rolling Stone'sPeter Travers praised the film as both "exasperating and exhilarating":[43]
There is no mistaking Wong's talent. His hypnotic images of love and loss finally wear down your resistance as seemingly discordant sights and sounds coalesce into a radiant, crazy quilt that can make you laugh in awe at its technical wizardry in one scene and pierce your heart in the next.
Janet Maslin ofThe New York Times criticized the film's MTV-like "aggressive energy":[44]
Mr. Wong has legitimate visual flair, but his characters spend an awful lot of time playing impish tricks. A film in which a man talks to his dishtowel has an overdeveloped sense of fun.
In a 2002 poll published bySight and Sound (the monthly magazine of theBritish Film Institute) asking fifty leading UK film critics to choose the ten best films from the previous 25 years,Chungking Express was placed at number eight.[45] In the magazine's 2012 poll to find the most acclaimed films of all time,Chungking Express ranked 144.[46] The film was included inTime'sAll-Time 100 best movies list in 2005.[47] The film ranked 56th in BBC's 2018 list of The 100 greatest foreign language films voted by 209 film critics from 43 countries around the world.[48]
Academy Award-winning directorBarry Jenkins (Moonlight) is said to be influenced by this film.[49][50]
| Awards and nominations | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ceremony | Year | Category | Recipient | Outcome |
| Chicago Film Critics Association Awards | 1997 | Best Foreign Language Film | N/a | Nominated |
| Chicago International Film Festival | 1994 | Best Feature | Wong Kar-wai | Nominated |
| Golden Horse Awards | 1994 | Best Leading Actor | Tony Leung Chiu-Wai | Won |
| Best Feature Film | Chungking Express | Nominated | ||
| Best Leading Actress | Faye Wong | Nominated | ||
| Best Director | Wong Kar-Wai | Nominated | ||
| Best Cinematography | Christopher Doyle,Wai Keung Lau | Nominated | ||
| Best Art Direction | William Chang | Nominated | ||
| Best Film Editing | William Chang, Kit-Wai Kai, Chi-Leung Kwong | Nominated | ||
| Best Original Film Score | Frankie Chan | Nominated | ||
| Hong Kong Film Awards | 1995 | Best Picture | Chungking Express | Won |
| Best Director | Wong Kar-wai | Won | ||
| Best Actor | Tony Leung Chiu-Wai | Won | ||
| Best Editing | William Cheung Suk-Ping, Kwong Chi-Leung, Hai Kit-Wai | Won | ||
| Best Actress | Faye Wong | Nominated | ||
| Best Supporting Actress | Valerie Chow Kar-Ling | Nominated | ||
| Best Screenplay | Wong Kar-wai | Nominated | ||
| Best Cinematography | Christopher Doyle, Andrew Lau Wai-Keung | Nominated | ||
| Best Art Direction | William Cheung Suk-Ping | Nominated | ||
| Best Original Film Score | Frankie Chan Fan-Kei, Roel A. Garcia | Nominated | ||
| Hong Kong Film Critics Society Awards | 1995 | Film of Merit | Chungking Express | Won |
| Locarno Film Festival | 1994 | Golden Leopard | Wong Kar-Wai | Nominated |
| National Society of Film Critics Awards | 1995 | Best Foreign Language Film | Chungking Express | Nominated |
| Stockholm International Film Festival | 1994 | Best Actress | Faye Wong | Won |
| FIPRESCI Prize | Wong Kar-Wai | Won | ||
| Bronze Horse: Best Film | Wong Kar-Wai | Nominated | ||
