Chungking Express: Understanding Characters & their Change of Routine
Characters in Wong Kar-Wai’s films are lonely. They don’t long fancy potions of love, they crave company more than affection.
I watched this Wong Kar-Wai direction around 2 to 3 weeks back and found myself thinking about the characters of the story. The movie is in two parts, talking about two different stories connected by the sky of Hong Kong. Both of them talk about a cop with a broken heart and a goal-oriented woman. The only thing common between them is their longing for company and affection. The world they all live in is full of loneliness. This is pretty much what I felt while watching the characters in the film. I could feel the void they had in their life evidently.
The characters in Chungking Express wanted nothing more than the feeling of being with someone because feeling more than that could have felt like a luxury to them. A luxury they can’t afford.
Quick Guide for those who haven’t watched
1. Movie Name: Chungking Express
2. Written and Directed: Wong Kar-Wai
4. Cinematographer: Christopher Doyle & Andrew Lau
5. Characters:
Blonde wig lady by Brigitte Lin
Cop 223 by Takeshi Kaneshiro
Faye by Faye Wong
Cop 663 by Tony Leung(P.S: None of the characters in the film were ever called by their name except Faye, just code names/numbers. So we never got to know their names till the end.)
Character Set One: Cop 223 and the Blonde wig lady
I liked how Cop 223 and Blonde wig lady shared a silent company of their own when encountered each other properly at the bar and the hotel room as well. Cop 223 never wanted anything more from her, he just didn’t want to be left alone behind collecting expired pineapple cans and asking people if they like pineapples in different languages. All he wanted was a phone call from someone without him calling them first and a simple (but genuine) birthday wish. No fancy words or attachment stages he wished for. No more searches for pineapple cans with expiry dates of May 1st. Just someone to share the silence with.
Whereas, the Blonde lady whose face we never got to see in till the end was trapped in her world so bad that she never found herself on the surface. That blonde wig and big sunglasses are an example of how she hid in a mask for no one to find her. On the morning of May 1st, she felt for the first time what it feels like to be with someone and not alone when Cop 223 takes off her heels and washes them for her after spending the night together in that hotel room where he didn’t leave her alone by watching old movies on T.V and ordering room service all night. For the first time, she felt warmth and she returned it back to him by wishing him a happy birthday.
Character Set Two: Cop 663 and Faye
These two wished for a company as well. Cop 663 wanted someone who could bring him back to reality, perhaps himself. He wanted someone who could help him see how things have been changing around him and his house. Whereas Faye wanted to be that person of a company for him but she understood it’s not easy as he is still processing a heartbreak which was very well known by many now. So, she kept him company by keeping his house clean where he could come every night to relax without worrying about the condition of his house.
Cop 663 himself didn’t realize the look of the house until it got flooded with water one day. He then observed how things are changing around him including himself (physically) without worrying about the point of who changed it. This question never came once to his mind, all he was able to see was what was in front of him. This shows the kind of personality he owns, focusing on what's in front of him.
Faye liked Cop 663 a lot but her dream a bit more. But she never made a choice between favoring one of them more. She was practical and went for her dream but I still think that’s better than leaving a sad note with his apartment keys in it (tho she really had the keys), instead, she left a message for him about her whereabouts via her cousin with a handmade boarding pass to California. This shows how he (cop 663) and her dream to fly to California are both equally dear to her. That's what Faye’s character is like. She is free and goes for what her heart says on to do. She chooses herself. She does leave for California but didn’t forget what she is leaving behind going for new choices, unlike the cop’s ex-girlfriend. This is why, Cop 663 welcomed her with happy eyes when Faye saw him at her cousin’s restaurant, renovating it. He instead tried liking himself more and learning more about Faye through the music taste she left behind for him (we all know how one can learn a lot bout a person from their playlist, right?).
Change Of Routine
The movie beautifully tells us about the routine patterns of our characters and how they break through them later. It shows how an end of a relationship also means the end of a routine, a unifying pattern for your day-to-day life. It also shows the greatest danger that exists to romance: Change.
I said beautifully because of the cinematography here. Every scene looks no less than a painting.
Like when Cop 223 almost throws up a fit at the convenience store when they tell him that they don’t carry any more pineapple cans with the expiry date of 1st May. That’s when he makes his feelings explicit to the clerk: Saying that he IS the can. An expired good was tossed around so his ex could feast on something fresher. The same was for our Cop 663 when he expresses to the restaurant owner indirectly, blaming how his ex left him for someone else as she figured out that there could be choices in men as there were in the food. They were not able to get over this new change happening around them and wished to stay in their old routine to console themselves. Be it expired cans or black coffee, they both wished to be in this cycle of theirs even tho they are all alone.
Makes us realize how much of those anxieties are mirrored the experience of the dating apps. The feeling that there’s always a fresher can of pineapples who’s just a swipe away and the worry that even if you build a genuine connection with, what’s to stop them from waking up one day and deciding that they have had enough of the chef’s salad.
For me, it was Faye and the Blonde wig lady who were more mysterious. In the first half, we never got to know the Blonde wig lady’s name or her emotions or anything about her in person except for her problems. We know she is having a life or death situation cause she lost a group of Indians who were smuggling the drugs for her. The moment she lost them, the same expiry date on a can became her ‘so-called’ expiry date too. Whereas for Faye, we see her making efforts throughout the second half of the film for the guy she cares for. Still, it’s more about finding the mystery to know more about Faye and her intentions behind doing all she did. Even her leaving for California all of a sudden too was a mystery. It took a while for me to understand her mind, her dreams, and her priority among them.
But at the end of their stories, it’s the leading ladies who make a choice for themselves. A new cycle they now wish to live in and leaving behind the old one. For the Blonde wig lady, it was to get rid of her boss who was a ticking bomb for her. While for Faye, it was to reach for her dreams to go to the real California. Of course, they both had a chance to remain in their old same routine but they chose to break through it. It’s not easy but they did. And the change was not just limited to the ladies, they indirectly bought that fresh breeze of change in the cops' life as well. For Cop 223 it was for cherishing the present moments and breaking the cycle of waiting for someone who doesn’t exist anymore (in his world). For Cop 663 it was again to live in the moment and do what he wants. The change of profession, in way of thinking and the music taste. It must have been difficult for them to go through it first but accepting must have been much harder than one can imagine. Right?
This is what I observed after watching this film, its stories, and its characters. Maybe, when I watch it again on a midsummer's day or on a late spring night or on a winter morning on my projector flashing its cinematic beauty on my lavender color wall, I guess I will see more to it than I mentioned in here. The visual beauty of it, I guess it will be more understandable to me than it is now…
Hope you had a nice time reading my thoughts on this iconic masterpiece.
