BY JOHN CARTER JR
Made in response to his frustrations while working on Ashes of Time and released in 1996, Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express is often cited as one of the director’s greatest works. The film stars Brigitte Lin, Takeshi Kaneshiro, Faye Wong, and Tony Leung and is set in Hong Kong. The film, at first glance, seems to be the telling of two separate stories with a focus on love and longing. However, if examined a bit more closely, it becomes apparent both sections of the film are cruial in revealing a message. With each part representing a different piece of this message, let’s examine both sections to see what this film can say.
Part 1: Everything has an expiration date
The first half of the film focuses on Takeshi Kaneshiro’s character, He Qiwu, and Brigitte Lin as an unnamed woman in a blonde wig. He Qiwu is a sad, lonely detective who has been left by his girlfriend. In an attempt to avoid acceptance of his loss and simultaneously to try to come to terms with the end of his relationship, the broken-hearted detective commits to buying pineapples every day that expire on May 1st (his birthday). All the while Brigitte Lin’s Blonde character is engaging in the dark drug dealing underworld until the two cross paths.
This portion of the film is about the end of everything, which is ironic given it is the first of the two stories. He Qiwu has a hard time accepting the end of a journey in his life with a dearly loved partner, so much so that he holds on to his last act of unknown devotion and dedication. If his girlfriend had only known about the pineapples, he might have thought.
However, he doesn’t need the pineapples to prove his love was real. His pain is evidence of his feeling. His pineapples are his funeral offering. His act of mourning the life that was with his love. That had come to an end. It had expired. He showed devotion dreaming or longing for her to understand the depth of his unseen devotion. She would never know. She read the expiration date on the can that was their relationship, and like the store owner earlier in the film, she threw the can away.
As for the blonde woman, she is at the end of her journey with her recent drug dealings. The two characters meet at the Bottom Up club and the woman passes out. He Qiwu proceeds to treat the woman with respect and even shines her shoes. Maybe representing the final act of acceptance he needed in taking care of a different woman. We finally start to come to find peace when He Qiwu receives a message from his ex wishing him a happy birthday. Is life-giving hope or rubbing salt in his healing wound? Life goes on regardless.
This half of the film dives deep into this expiration theme and gives the first half of the message while also foreshadowing the hope that can be found in tomorrow. It is the hope that not everything has to expire. That we find peace and acceptance with everything in life if we accept that everything has to come to an end, that’s how it is for everything and how it is supposed to be. But does it have to be that way? Is there anything that stretches beyond the bonds of time and our limited human existence?
Part 2: Loving is endless
The reason the Chungking Express is so powerful is that it is painfully hopeful. It is about loving from afar, the crazy things we do for those who consume our thoughts, and the willingness to confront ourselves in the pursuit of being loved. It is the fear of not being accepted. It’s about the endless joy that comes from getting over that fear and finding someone who sees you. Falling for what they see and even being willing to give it a shot. While we might not be ready for the shot to be taken, we might be willing to wait for that opportunity. This is the dynamic we get between Faye Wong’s Faye Character and Tony Leung’s Officer 663.
After being dumped by a flight attendant, Officer 663 attempts to mourn and move on with his life. He holds on to some hope that his love will come back, even leaving a key and letter at the snack food store Faye works at. Being one of the various nosy employees at this establishment, Faye reads the letter and uses the key to get into this man’s apartment. While the breaking into his house can be written off as one of those “the things I do for love” moments, it is important to recognize why this was chosen as the means to express her interest.
In the previous part the film dealt with another instance of unseen expressions of love or care. That was after the loss of a relationship in an act of mourning. However, unlike that circumstance, this is before a relationship has occurred. The film excellently depicts this parallel of what it is like to exist before and after a relationship but never during one.
Quentin Tarantino sums up Faye Wong as a “Nymphette”. According to Tarantino, she is someone that anyone who’s seen the film would fall in love with (amongst other things), this description is not only boring and basic, but it doesn’t do Faye the character or her as an actress justice. Many people would describe her as the reason the film is so great but she is but one of few very important components in this human story of longing, giving with no thanks, and the desire for discovery or adventure.
I’m not in love with Faye Wong; I feel what it’s like to be her. She is the representation of all the crazy things we do in pursuit of being loved by the people we are interested in. It is painful and exhausting, yet it is something we never stop doing. Earnestly giving so much of ourselves and time to those we love without them ever knowing. With the fear of them finding out but simultaneously having the hope that they find out and accept your craziness all the same. The desire to be loved and the desire to express love to others, even those we don’t know well, is thrilling and motivating. The things we are willing to conform to and change in order to express what we keep wrapped up are so contradictory, yet it makes so much sense to people falling for others like Faye.
However, in the end, when asked to meet up after being discovered, the sudden acceptance confirms to Faye that she can dedicate the time to discovering herself and the world. He might even be there when she gets back, but she doesn’t count on that. She needs to love herself before she can truly give an attempt at honestly love him. She felt she had to hide her feelings and what she was doing for him the whole time but all the while, he would have loved being around her true self. Faye needed to love and exist as herself. Not just dancing alone but being willing to dance with someone who saw her exactly as she loved every crazy aspect of her. So she leaves to discover herself and returns as a flight attendant only to find Officer 663 now in her old job.
This section of the film shows the crazy things we do in an attempt to be loved. The love we desperately long for, the acceptance from great people. We may not feel deserving to receive that love, so we hide portions of ourselves and express our feelings in secret. In secret, we can be ourselves unabashedly, dancing alone to our favorite songs, to the beat of our own hearts, secretly hoping we will be caught by a wonderful person who accepts us as we are. Acceptance for some is enough to try loving ourselves and for others it takes acceptance and a journey away from it to recognize where we belong in the world. Even amongst millions in a big city we can still be isolated because it isn’t finding any relationship or human connection but identifying which ones accept us even when we don’t accept ourselves. Faye, throughout the film, listens to California Dreamin’ by The Mamas & Papas. The film uses the song to teach us that if we aren’t able to love and accept ourselves we only ever dream of California, surrounded by brown leaves and gray skies dancing alone. If we don’t give ourselves a shot, how can we believe others want us as we are?
Part 3: Everything has an expiration date, except Love which is endless.
When I originally watched the film, I didn’t give it high praise but that was over half a decade ago. Since then, love, loss, and the emotional struggle in between have happened. Those experiences put this film in perspective. The film is about the pursuit of love and the loss of love not being in a relationship itself. It is about the prospective joy that pursuing a great person feels like and the devastating pain of losing a similarly great person is like.
The first part gives us what it is like to lose before ever giving us something to hope for. It shows us rejection and its pain before acceptance and waiting. It is powerful in its representation of these youthful and timeless feelings. The second part is about what it means to give our love and the hope of being accepted. This is also a timeless human experience. Rejection and acceptance are timeless human experiences. Everything Expires but love persists. As long as there are living beings to feel the expression of love in their hearts, either in mourning or in appreciation, it never ends. Love and Loving is timeless.
In conclusion, what makes Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express one of the greatest films of all time is how it conveys love and loving, what it means to love outside a relationship, and why we do the crazy things we do when we feel it. It is about the timelessness of the living feeling of love and why it will never end or expire as long as there are living beings to interpret it. It is about the journey some must take, even after being fully accepted or rejected for who we are, to find love in ourselves or realize where it’s been all along. When you are accepted by another person exactly as you are, when you are finally able to feel at home and understand you are worthy of their acceptance: the world lights up with color. No more gray skies or brown leaves.
I give Chungking Express 10/10 cans of expired pineapples for its excellent cast, expressions of the unseen love we express, and its connective themes. If interested, be sure to check out Faye Wong’s Dreamlover. It is the healing power of the hope for love.
(No matter how much that one song wants to drown out your moment, just turn it off. A better one will be starting soon.)
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