Chungking Express
There are some movies that numb you, some leave you awestruck by its novelty, some inspire you, some make you laugh your gut out, some make you cry. But, I had never fallen in love with a movie. Not until I saw Chungking Express. This is not a critique of the movie in any way. This is my love letter to Chungking Express. Very few things, let alone movies have given me the pure inherent joy, as much as this movie did. So much beauty is packed into even the minutest of frame that you want to choke yourself with happiness. It is very difficult to describe what it feels like. It is an awful personal experience. Quentin Tarantino, once said in his own inimitable style with respect to this movie, “This movie made me cry. Not because the movie was sad, but, because I was amazed how much I could love any movie.”
The movie begins rather gloomily to a lovelorn cop, and takes us through protagonist’s same predicament in the second story too, but there is an unmistakable strong thread of hope that runs through both the stories. Hope is really an amazing thing. It is free and comes in many forms. For Cop 223 it came in the forms of Pineapple cans. He broke up with his girlfriend on the 1st April and gave 30 days to the relationship by purchasing a pineapple can that expires on the 1st May, each day of the month. If she doesn’t come by the 1st of May,the relationship would expire as would the pineapple cans, he believes. Through his soliloquy, he questions whether every tangible or intangible thing in this world comes with an expiry date? That is one question, that raises some circuituitous answers.
She doesn’t come to him and thus, on the 1st May, he eats all the pineapple cans and consequently becomes sick. Relationships, if turned to stomach disorder, should be flushed down the toilet. He finally decides to fall out of love by falling in love (A debatable concept, but, won’t go into that for now!).
Even the protagonist of the second story(cop 663) keeps hoping and waiting for his love to turn up. Foolishly wishing she would leap out of the closet and surprise him. If only wishes structured the outcome of things in life. Meanwhile he keeps meeting the shy May at the Express restaurant, his past doesn’t let go of him to even think about the present. May harbors feeling for him, but their story doesn’t venture via the normal boy-meet-girl caper. Infact, almost bowing to an idealistic definition of love, she just keeps him happy without even being with him. That is where Chungking Express packs a punch, it goes to the idealistic realms of love without being corny. She tidies his apartment, as if the soaps, towels and goldfish are the only way of stepping into the inaccessible 663’s life, and she is happy doing that. She represents the change in his life. In truly one of the movie’s most ironic and poignant scenes, the cop 663 stands in front of the closet hoping to be surprised by his girlfriend. But, nothing of the sort happens. Instead, we see May hiding in the closet. Dejected on not getting any reply, the cop turns back. How often have we been near to love only to turn our back against it?
The movie scoops out dollops of realism moments before its ending. When the cop 663 expresses his desire of dating her, May agrees. She reaches the place of the date and is about to meet the cop 663. About to have an interesting conversation with the man, whose inanimated life she has changed. From a distance. Would the conversation be interesting? She is shy, what would she speak? Does she have butterflies in stomach? Does she see herself or 663? Or, herself and 663? Together? What does she see and think. None of the above. She sees the name of the restaurant she is headed towards, and possibly a beginning of a new life for her. She sees the name of the restaurant emblazoned in golden colours – California. It is raining. She sees the water droplets caressing her most beautiful dream, as if they were her messengers. Now, she sees herself and decides. Obviously, Wong Kar Wai doesn’t sketch the details for us, but the close up of the the california for few seconds is enough to get what is being said. She decides amidst all this, she has been missing herself. She wants to love 663, but, not by compromising herself. She decides its not time. Not yet. She leaves something for the cop 663.
True to her promise, May returns to cop 663. In a fitting display of roles reversal, he is working in the Express restaurant in the same fashion May used to (the loud california dreamin’ song blaring on). May walks in carrying with herself not only a calm satisfaction of having giving this relationship the requisite time, but also living her the life way she always wanted to, so as to carry no regretfull What-ifs of the past. The destination of the economic class boarding pass is unknown. But, it has two passengers. In love.
P.S : I have never believed and will never believe in quantitative estimation of a movie. However, this time I will make an exception.
Rating – 6/5.
Tags: love, Relationship, Talking-Points, Wong Kar Wai
Anurag Kashyap
Abhay Deol
Dibakar Banerjee
Hansal Mehta
Khalid Mohamed
Kundan Shah
Anish Kuruvilla
Jaideep Verma
Manish Gupta
Navdeep Singh
Bhavani Iyer
D. Santosh
Onir
Ashvin Kumar
Ramu Ramanathan
Sudhir Mishra
Pankaj Advani
Revathy
Saurabh Shukla
Shilpa Shukla
Sujoy Ghosh
Suparn Verma
Santosh Sivan
Shashank Ghosh
Shivajee
Pavan Kaul
Partho Sen-Gupta
Prroshant Naryannan
Sam Langoria
Satish Kasetty
I read through few paragraphs..but stopped myself..itching to read it.But I will do that once I watch this long pending film..and your post has just managed to do the catalyst work.
Rating 6/5 tells it all!!
What punishment can we think of for all those mavericks who make us fall in love with moving pictures that flicker away leaving an affectionate afterglow in our minds?
Rating their movies 6/5 is a start!!!
nice piece Tanul – didn’t bother me that you have laid out the story – for this film is not simply a ’story’ to see – so I gather from the post.
good write-up…i m still looking out for this movie, unable to get it :(
Please don’t read this write up, if you haven’t watched the movie. I thought of adding an disclaimer, but, somehow forgot!
Chunking Express is a tribute to pop culture, an artistic celebration of post-modernistic impressions. Every repeat view of this film will teach you something new about cinema. Quentin has a strong influence of postmordernism and pastiche and so does Wai. In the mood for love was remarkably different, it was pure from the heart film. Great post Tanul!
“if my love for you has an expiry date, let it be 10000 years”
later on I came to knw tht 10000 years in chinese means eternity.
@Crazyrals—Chungking Express is available on DVD on Moserbaer…Costs Rs 399,Worth the buy,It even contains an Indian Indie short film
Let the debates begin. I’m on the other side of the fence about Chungking Express. In the words of a channel executive, “it didn’t work for me.” I practically forced myself to finish it just to see why so many big shots love it so much. Is it necessary to be a film student to appreciate this movie? I wouldn’t call myself too uneducated either. Off-hand, I’d say I found Kim Ki-Duk’s Time and 3-Iron more engrossing.
I think Chungking Express would appeal to people with a very definite kind of life experiences. Maybe I haven’t lived in that zone yet.
Was the indie short film ‘Do Hafte Guzarte Do Hafte Nahin Lagte’?
Pineapples stink…but this film remains one of my Favs…..not because i think its a great great film, certainly not WKW’s best and Doyle did better, but because i weirdly recognize with Tony Leungs character, no i dont eat canned fruits…but love is something i know a little about i guess its that sorta film where either you connect or you dont…if you dont then obvio its gonna feel like a drag
Btw, this made Tarantino cry? oh god is that why he decided to buy the rights and plaster his own pic all over the dvd covers!!
MY first film of Wong Kar -Wai and then watched almost all his films…
“I cried while watching it… only because I’m just so happy to love a movie this much.”
–Quentin tarantino
This film falls into an interesting category for me.
About 20mins into it, I was baffled as to why people raved about it and turned it off.
Some months later, I ended up with it playing on my dvd player whilst I popped out for an hour.
When I returned, I was hooked!
I couldn’t get my eyes off the screen!
The story changed!
The setting changed!
The pace, the mood, characters, everything!
And I bloody loved it :-)
TBH, i’ve seen the 2nd half 5times.
Maybe I should go back to the start?
;-)
@Kenny,Yeah that’s the one
Vikram,Kenny- I think the DVD is a Palador release ( of course on the Moser Baer label).
Rals- a few other Wong Kar Wai movies like Fallen Angels, Happy Together,In the mood for love,away with words etc also available by the Palador/Moser Baer combo.
They even have a Wong Kar Wai box pack of 5 DVD’s for 2000 Rs.
@sethu, vikram: thanx for the dvd info, will look out for it. i thought i would first check with friends
.
@sethu: yes, i do have a list of wong kar wai and chan woo park’s movies; just not got down to seeing them except for ‘oldboy’. thanx anyways..
Chunking Express is an experience and like all experiences it leaves an aftertaste.
I love it for the visual compositions, graphics styling and colour. That coffee drinking scene is outstanding, where the world around moves fast.
Do watch Fallen Angels and Happy Together, all 6/5.
Got to be my favorite movie of all time. The second WKW movie I had watched after 2046, which btw, i liked immensely despite its faults. But Chungking Express was something else. Days after watching the movie I still had ‘California dreamin’ buzzing in my head
I didn’t like the first story in the movie…the second one was fun…if it wasn’t for the movie’s rep, I might not have stuck with it till the second story started…in fact, for sometime while watching the movie, I was confused about whether there were two different stories or one…I wouldn’t include it amongst my favorite ones…
Watching Wong Kar Wai films feel like watching french films with asian actors.. agree or not ?
I watched it, and sorry it didnt click with me
I too am in the minority… watched it last month and couldn’t understand the hoopla surrounding it! Sorry, no offence intended towards anyone who thinks this is a masterpiece.
Perhaps the most interesting thing i found in the film was the depiction of illegal desis used as drug mules. Never seen (or knew )that before
Looks like I’m in the minority too. What makes this film remarkable? The presentation of two stories which have no connection to one another? So this is a movie which is different just for the sake of being different. I agree as Kenny said that the movie might appeal to those who have that particular kind of experiences which enables them to relate to it.
@d&c, Savio, Jahanpanah
Looks like we’re not such a minority after all
About 8 years ago I would have pretended to like it ;) just because the big names all seem to love it. I’m more secure about my sensibilities now. External trappings like composition, style, etc are all fine and dandy, but I can’t really say I like a movie if the story itself doesn’t engage me.
this movie changed my perception on what a film could be, i’ve seen it many times over, obsessing over its little details, there is a lazy and lyrical passivity to it, like an impressionistic painting, there is no plot, no clear character motivation, the movie is really about bums who are caught up in the wrong jobs, about people who cant belong and are mere spectators of life, i havent seen a better film dealing with the themes of alienation and a sort of doomed romance, time itself is a central theme in the film, and the visuals hypnotically underline the metaphysical aspect of it, we are alone in the way we live and love and everything buzzes past us leaving us in a blur of ambiguity and meaninglessness, that is what i make of the film.
thanks for putting up this man.. this is surely one of a masterpiece ever made in the world cinema… fallen angel is another wan kar wai movie which is supposed to be the sequel of chunking express.. another amazing piece of cinematography by christopher doyale..a must watch but only when you have Chunking express..
Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t put my feelings about this movie better. I absolutely and completely unconditionally love this movie.