The director likes to use the handheld camera for shooting the protagonist movements in the first story. I believe that the effect was meaningful during the first few shots, but after a while, it just made me dizzy to look at the screen. For any cop and robber movie, both characters are always running. The hand held camera helps create an effect of the protagonist being in a hurry and create a sense or mood that we are watching a cop in action. This was useful since the protagonist was not wearing a police uniform. A scene that I found that was a bit off was where the female drug smuggler kidnapped the child and treated her to ice cream. It was a cute scene but made her character confusing since she was dealing with drugs and was able to kill off many men.
For the second story, Cop 663’s character was portrayed through objects that were placed on screen. His bedroom is surrounded by toy airplanes and stuffed animals. His house was not kept well and he needs someone else to take care of it. The camera captures simply this to reveal his childish character. He is also very slow in noticing changes to his room. This relates to his character in being slow to accept changes such as accepting the letter from both women. Towards the end of the film, I felt that there was no conclusion to both stories.
One thing I found interesting about this film was the camera work. In the very beginning of the film, we see a very hectic and choppy scene in which there is some kind of chase. It seems to be using a handheld camera to capture the scene. I thought that this method of camera shooting helped to portray the chaotic scene that was unfolding. This very choppy handheld camera shooting was also used when the first woman (the drug smuggler) was being chased by the men as she shot them. Again, we get a sense of the chaotic and hectic scene going on in the film.
Another interesting tool the director used was when the second policeman was shown in very slow motion while the other people in the foreground were bustling about. We see this first when he is very slowly drinking his coffee, but in normal time people are just going about their business. I think this contrast is to put focus on Cop 663's feeling of despair since his lady left him, and it has left him very gloomy and solemn, but everyone else around him is carrying on in their lives. The same effect was shown as he sulks by the jukebox in California Restaurant, where he is supposed to meet Faye. Again, he is saddened that she doesn't show up, but other people are living out their lives normally.
Chungking Express is a drama film made in 1994 and directed by Wong, Kar-wai. The movie tells two unconnected stories about policemen who both happened to have had recent break ups with the women they were dating. The first thing I notice about the film was the use of what looked like bouncy, slow frame rate with motion blur in the opening and other action sequences, particularly in the first story. Unlike contemporary films, the use of this technique pulls off the feel of slightly confusing mayhem during high adrenaline action or chases in a way that captures a sense of early 90s film editing technology, at least for me. The technique mimics a person’s vision in events such as these and does so effectively. I have never been to the city in Hong Kong, but I liked how Wong was able to contrast day and night scenes. The night life shows darkness, but hardly hides much with the artificial lights, and the day scenes are busy with multiple colors filling the frames.
After watching the film and not know much about it, I found it confusing and lacking. However, after looking up some more information about it, I think I can understand and appreciate it more. There are still some bits that seem like they stick out to me though, such as having two unconnected stories. The two seem like they would make better films if they were separated and flushed out more especially when the second story felt like it was the main story between the two. Another bit was the drug business sequence that went on too long for me. The sequence was shot well illustrating the atmosphere of the intreque business in cramped spaces, but it gives off the notion that the film is some sort of heist with the fast cuts and camera movement. This appears even more so after seeing the rest of the movie and learning that it is more of a drama. Despite these bits, overall, I found the film entertaining to watch.
One of the most memorable things that stood out to me in the movie was the camera work. Most movies that we watch typically don't have a lot of these rough camera movements. Instead, they tend to be a lot more focused and smooth. I think these rough camera angles help pull the audience into the action scenes (ie. chase scenes) but at the same time, can cause the people watching to become nauseous. The other unique types of camera movement and shots made me feel as if the first part of the movie was filmed in a dreamy, fantasy-like way. Maybe it was the way the camera was moving or the lighting but it seemed that everything was really dreamy and not entirely real, especially during the choppy camera parts when the colored lights in the back blurred by. Another thing that I found interesting was the mix of different languages. Although the movie was primarily in Cantonese, there were also parts, such as when Qiwu was talking to the girl in the blonde wig. It might have been that way because that female actress is from Taiwan and the Japanese actor who plays Qiwu is more fluent in Mandarin. It was really interesting to me how only that scene was in Mandarin and the rest of the time, these two actors spoke in Cantonese. As a Cantonese speaker, it was a little bit difficult to make out some of the things that Qiwu was saying on the phone when he was calling May's family.
Obviously, the movie, 'Chunking express' is mainly about the love story and after its break up. This movie reminds me a phrase which is, 'Even though some one give a huge grief and made hole in your heart, another love will will cure its pain through filling inside the hole'. Since I also felt the breaking up grief, this movie's after breaking up expression was really touching. The strong connection between the first man and second man was really impressive. To begin with, they both broked up from their lover and sufering from the old memory they had with their lover. I'm sure that the director also had huge main after break up because the movie showed after breaking up in so detail. The most heartbroken scene was when the second guy talks to his stuffs like they are living. He probably miss the days he had with his girl friend and the objects. But the point is director made this heartbroken scene with nt only sadness, but also humour. I wants to give big praise to this. It moved audience's sympathy and also give laugh. I really liked it.
The Director Won Kar-wai with Chungking Express definitely wanted us to get a sense of how crazy love can be. Why else would the movie have so many fast cuts and wild camera jolting?
I believe that these two seemingly disconnected stories had a lot in common. They were showing how as you are focused on a lost lover the world around you still goes on and so you must learn to move on too. At least that's what I thought in the first story when the man was standing at the counter and everyone behind him was moving at superman speed.
As these stories came to an end my mind was severely disturbed. I realized that both of the men were police officers and yet they were blinded by these women. The more I type the more I start getting the sense that Kar-wai chose for the female characters to wear sunglasses to show how blinded the males were by the infatuation of being in love. They were both so obsessed with their old lovers that they could not see that these new women who came into their lives were both criminals. Even though the first male was a police officer he didn't know that this woman he was falling in love with just killed a bunch of people. As the law he could not possibly be with her if she was found out. The second male character wanted to be with a woman who broke into his apartment, and rearranged everything!? Seriously, what the hell is wrong with this movie! As a police officer he should have been more observant which I thought it was funny that the second male actually says he has become more observant.
At the beginning of the second tale the woman has her glasses off and at the end she does too. I'm sure there's some sort of meaning to that, but I could just be grabbing at the wind. It's possible that her true self is being shown at the end and that she no longer has any secrets. That they both are no aware of what is going on because the male never knew she was going to his place and she wore glasses then, but once he found out we next see her without the glasses again. Just thought it was interesting.
The movie is separated by 2 stories. These stories have not much connections but purposely divided by two different circumstances, day and night time of Hong Kong. I thought the first story was a lot more depressing than the second story, although the stories contain the same romantic relationships between a police man and a woman. I think it is because of many exposes of chaotic moments that both protagonists encounter. Also, a scene that caught my attention in the first story was that the man and woman protagonists set on the bar looking at the mirror ceiling portrayed their complex feelings. The director applied hand-held camera scenes in the movie which could be interpreted as two meanings. The director wanted to express the urgent moments of the scene to the audiences, although it could cause the giddy feelings. Another meaning can be interpreted that the director wanted to emerge from stereotyped takes. By shooting takes with hand, it broke the "settled rectangular take." I think when the movie approaches to the irregular methods, it means that the movie takes a step forward to the future innovation.
Jin Ah Kim Director Wang Kar-wai uses a lot of handheld camera techniques to emphasize reality and actuality in the film “Chungking Express”. Not only that, but he often made the movements of objects or people appear faster or slower. This effect created confusion in the audience at times but this emphasized ‘time and space’ throughout the whole film which is one of the things that was extremely interesting. Wang managed to express ‘time’ in a very unique way using various filming techniques such as using slow motions and fast cuts. These techniques created the same space and time mean different to each characters. For example, the date May 1st is important to both first two characters and the story shows how these two people face that day differently expressing the day as a very long day (for both of them). The other two characters on the other hand are not really “living in reality”; cop 663 cannot forget his ex-girlfriend and obsesses about the past not being able to notice any change in the reality while Faye dreams about her future (California, etc). Wang emphasizes the time when the two characters were in the sandwich shop together by slowing down everything surrounding them without any conversation between the two. This highlighted the space they were in together (the blurry movements of people passing by made it seem like time was slowing down in their “own world” emphasizing the relationship between the two). Interestingly, the connection between the two stories is the sandwich shop which also is portrayed as different spaces for the characters.
After watching the film, there was a sense of lacking. What was the objective of the film and each section? Did the main characters actually grow emotionally? And why were the main leads both policemen? There was a thread of commonality of a one-sided love in both stories but that was it. Was there a need for two stories? In fact, after much reflection, it finally dawned on me that the second story was not a continuation of the first, and that the policeman did not grow up; he had been completely changed. There were a quite a few cues that resulted in the aforementioned assumption. The first being that when the viewer is first introduced to the first policeman, one sees a young and lovelorn man who is borderline- obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, May. As if to emphasize his (the policeman’s) youth, there are action filled scenes where the viewer finds himself in the chase along with the policeman. The motion of the camera creates a dizzying effect and amplifies the feelings of the officer. He is always chasing after love only to have it dodge his grasp repeatedly. This is evident as the viewer sees him as he visits a food store daily and waits for his ex-girlfriend. He is obsessed with keeping the time until he will finally grow and accept that she is gone. Strangely enough, though he tries to let her go, he projects what he wants in a woman unto her. He vows to himself that he will fall in love with the first woman who walks into the bar. His opening line is to ask her if she likes pineapples, his ex-girlfriend’s favorite fruit. The viewer is presented with a man who wants to let go but finds it hard to so. He knows that he needs to change and that “one day, you might just stop liking pineapples”. The woman that he meets in the bar has what can be presumed to be a diamond ring upon her finger but there is no evidence of her being married. At the end of the first story, one sees as she sheds the blonde wig and reveals long, black hair. In the second story, the policeman is introduced to a new worker at the food stand whose name is Faye. Faye wears what is seemingly a diamond ring but there is no evidence of her being married. At that moment, one wonders if this were a mere coincidence. In the first story, the police officer had concluded that in order to not endure any heartache he would just not date any women by the name of May. Faye obviously rhymes with May. Was this name choice a conscious decision made by the director and/or writer? As the second story progresses, one sees that the second policeman like the first is a victim of routine and does not adapt well to change though he knows that it is necessary. Like the first story, the viewer is informed of the characters’ backstory through narration and flashbacks. Unlike the first story, there are no action scenes. This could lead to the assumption that the first policeman had grown up somewhat. He is also seen frequently in his uniform which could mean that he is no longer wild and has accepted his role in society. The two stories flow into each other in such a way that causes the viewer to truly contemplate after its completion. The similarities between both and the subtle differences cause one to strictly question it and its importance. Why was it that the younger officer who had marked time so accurately was the restless one and the older officer seemed to be unaware of it? If they were truly two separate stories, why was there a need to have the younger first and the older second?
Immediately after the cut to the credits I realized that this movie needs to be viewed more than once. There was so much going on both in terms of plot and style that it was difficult to piece together and draw conclusions about, and while I was able to decipher patterns, I couldn't make a conclusion about their significance. Even so, I really admired this film. The personification of inanimate objects was so perfect; even without connecting it to a greater theme/meaning it deserved appreciation simply for its creative value.
One question that I began formulating in the middle of the film was whether or not the plot was real. There were so many parallels between the two stories that it feels almost impossible for them to truly exist in the minds of different people. To me, the film felt like it a story told by one narrator who was dreaming, then was abruptly shaken from sleep and conscious for half a minute, and then fell back into a very similar dream. I’ve actually had this type of experience before when dreaming; sometimes when you fall back asleep your mind is still shuffling through the same images but certain details have changed.
In fact, the shaky handheld camera, freezing/slowing of time and space, strobe light effect, and reoccurrence of mirrored images also create a disorienting, imaginative, and surreal space similar to a dream landscape. While the plot is pretty loaded, in some ways it is secondary to the images and cinematography in the film. While concretely the film is about recovering from lost love, the way the film is made suggests that the details of this plot is less important than the exploration of deeper, human-level questions: Why do assume love lasts forever when nothing else does? Is the individual experience unique, or is there a universal human experience? What is the difference between dream/reality, sanity/insanity? These questions are posed verbally, but their answers are explored artistically. No one comes out and says: “perception of time and space is subjective”; it is made implicit by the filming technique.
After watching Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express, I had some mixed feelings about the movie as a whole. At the beginning, I didn’t like the handheld camera work. The shaky camera with blurs of colors has left me feeling dizzy. Although, I do like how this camera technique helps show how chaotic and hectic the scene was because of the chase between the police and the drug dealers. It helped unfold the scene nicely and we were able to get a good sense of what was happening. Another interesting camera technique was the slowing of the police officer #633’s motions. There were two scenes of this technique: one was when the officer was drinking his coffee and one was when the officer was putting in money to the jukebox. While the officer’s motions were slowed down, people were passing by him in a slightly faster speed. The director probably used this technique to show the officer’s despair in comparison to the rest of the world. During both scenes, the officer was either sad or gloomy because he was either dumped or stood up by a girl. As the officer is sulking, the rest of the world is carrying on as usually. Overall, I’ve enjoyed the movie because the humor, but I didn’t see the underlying point of movie with two different love stories involving two different cops.
You cannot watch this movie and ignore the fact that there are two completely separated stories that take place, not only are they not at the same time, but they seem to split the movie in two, as if you are watching two movies. The only thing that connects to the two together is the restaurant, a featured setting in the film (particularly the last half). At first glance, it's not readily apparent why there are two stories present in a single film, and even after completion of the film and in retrospect, there still is not a clear answer why these two stories were merged into one collection.
All of that aside, with the two stories being directed by the same director and being shot during the same period of the director's life, it's obviously no surprise that many of the same techniques are used during both stories (some techniques more abundant on one side of the film than the other). It's easy to notice the handheld footage as well as the use of blurring, slow motion, and choppiness effects. I'm not sure on how innovative these techniques were for the time this film was produced, but I am sure that these techniques came together to give the film a unique feel and style that I must admit I enjoyed.
As mentioned above, the overall meaning and point of the work is not quickly apparent, however there are many fine details about the movie that can perhaps be noticed in an ironically more often pace. The complexity of the details of this movie are very pleasing (assuming you notice them to begin with). In fact, the complexity of details are woven so deeply in this movie that even the most adept movie critic would likely have to watch this movie more than once to catch most of it. I caught many fine details that were miniscule and extremely creative, which leads to my impression that there are many more details I am completely oblivious to.
In addition to the complexity of the hidden details, another pleasing aspect of the film was the acting and overall feeling/vibes given off from the actors. All of them were, in their own respects, attractive and came across as very artfully skilled in acting. I really feel their acting must be appreciated by all audiences.
The most distinctive aspect of 'Chungking express' is that the movie consists of two different episodes one by one. There are several movies containing few diffenrent stories at the same time such as 'Love actually' but showing two cops' broken-heart and overcoming it through another love in common. Even though this movies has relatively fast development, there are few things makes the audiences immersed in the movie. The camerawork seems that it follows the characters so that the audience might feel as if they are invloved in the scene. Also, they can understand the story of the episodes from the aim of the narration. Lastly, the background music such as California dreaming contributes to formulate the atmosphere of each scene. It is common for people to forget their last love by seeking for another one. Even though two cops shows a different style of overcoming, it is impressive that each of them holds meaning on the object such as can of pineapple or doll. As times goes, those things become nothing for them just like past is.
Chungking Express was a movie that I thoroughly enjoyed that focused on how relationships are often ephemeral and can lead to much emotional pain. The two male protagonists are policemen who rely on their relationships with women for happiness. This flaw in their personalities inevitably leads to their periods of sorrow.
Officer 633 is lonely and heartbroken after his relationship with an air hostess ends. When he learns about a letter from her, he immediately knows what has happened because he suspected that the time had come for them to part ways. At first he is in denial about their break-up and would "sense" her when she wasn't there. While preoccupied with his sorrow, he took up talking to inanimate objects in order to fight the loneliness. He projects his sadness to the objects and gives them their own personalities. They seem alive to him because when Faye starts taking care of his apartment and switching his inanimate "friends" with new versions, he doesn't suspect an intruder, but merely a change within the objects' personalities themselves. His bar of soap is depressed and has stopped eating. It becomes very thin and he advises it that he shouldn't let the pain effect it so badly. After Faye replaces the bar with a new one, he talks to it as if it is the same character and tells it that overeating will not solve its problems. His hand towel was tattered and ripped, and was no longer absorbent. It's dripping was synonymous with crying, yet after it was replaced with a fresh towel, he doesn't acknowledge that it is a new towel. He only acknowledges that it still cries. His sorrow and loneliness blinded him from realizing that there was a new woman who is in love with him.
The film Chunking Express by Wong Kar-wai is composed by two portions. Two different story talks about two different stories in same space of two cops. It was interesting to connect two stories smoothly with the scene that first character of cop passed by woman character of second story. The director uses lot of camera skill to express the scene more animate. Firstly, he uses lot of spying shot that follow after the character with long take. Another skill I notice is that moving camera action so fast. However, it makes me kind of dizziness because of its out focusing but it certainly express animated scene. Most memorable thing after I watched this movie is the music, especially “California dreaming”. The director of this film definitely uses sound well. The scene where cop’s 663 standing left side of flame and girl standing right side of flame and suddenly the background music was muted and the scene continues for 5~6 seconds was very impressive. Interestingly, the director uses narration in order to help understanding certain action what he or she did. Some action was exoteric but the narration help what it means.
The movie is composed of two stories. The similarities in the two stories are that a policeman loses his love finds other love and cured. It was just simply romance movie but what made this movie so great were the way how two policemen overcoming their conflict. The first policeman, 223, buys pineapple can that expires on his birthday, and jog to not cry. The characteristic of 223 was so pure that he almost seemed silly. However, what cured his broken-heart was his silly behavior which to fell in love with the first girl he sees; 223 smiled when he received a call from the blond girl saying happy birthday. In the second story a policeman, called 633 loses his love and living a hallow life. He talks with things in his house to gain relief from the emptiness but what gets rid of the emptiness was starting new love with Faye. What really caught my attention is director showed how great cop 633’s hollowness by him not realizing something is going on in his house when Faye comes into his house and practically changes all. I guess the first story focused on relationship between two people and the second one on love. The first one is just relationship because even though he promised to love the next girl he sees love cannot just pop up because he decided to. I believe what the director wants us to see is a small kindness can cure even people who are totally different from you: The policeman and the woman had nothing in common; job, food, personality, gender, etc. Different does not mean there cannot be any relationship.
Made up of two different stories that are weaved together by a transition scene and the common theme of getting in and out of love, Chungking Express is one of the rare films with an incomplete and disjointed plot. However, it is interesting to read the theme of the film together with its style. Set in the backdrop of Hong Kong’s modern world with its convenience stores, fast food restaurants, shopping malls and nightclubs, the filmmaker expresses the fast pace of life via quick and sudden camera movements. Especially at the start, following the handheld camera made my head spin and I felt chaotic and confused. These choppy camera movements are motivated both by what the characters see and by their own movements. In addition, overcranking and undercranking are often used to create a slow motion subject with a fast motion and blurred environment, with the former sometimes in the foreground and sometimes in the background. This emphasizes the loneliness and emptiness of the protagonists – Despite the fact that there are many people surrounding them, everyone else is too busy trying to catch up with the speed of the city and thus has no time to be concerned about others. To reveal the sad truth about city dwellers, i.e. how the wellbeing of the material aspect often comes at the expense of that of the psychological, we observe how people like Cop 663 from the second story resort to chatting with items like the soap and towel, and this is supported with frequent tilted camera angles which seem to suggest distorted personalities.
Two other points that I want to mention are languages and numbers. It is striking how multilingual Chungking Express is, with the use of Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Japanese and Tamil. This is especially the case when we observe how Qiwu from the first story makes calls to girls as well as approach the woman in blonde wig using the former four languages. The use of different languages, accompanied by the changing lights and colors, as well as the incorporation of pop culture with the image of the woman in blonde wig and dark glasses and the frequent play of “California Dreamin” by the Mamas and the Papas, fully demonstrates how Hong Kong is a cosmopolitan and vibrant city on the surface. Yet, with the use of numbers, we uncover the cold and icy hearts on the inside. By knowing the protagonists by numbers like 223 and 663, we understand how names are not important in this society. There is no personal touch, and only cold hard numbers that are associated with growth and wealth matter. It is therefore no wonder why people like Fayne use loud music to block out the outside world and hide in her small personal space.
And of course, there is no doubt that this film is pretty much commercialized with the starring of gorgeous Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung~
In the first part of the movie “Chungking Express”, the handheld camera was used a lot. It made it seem like that area of Hong Kong was very chaotic and busy. This was mostly true when there were chase scenes, it made Tsim Sha Tsui seem like a place where people could easily get lost in. It also made the city seem both busy and overwhelming. The director wanted to portray how diverse Hong Kong is through the interaction of people from different cultures. Language also played an important role to portray this interaction because Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, and English were used throughout the movie. When watching this film, I noticed that out of the main characters, Cop 663 was the only one that was absolutely fluent in Cantonese. This also shows the diversity of Kong Hong when other people are moving to this vibrant city, learning the local language, and trying to get by.
In this busy city, the characters could only relax and take their minds off of their personal issues when they are by the snack bar. Before 1998, the cops in Hong Kong have been known to be corrupt. This can be seen by how the director portrays the two cops who are too busy getting over their love lives instead of having lots of scenes where they actually catch criminals. I’ve actually watched this movie when I was younger and remembered the scenes where Cop 663 talks to all the inanimate objects in his house. Back then I found it very funny and I still do today. It’s almost like he cannot comfort himself or face reality, so he doesn’t want any change in his life. When his bar of soap was almost used up, he complained and when he had a new bar of soap, he also complained. Acceptance of reality takes time and people shouldn’t forget that.
I really enjoyed the film Chungking Express. The camera work and inclusion of two different story lines is what makes this film so unique. The dynamic camera movements, cuts, and angles were interesting and a technique I have not seen before. I especially enjoyed the mixture of using a handheld camera with the still cameras throughout the movie because it added intensity and playfulness to the scenes in the film. I think the different camera work also reflects upon one of the messages of the film about learning to look at life or situations with a different perspective. I also liked that the two different story lines shared common themes and meanings about life, love (and how crazy it can make some people), moving forward, learning to look at life differently, breaking the routine, and the unexpected situations or people life gives you. It was also nice that the film included the perspective and thoughts of each of the four main characters, not solely from one male or female’s perspective in each relationship, which seems to be the case in most romance films. This allowed us to understand the characters better and sympathize with them. I think it’s the most uniquely filmed movie we have watched in class.
The movie separates into two stories, But they (two stories) both share some commons. The guys both are police, and the sunglasses are used as an accessory for both women. Also, both guys have met his "new woman" while the guys are going through the break-up with their previous girlfriends, (which both guys are dumped by their girlfriends), and both guys will be changed by these two women. So there is a link between these two separate stories. The first story talk about things with time frame. #223 says that he does not realize all the things would come with a expired date. He is reluctant to change himself, but he gives himself a time frame; that is, a collection of 30 cans of preserved pineapple. To the lady, who #223 has met at the bar, she also has a time frame; that is, to find those Indians before the can food is expired. However, the second story talks about things with no time frame. Like #223, #663 is going through a relationship break-up, too. #663 is also being reluctant to change; however, he does not give himself a time frame for his relationship - maybe he thinks that he will change in someday, who knows. The first story emphasize that things will start to change once they reach their "expiration date". The second story emphasize that maybe people do not need to set a time frame, things will starting changing around people, which will cause people to be changed without acknowledging. Different time frames show the differences between these two stories. Actually, it is better to say that #223 is changed by himself, and #663 's change is helped by Fei. As i have mentioned before, #223 is setting a time frame for his relationship. Once he reaches his goal, he needs to move forward. The lady he has met at the bar, change his point of view. Instead of looking forward to have future with his ex-girlfriends( because he has said that he just realized all the things would have a expiration date, which he has thought that his relationship with his ex-girlfriend will last forever), he starts cherishing his memory with this random lady, and if time frame is necessary, he wishes it can last for 10 thousands year. However, #663 does not have time frame for his relationship; he is also reluctant to change, because he always say "will see" and "take my time", "it is what it is" is the best thing to describes he status now. But, he is changing, without knowing it, because Fei is changing his surrounding secretly, which cause him to change,too. Actually he knows it, things are changing in his life, and he just go with it, maybe he thinks that since things start changing in his life, it is time for him to change, too. #633 may not able to change without Fei’s help. I thinks fei changes #633's behavior on purpose. The first time i watched this movie, i did not really get the conversation between fei and her cousin about changing a new place to pay the electricity bill. And this time i watch in class, i have different thought about this conversation. By saying the electricity company is too busy, too many people, i think she is referred to #633 ’s heart which now is occupied by another woman, and he is too busy to deal with fei. But fei is not giving up, because she says she can come to pay the bill next time. Suddenly, a word from her cousin gives her an idea to change #633's behaviors. Her cousin says if this electricity company is too busy, then u can change another one. Of course, fei is not going to stop liking #633 and to try with another guy. She sees this hint as changing #633's surrounding and #633. Maybe one day this "company" will be empty, and it is available to take her electric bill. And at the end, #633 is totally transformed under Fei’s help.
This movie, in my opinion, wants to tell people that change is necessary for love, change can be internal and external. And time frame of love is really depended on different people, instead of giving a time frame for something is unknown in the future, giving a time frame for memory perhaps would be better.
Chungking Express features two similar but different love stories of police officers in the same urban space of Hong Kong. The only similarity between our two male protagonists is that they go to the same restaurant quite often and have private conversation with the owner especially about their relationships, but they never get to meet with each other. However, they share common ground when it comes to their characteristics; they are heart-broken due to their previous relationship, and each of them has obsession in certain elements of their lives. For instance, the first policeman, He Qiwu, is obsessed with number and “time”. Whenever he describes certain events that occur regarding his love relationships, he starts out with counting number. When he first encounters with the blond-haired woman, he says that the distance between him and her is 0.01cm, but he will eventually fall in love with her after 57 hours from now. He remembers his birthday and even the time of his birth, which is May 1st, 6:00AM and constantly reminds himself that he will turn into 25 later on. He engraves April Fool’s day into his mind as it was the day when he broke up with May and searches for canned pineapples that expire on May 1st. He Qiwu wishes that the memory between him and May would never expire, but he has to face the end of the relationship after realizing that May would not come back to him again. Our second male protagonist, cop 663, is obsessed with “space”, yet he does not know how to take care of it until he falls in love with Faye. He talks to his belongings including teddy bear, soap, and a dirty towel. Unlike cop 663, cop 223 gobbled pineapple cans and four different chef’s salads at the hotel as a result of an attempt to comfort himself and to get rid of the feeling of loneliness. It is similar to us as we crave for sweets and ice-cream when we feel blue. Cop 663 shows how he is lonely through talking by himself at his apartment where he still kept his ex-girlfriend’s properties, hoping that she will return back to him one day. However, he never shows a great interest in his properties, making him not to realize the importance in the value of each one of them. After Faye interferes with his life, he begins to notice differences that were made by Faye in his room. Overall, the movie’s sequences were divided evenly, making it convenient for the audiences to watch the movie. The usage of hand-held camera invites the audiences into the screen and makes us feel as if we are with the protagonists, and this method was especially used when the blond-haired woman was storming in and around the city district in search of the Indians. Also, the narration supported the explanations of protagonists’ action, and the music created a huge impact in controlling audiences’ emotion and the flow of the movie itself. ‘California dreaming’ represents Faye’s ideal happiness and utopia. They stop the music when they have conversation about cop 663’s ex-girlfriend, giving us the sense of reality.
The chungking express’s director Wong Kar-Wai quickly established himself among art house cinema circles worldwide as a new voice in Asian film with this unconventional set of tales about modern love in Hong Kong. Before then, he and other Hong Kong directors had stuck mostly with 'kung fu' flicks, using the formulas popularized by Bruce Lee with young audiences worldwide. 'Chungking Express' took a new direction, sweeping the 1995 Hong Kong Film Academy awards and gaining attention at other festivals in Europe and the USA. I think Chung King Express had great scope. The initial feel of the film was one of a love struck Romeo. Soon, I realized that the film was much more. The film had two guiding plots: the cop who had just lost love and the cop who would soon find it. A yin/yang love story put together masterfully. The plots flowed together one right after the other and if I weren't paying attention, I missed the transition. The strongest part of the film was the character interaction. The actors of the film were sincere and realistic. I believed in the characters and I believed in their emotions and conflicts. The second strongest was Wong's cinematography. Each shot had purpose and pushed the feel of the film. The contrast of every shot was beautiful. In addition, I loved all the sound tracks of this movie. Especially, I really enjoyed “what a difference a day makes”. The song gave dreamy atmosphere in the movie.
Chungking Express, directed by Wong Kar-wai, is a film about two cops and their romantic ties. This is a very unique film to me because it is split into two different stories with a common theme. I wasn't exactly the biggest fan of this movie and that is partly due to my lack of understanding the plot. However, there were certain elements that I enjoyed about this film and the theme was very interesting.
Through this film, I learned that a person comes into contact with many people throughout a day. However, there isn't a sense of communication and we simply walk pass them without thinking about their personal story. Chungking Express shows that two different stories can always have a certain commonality. This commonality in Chungking Express are the stages of a relationship. This crisscrossing of a certain theme and construction of a relationship creates a very unique experience while watching Chungking Express.
Chungking Express is an ensemble film that is torn into two stories, exploring he concept of love, through two different perspectives of protagonists. In fact, both stories don’t consist a standardized narrative outline. Both carry distinct qualities and are slow-paced in general, which makes the film interesting and coherent. The visuals in the first half of Chungking Express emphasize a great sense of disorientation and confusion in the populated city of Hong Kong. The busy setting is shown, with the surrounds of illegal immigrants and exclusive activities, such as drug trafficking. Wong Kar-Wai, the director of this film had utilized unique camera effects and handling jobs in order to tie the broader theme of love and its effect on characters’ lives and actions. In the opening scene, the camera moves through various locations and tends to show the visuals of surroundings with constant movement. This creates a sense of viewer’s presence within the space of the film. Kar-Wai seems to intentionally create spaces that are often cramped and crowded, in order to build the emotional energy within the characters. For an example, in one of the scenes, the camera closely follows the blond-woman, as she is walking along the tight hallway. The camera tends to naturally create movements that actually feel as if someone is following the character. When the woman stops and turns around, the camera also stops as well. The camera seems to act as a person, adding the realistic senses.
In "Chungking Express", I feel that the two seemingly unrelated stories are talking about the same story, which is about metropolitan life, about loneliness, about disturbance hidden inside people, and about relationship between human beings. The director, Kar Wai Wong, managed to express these abstract feelings through a loosely organized story in his distinctive film-making style. First, Kar Wai Wong demonstrated highly creative film-making techniques in Chungking Express. In many shots, handheld camera was used to highlight the mood of fast-pace and disturbance. In addition, blurring of image further strengthened disturbance, which resides both inside of people and outside in the environment. Interestingly, in several scenes such as Cop 223 making phone calls, the camera was leaning, almost 45 degrees, in order to convey the emptyness and disturbance inside the character. In contrast, music and cuts were used extensively when depicting how Faye makes changes to Cop 633's apartment. These cuts not only helped the story-telling through indicating time flow but also created the mood of happiness and innocence together with music. In "Chungking Express", metropolitan life is colorful, chaotic, and lonely. I could get this feeling easily because of the various film techniques adopted by the director. Another interesting I found interesting is the characters in the film. The film did not talk much about the background or experience of these characters. The relationship among the four characters seems to be random and loose. Cop 223 met Faye for only one second. Faye suddenly fell in love with Cop 633 at the store, not to mention that the woman who stayed with Cop 223 remained anonymous. However, the loose and random relationship can be exactly what the director wants to express: the distance between people in metropolitan life. Just among these four random characters, we see how Cop 223 and the woman heal each other and how Faye and Cop 633 evolve their loveline. Maybe this is just the way of metropolitan life, nothing to be judged. I noticed that the woman who stayed with Cop 223 wore raincoat and sunglasses at the same time. This seems to be an abstraction of people's inner disturbance. They are so nervous and fragile towards the uncertainty in life. Finally, I want to make some comments on the lines in this film. I heard about Kar Wai Wong makes film without fixed script, and maybe this explains the innovative way in which lines are organized in "Chungking Express." Monologue was used frequently in this film in order to convey the loneliness of human beings. They have too much inner feelings which could only share with themselves. Cop 633 kept talking to things like towel and soap as if they are alive. This seems to be exaggerated, but it further expresses loneliness and emptyness. The other thing I noticed in the lines is the exact demonstration of time, such as "after 6 hours" and "6:00 am in the morning." This accuracy was later contradicted in the film by the dissynchronized time flow, where people are moving fast in the background while Cop 633 is sitting still and moving slowly. The director might want to express the contradiction of time in metropolitan life: On one hand, the fast life pace forces people to calculate time accurately. On the other hand, people can be so insensitive that they are not observant of fast changes around them. I enjoyed watching "Chungking Express" a lot because of its artistic film-making and witty lines. Moreover, "Chungking Express" provided me a chance to pay more attention to the symbolic meaning rather than the plots in the film. Shangqing Li
When I always think about wong kar-wi's film I feel emotionally touched deeply inside mg heart. The movie always reminds me about the times of the memorable days that I was alone and felt solitude after deep love. The story of two cops make a contrast of a mature love and also a immature side of love that everyone should feel once in a life time. The color and the mood of dark red light mis-en-scene and the vintage feeling of the film makes the audience feel the mysterious emotion and nostalgia of some memory according to our own youth and love time. The music also creates the favorable mood for me, besides California dreaming rest of the songs are all good too. Critics says that 2046 is the best romance movie of wong kar-wi but I think chungking express is the one the best film of him.
Chunking Express, unlike many of the other movies we’ve seen in class, seems the most down-to-earth and realistic. As I was watching it, I felt like I was looking through someone’s memories. I believe the camerawork was purposely done to create this realistic feeling; the handheld motivated camera movement and the washed out color scheme all contribute to this sense of a stark reality. Even though this film told the story of two different relationships, each relationship was presented in a similar fashion in that both male protagonists were preoccupied by one or two aspects of their now-over relationships. Through the telling of stories, the director relied heavily on certain recurring motifs, such as the foods each character was associated with – pineapples and coffee – as well as a recurring song, California Dreaming. The director does a good job of signaling each of the characters with these items; as soon as coffee, pineapples, or California Dreaming comes on the screen, we as the audience automatically know who the scene’s about. We are also able to sense the mood of the scene through the lighting, as well as the angle of the frame. Throughout the course of the film, you see many colors used as overtones, which are telling of the character’s feelings at that moment. Oblique angles are also used to show the imbalance of the character’s current state of mind. It shows the chaos that goes on in the environment around them, as well as the chaos that goes on in their minds. Even though this film was less fantastical than the average movie, I greatly enjoyed it because I feel like I was able to get in to the characters’ heads and really understand them through more than just their words, greatly owing to the camera movements and color scheme.
Wong Kar-wai's 1994 Hong Kong drama film "Chungkin Express" is a beautiful collage of memories of two policemen who are dealing with relationship break-ups. What struck me most interesting about this movie was every line sounded like a metaphor, and every sentence possessed multiple meanings. And in a city like Hong Kong, where people can speak in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, English, or Hindu, it's no coincidence that the director decided to play with words and imagery.
Concentrating on the first arc, this story centers around He Qiwu, Cop 223, who is trying to get over his last relationship, and the blonde woman he meets by chance in the bar. The metaphors revolved around pineapples and May. May 1st is his birthday, and his last girlfriend May broke up with him on April 1st, almost one month prior. In addition, in Mandarin, "May" also can sound like the word for "beautiful." From just the woman's name, we have a multilingual play on months, names, and meanings.
The cop's most poetic monologue comes on the night of his birthday, when he comes to the realization that May was not coming back to him. Every day from April 1st to May 1st, the cop purchased a can of pineapples that would expire on May 1st. The cop expected May to return within a month, and so by purchasing pineapples that expired on May 1st, he only wished to preserve the memories of May until then. If she were to come back, new memories could be created, and he would not need to forget her. Though pineapple is May's favorite fruit, not Qiwu, and he manages to finish all 30 cans by himself. During this scene, the film shows him garnishing the pineapples, trying to share them with his dog. This scene was jarring because of the juxtaposition of how calm Qiwu the narrator was, while the Qiwu in the scene was so clearly distraught, eating away the pineapples as the pain of May not returning eats away at him. The scene is dark and in shadows, and finally ends with a shot of the messy pile of empty cans representing the emptiness he feels.
The second poetic speech is given by the woman in the blonde wig that Qiwu meets at the bar on his birthday. As an ice-breaker, he asks her "do you like pineapples?" in four different languages until he finds one she understands. Later in the scene, the woman glances up at the ceiling, and we see triangle fragments, like pineapple slices, of herself and the cop. She thinks to herself, "someone may like pineapples today and something else tomorrow." That statement is applicable to the cop, who liked his ex-girlfriend, the "pineapple", but is currently trying to find a new "fruit" for company. Then, like the image of the ceiling, the present scene becomes fragmented, with bits of what seems to be the woman's old memories jammed in between the current reality of the bar, with little transition. Perhaps the statement now is applicable to the woman's drug baron, who is making love to another woman who looks very similar to the blonde.
Finally, nearing the end of Qiwu's arc, he gets a message on his pager in the morning wishing him a happy birthday. After this, his narration reads "May 1st, 1994, a woman wished me a happy birthday. If memories can be canned, I wonder if they have an expiration date. If so, I hope that they last for 10,000 years." Again, the images of preservation, pineapples, and expiration appears, but this time, it's on a positive note. Instead of waiting for his memories to expire, he wishes to preserve them. Unlike the previous scenes, this scene is brightly lit and is set outdoors. From the smilie on his face and the light in his eyes, we are left with a sense of hope that he will be able to find love once again.
The story itself is very human and relatable to those who have ever been in love, or have even felt a shadow of the emotion. The despair that follows the initial break up, and how little insignificant things like pineapples suddenly have a huge emotional weight attributed to them because of the association is very realistic. People tend to become terrible (or terribly great) poets when our hearts become broken, and I believe that this arc captured that. Eventually though, like this cop, we snap out of the gloom and find hope again. Though there is still emotional baggage, clinging like the dirt on Qiwu's shirt in the last scene, new love may be found again.
This was one of the most beautiful experiences I've ever had with a film. Like most of us, I get bored with some of these films or with the concept of summer school, and today, too, I tried to zone out. I really did. But there was a problem: the film wouldn't let me. I had me phone laid out in front of me for almost the entire movie, prepared to use its light to doodle on a piece of scrap paper. But when I saw the turbulent, impressionistic style of the first few shots, the brilliant depiction of a Hong Kong in transition – a city on the cusp of self-rule, 21st century technology, and increased globalization - and then the portrayal of two convincingly beautiful and unlikely romances, I didn't bother to take the cap off my pen, and my phone stayed off. My experience with handheld photography was mostly limited to the Bourne series, and its obnxious overuse in the "found footage" films like Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project. But this was completely new, different. Its environment was like that of a Tarantino film, a gritty setting and frequent reference to pop culture; and visually, like a Monet painting – a shimmering impressionism concerned more with how things are perceived, and not how they're seen by an objective, static observer. The camera work was close and subjective, but at times also voyeuristic. We'd see a character filmed at a distance, from behind kitchen equipment at a sandwich shop, but later we'd see them from only a distance of a few inches, sharing in their experience. Simply put, I was in a trance from start to finish. I hadn't eaten breakfast, and several times considered leaving to find food. But, once again, the film wouldn't let me. You can count of me watching this one again.
In the beginning of the film, characters were shot from a distance using long shots, creating a sort of distancing effect for the audience. At the same time, it also adds a sense of secrecy to the characters. This adds on to the mystery of the plot and the roles that the characters play. However, during the later part of the film, more close-ups and medium shots were used, which closed the distance between the audience and the film. At the same time, it can also imply that a fruitful ending is drawing closer.
While it appears that two separate love stories were presented, the two stories actually revolve around similar themes; both involve heartbroken men in search of new love. This is quite a fresh take on the party who suffers in a failed relationship; often, it is the girl who is portrayed as the one in pain. Also, women in both stories wear sunglasses, and both their face contours look similar as well. This could be Kar Wai Wong’s attempt to mystify the characters, and let the audience wonder if the two girls are perhaps the same person. However, in the first story involving He Qiwu, the woman does not show her eyes to him at all, which could signify that ‘she [wouldn’t] like him. However, in the second story, the girl shows her eyes to cop663 right from the start. But she is not ready to commit to their relationship, which is why her sunglasses are halfway down; the sunglasses represent the possible seclusion or inclusion of a relationship.
Also noteworthy are the sexual references throughout the film; this is especially so in the second film. For example, when the girl was playing on the bed, her poses appear erotic. Also, the use of the aeroplane appears to symbolise sexual acts, where the girl repeatedly placed it over parts of her body. I suppose Tony Leung Chiu-Wai’s (Cop 663) acting skills also helped add on the sensualised effects in the film; his gaze and expressions are able to convey much more (both emotions and sexual suggestions) then just mere reiteration of the script.
Sunghun Jeon - Chungking Express The movie, Chungking express made by Kar-Wai Wang is a romance movie that especially emphasizes on the lines of each character throughout the movie. Rater than simply a typical movie with happy-ending, the director tried to seperate two kinds of love story with meaningful themes of humen's pure loneliness in metropolitan areas. Interesting point is that the movie is likely to keep annoymous characters with not much of background to each character who essentially falls in love with someone. With these characteristics of the characters, the movie is also emphasaized on the 'reality' of love in our society such as cop663 and Faye. While the cop more likely to live in the reality by still having a feeling of his ex-girlfriend, Faye who is dreaming to enjoy her life without many plans suddenly falls in love with the cop in order to suite her dream in California. Also by repeatedly playing the same music of California as OST, it keep putting the pure dream of Faye when significant scenes are shown such as the scene of cop waits for Faye at Cafe. Moreover, back to the first story of the movie, there is a significant line of the character when asking if she likes pineapple at the bar. As she answers herself as liking something like pineapple can be also changed tomorrow, it suggests a main theme of disturbing feeling of each character on their lives and loves.
This well known film by Wang Kar-Wai has such a strong absorptive power not only by the two stories but also by the splendid camerawork with light spreading and dynamic movement. Moreover, the usage of music in this film is also crucial: California dreamin‘ by mamas & papas narrates Faye’s personality and her dream while the police man 633 talks to his stuff expressing his sense of loss. In comparison with another Wang Kar-Wai film, In The Mood For Love (2000), which ties delicate tension between man and woman behind their real world, Chungking Express shows unvarnished surfaces of the characters’ situations and emotion in the time of cross culture with foreigners, languages and music. To me, the second story was more intense than the first one because it ended with some other potential.
Chungking Express (I know it is way too late, but I want to share some point for partial credit) Many argue that the director Wang Kai-wei, succeeded in depicting metropolitan, globalized streets of Hong Kong. I doubt it a bit in a sense that I think he focused more on the characters, and the theme of Hong Kong Romance. I saw “blurrying,” “Monet-like” scenes, especially when there were fights or gun shooting (fast movements), that made me think that the director is hiding the whole scenery of Hong Kong. I mean many places appeared : fast food restaurant, shoe repair shop, an airport, houses, market, antique shop, a luggage bag shop, etc. But not exactly as to where they are related to each other. If I map them in order, it would be impossible. So I could see the big picture of where actors are heading, almost like an unanswered journey. However on the other hand, the flamboyant colors, structures of places, complicated settings, and absence of “one-color” blend helped to bring out detail of the director’s work. Also, handling two romance stories, I believe the sequences are well cut. About 45 minutes of each, I was able to follow the movie more easily without being disturbed due to a radical change of a plot. The stories are held in the same place at relatively similar times. So why bother another story of romance? What I notice the most interesting about is that the background music. “California Dreaming,” is placed copious times in the movie. I never seen such a movie that has a foreign song played that importantly in Chinese movies. So new approach has certainly proved that the globalizing in Hong Kong is occurring and the movie appraises the coming of globalization. Narration, very close zoom-ins of four main characters motivates concentration as well.
The movie is seperated into two different parts of the story. The two stories does not connect with each other but they both take place in same place, Hong Kong. One deals with Hong Kong during day time and the other during the night time. The movie has a lot of fast cuts and wild camera scenes. I think that the director of the movie whose name is Wong Kar-wai wanted to show how crazy love can be.
The movie title Chungking Express literally translates to Chungking Jungle in Chinese matching the starting scene of the movie. The movie starts with busy city. The breathless sets of colors and camera angles create a mesmerising portrait of Homg Kong in 1990s.
Chungking Express was one movie that turns Noir movies that was reigning Hong Kong Film industry by using around the delicate emotional sound and color. To understand Chunking Express needs few essential point, which are the characters shared spatial and temporal cross of the person. When you watch this movie, there are few points that 4 characters crosses spatial and temporally. For example, when the main character calls his ex-girl friend other guy answers the phone and gets angry. He runs up to the escalator, and crosses with the police watching him running up to the escalator. When you first watch this film, majority of people might think that there are 2 scenarios of this film. However, the director Wong did not make this movie that way. Even though there are 2 big parts in this movie talking about 4 different people’s relationship but he wanted to show that all 4 people share same time and space.
(I know it is too late to post it) Chungking express was directed by Kar-Wai Wang which two love story. First episode was interested because people always changed their feelings of someone or something as when she was questioned by him whether she likes pineapple or not. In first episode, the man tried to wait until May 1 (his birthday) her girlfriend to call him but he eventually didn’t get a call. Later, he ate whole of cans to let his memory. This scene was interesting part to me too. People have their own way to let someone in his or her mind. Eating a can of pineapple is his way of it. In second episode, it has no ending. Audience could image what it will be in the end. This was interesting part that I remembered.
Chungking Express
ReplyDeleteTina Kim
The director likes to use the handheld camera for shooting the protagonist movements in the first story. I believe that the effect was meaningful during the first few shots, but after a while, it just made me dizzy to look at the screen. For any cop and robber movie, both characters are always running. The hand held camera helps create an effect of the protagonist being in a hurry and create a sense or mood that we are watching a cop in action. This was useful since the protagonist was not wearing a police uniform. A scene that I found that was a bit off was where the female drug smuggler kidnapped the child and treated her to ice cream. It was a cute scene but made her character confusing since she was dealing with drugs and was able to kill off many men.
For the second story, Cop 663’s character was portrayed through objects that were placed on screen. His bedroom is surrounded by toy airplanes and stuffed animals. His house was not kept well and he needs someone else to take care of it. The camera captures simply this to reveal his childish character. He is also very slow in noticing changes to his room. This relates to his character in being slow to accept changes such as accepting the letter from both women. Towards the end of the film, I felt that there was no conclusion to both stories.
One thing I found interesting about this film was the camera work. In the very beginning of the film, we see a very hectic and choppy scene in which there is some kind of chase. It seems to be using a handheld camera to capture the scene. I thought that this method of camera shooting helped to portray the chaotic scene that was unfolding. This very choppy handheld camera shooting was also used when the first woman (the drug smuggler) was being chased by the men as she shot them. Again, we get a sense of the chaotic and hectic scene going on in the film.
ReplyDeleteAnother interesting tool the director used was when the second policeman was shown in very slow motion while the other people in the foreground were bustling about. We see this first when he is very slowly drinking his coffee, but in normal time people are just going about their business. I think this contrast is to put focus on Cop 663's feeling of despair since his lady left him, and it has left him very gloomy and solemn, but everyone else around him is carrying on in their lives. The same effect was shown as he sulks by the jukebox in California Restaurant, where he is supposed to meet Faye. Again, he is saddened that she doesn't show up, but other people are living out their lives normally.
-Andrew Park
Chungking Express is a drama film made in 1994 and directed by Wong, Kar-wai. The movie tells two unconnected stories about policemen who both happened to have had recent break ups with the women they were dating. The first thing I notice about the film was the use of what looked like bouncy, slow frame rate with motion blur in the opening and other action sequences, particularly in the first story. Unlike contemporary films, the use of this technique pulls off the feel of slightly confusing mayhem during high adrenaline action or chases in a way that captures a sense of early 90s film editing technology, at least for me. The technique mimics a person’s vision in events such as these and does so effectively. I have never been to the city in Hong Kong, but I liked how Wong was able to contrast day and night scenes. The night life shows darkness, but hardly hides much with the artificial lights, and the day scenes are busy with multiple colors filling the frames.
ReplyDeleteAfter watching the film and not know much about it, I found it confusing and lacking. However, after looking up some more information about it, I think I can understand and appreciate it more. There are still some bits that seem like they stick out to me though, such as having two unconnected stories. The two seem like they would make better films if they were separated and flushed out more especially when the second story felt like it was the main story between the two. Another bit was the drug business sequence that went on too long for me. The sequence was shot well illustrating the atmosphere of the intreque business in cramped spaces, but it gives off the notion that the film is some sort of heist with the fast cuts and camera movement. This appears even more so after seeing the rest of the movie and learning that it is more of a drama. Despite these bits, overall, I found the film entertaining to watch.
One of the most memorable things that stood out to me in the movie was the camera work. Most movies that we watch typically don't have a lot of these rough camera movements. Instead, they tend to be a lot more focused and smooth. I think these rough camera angles help pull the audience into the action scenes (ie. chase scenes) but at the same time, can cause the people watching to become nauseous. The other unique types of camera movement and shots made me feel as if the first part of the movie was filmed in a dreamy, fantasy-like way. Maybe it was the way the camera was moving or the lighting but it seemed that everything was really dreamy and not entirely real, especially during the choppy camera parts when the colored lights in the back blurred by.
ReplyDeleteAnother thing that I found interesting was the mix of different languages. Although the movie was primarily in Cantonese, there were also parts, such as when Qiwu was talking to the girl in the blonde wig. It might have been that way because that female actress is from Taiwan and the Japanese actor who plays Qiwu is more fluent in Mandarin. It was really interesting to me how only that scene was in Mandarin and the rest of the time, these two actors spoke in Cantonese. As a Cantonese speaker, it was a little bit difficult to make out some of the things that Qiwu was saying on the phone when he was calling May's family.
Obviously, the movie, 'Chunking express' is mainly about the love story and after its break up. This movie reminds me a phrase which is, 'Even though some one give a huge grief and made hole in your heart, another love will will cure its pain through filling inside the hole'. Since I also felt the breaking up grief, this movie's after breaking up expression was really touching.
ReplyDeleteThe strong connection between the first man and second man was really impressive. To begin with, they both broked up from their lover and sufering from the old memory they had with their lover. I'm sure that the director also had huge main after break up because the movie showed after breaking up in so detail. The most heartbroken scene was when the second guy talks to his stuffs like they are living. He probably miss the days he had with his girl friend and the objects. But the point is director made this heartbroken scene with nt only sadness, but also humour. I wants to give big praise to this. It moved audience's sympathy and also give laugh. I really liked it.
Ren Curry
ReplyDeleteThe Director Won Kar-wai with Chungking Express definitely wanted us to get a sense of how crazy love can be. Why else would the movie have so many fast cuts and wild camera jolting?
I believe that these two seemingly disconnected stories had a lot in common. They were showing how as you are focused on a lost lover the world around you still goes on and so you must learn to move on too. At least that's what I thought in the first story when the man was standing at the counter and everyone behind him was moving at superman speed.
As these stories came to an end my mind was severely disturbed. I realized that both of the men were police officers and yet they were blinded by these women. The more I type the more I start getting the sense that Kar-wai chose for the female characters to wear sunglasses to show how blinded the males were by the infatuation of being in love. They were both so obsessed with their old lovers that they could not see that these new women who came into their lives were both criminals. Even though the first male was a police officer he didn't know that this woman he was falling in love with just killed a bunch of people. As the law he could not possibly be with her if she was found out. The second male character wanted to be with a woman who broke into his apartment, and rearranged everything!? Seriously, what the hell is wrong with this movie! As a police officer he should have been more observant which I thought it was funny that the second male actually says he has become more observant.
At the beginning of the second tale the woman has her glasses off and at the end she does too. I'm sure there's some sort of meaning to that, but I could just be grabbing at the wind. It's possible that her true self is being shown at the end and that she no longer has any secrets. That they both are no aware of what is going on because the male never knew she was going to his place and she wore glasses then, but once he found out we next see her without the glasses again. Just thought it was interesting.
The movie is separated by 2 stories. These stories have not much connections but purposely divided by two different circumstances, day and night time of Hong Kong. I thought the first story was a lot more depressing than the second story, although the stories contain the same romantic relationships between a police man and a woman. I think it is because of many exposes of chaotic moments that both protagonists encounter. Also, a scene that caught my attention in the first story was that the man and woman protagonists set on the bar looking at the mirror ceiling portrayed their complex feelings.
ReplyDeleteThe director applied hand-held camera scenes in the movie which could be interpreted as two meanings. The director wanted to express the urgent moments of the scene to the audiences, although it could cause the giddy feelings. Another meaning can be interpreted that the director wanted to emerge from stereotyped takes. By shooting takes with hand, it broke the "settled rectangular take." I think when the movie approaches to the irregular methods, it means that the movie takes a step forward to the future innovation.
Jin Ah Kim
ReplyDeleteDirector Wang Kar-wai uses a lot of handheld camera techniques to emphasize reality and actuality in the film “Chungking Express”. Not only that, but he often made the movements of objects or people appear faster or slower. This effect created confusion in the audience at times but this emphasized ‘time and space’ throughout the whole film which is one of the things that was extremely interesting. Wang managed to express ‘time’ in a very unique way using various filming techniques such as using slow motions and fast cuts. These techniques created the same space and time mean different to each characters. For example, the date May 1st is important to both first two characters and the story shows how these two people face that day differently expressing the day as a very long day (for both of them). The other two characters on the other hand are not really “living in reality”; cop 663 cannot forget his ex-girlfriend and obsesses about the past not being able to notice any change in the reality while Faye dreams about her future (California, etc). Wang emphasizes the time when the two characters were in the sandwich shop together by slowing down everything surrounding them without any conversation between the two. This highlighted the space they were in together (the blurry movements of people passing by made it seem like time was slowing down in their “own world” emphasizing the relationship between the two). Interestingly, the connection between the two stories is the sandwich shop which also is portrayed as different spaces for the characters.
Order in "Chungking Express"
ReplyDeleteWhitney Phipps
After watching the film, there was a sense of lacking. What was the objective of the film and each section? Did the main characters actually grow emotionally? And why were the main leads both policemen? There was a thread of commonality of a one-sided love in both stories but that was it. Was there a need for two stories? In fact, after much reflection, it finally dawned on me that the second story was not a continuation of the first, and that the policeman did not grow up; he had been completely changed.
There were a quite a few cues that resulted in the aforementioned assumption. The first being that when the viewer is first introduced to the first policeman, one sees a young and lovelorn man who is borderline- obsessed with his ex-girlfriend, May. As if to emphasize his (the policeman’s) youth, there are action filled scenes where the viewer finds himself in the chase along with the policeman. The motion of the camera creates a dizzying effect and amplifies the feelings of the officer. He is always chasing after love only to have it dodge his grasp repeatedly. This is evident as the viewer sees him as he visits a food store daily and waits for his ex-girlfriend. He is obsessed with keeping the time until he will finally grow and accept that she is gone. Strangely enough, though he tries to let her go, he projects what he wants in a woman unto her. He vows to himself that he will fall in love with the first woman who walks into the bar. His opening line is to ask her if she likes pineapples, his ex-girlfriend’s favorite fruit. The viewer is presented with a man who wants to let go but finds it hard to so. He knows that he needs to change and that “one day, you might just stop liking pineapples”. The woman that he meets in the bar has what can be presumed to be a diamond ring upon her finger but there is no evidence of her being married. At the end of the first story, one sees as she sheds the blonde wig and reveals long, black hair.
In the second story, the policeman is introduced to a new worker at the food stand whose name is Faye. Faye wears what is seemingly a diamond ring but there is no evidence of her being married. At that moment, one wonders if this were a mere coincidence. In the first story, the police officer had concluded that in order to not endure any heartache he would just not date any women by the name of May. Faye obviously rhymes with May. Was this name choice a conscious decision made by the director and/or writer? As the second story progresses, one sees that the second policeman like the first is a victim of routine and does not adapt well to change though he knows that it is necessary. Like the first story, the viewer is informed of the characters’ backstory through narration and flashbacks. Unlike the first story, there are no action scenes. This could lead to the assumption that the first policeman had grown up somewhat. He is also seen frequently in his uniform which could mean that he is no longer wild and has accepted his role in society.
The two stories flow into each other in such a way that causes the viewer to truly contemplate after its completion. The similarities between both and the subtle differences cause one to strictly question it and its importance. Why was it that the younger officer who had marked time so accurately was the restless one and the older officer seemed to be unaware of it? If they were truly two separate stories, why was there a need to have the younger first and the older second?
Elise Huerta
ReplyDeleteImmediately after the cut to the credits I realized that this movie needs to be viewed more than once. There was so much going on both in terms of plot and style that it was difficult to piece together and draw conclusions about, and while I was able to decipher patterns, I couldn't make a conclusion about their significance. Even so, I really admired this film. The personification of inanimate objects was so perfect; even without connecting it to a greater theme/meaning it deserved appreciation simply for its creative value.
One question that I began formulating in the middle of the film was whether or not the plot was real. There were so many parallels between the two stories that it feels almost impossible for them to truly exist in the minds of different people. To me, the film felt like it a story told by one narrator who was dreaming, then was abruptly shaken from sleep and conscious for half a minute, and then fell back into a very similar dream. I’ve actually had this type of experience before when dreaming; sometimes when you fall back asleep your mind is still shuffling through the same images but certain details have changed.
In fact, the shaky handheld camera, freezing/slowing of time and space, strobe light effect, and reoccurrence of mirrored images also create a disorienting, imaginative, and surreal space similar to a dream landscape. While the plot is pretty loaded, in some ways it is secondary to the images and cinematography in the film. While concretely the film is about recovering from lost love, the way the film is made suggests that the details of this plot is less important than the exploration of deeper, human-level questions: Why do assume love lasts forever when nothing else does? Is the individual experience unique, or is there a universal human experience? What is the difference between dream/reality, sanity/insanity? These questions are posed verbally, but their answers are explored artistically. No one comes out and says: “perception of time and space is subjective”; it is made implicit by the filming technique.
After watching Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express, I had some mixed feelings about the movie as a whole. At the beginning, I didn’t like the handheld camera work. The shaky camera with blurs of colors has left me feeling dizzy. Although, I do like how this camera technique helps show how chaotic and hectic the scene was because of the chase between the police and the drug dealers. It helped unfold the scene nicely and we were able to get a good sense of what was happening. Another interesting camera technique was the slowing of the police officer #633’s motions. There were two scenes of this technique: one was when the officer was drinking his coffee and one was when the officer was putting in money to the jukebox. While the officer’s motions were slowed down, people were passing by him in a slightly faster speed. The director probably used this technique to show the officer’s despair in comparison to the rest of the world. During both scenes, the officer was either sad or gloomy because he was either dumped or stood up by a girl. As the officer is sulking, the rest of the world is carrying on as usually. Overall, I’ve enjoyed the movie because the humor, but I didn’t see the underlying point of movie with two different love stories involving two different cops.
ReplyDeleteChungking Express
ReplyDeleteZachary McCoy
You cannot watch this movie and ignore the fact that there are two completely separated stories that take place, not only are they not at the same time, but they seem to split the movie in two, as if you are watching two movies. The only thing that connects to the two together is the restaurant, a featured setting in the film (particularly the last half). At first glance, it's not readily apparent why there are two stories present in a single film, and even after completion of the film and in retrospect, there still is not a clear answer why these two stories were merged into one collection.
All of that aside, with the two stories being directed by the same director and being shot during the same period of the director's life, it's obviously no surprise that many of the same techniques are used during both stories (some techniques more abundant on one side of the film than the other). It's easy to notice the handheld footage as well as the use of blurring, slow motion, and choppiness effects. I'm not sure on how innovative these techniques were for the time this film was produced, but I am sure that these techniques came together to give the film a unique feel and style that I must admit I enjoyed.
As mentioned above, the overall meaning and point of the work is not quickly apparent, however there are many fine details about the movie that can perhaps be noticed in an ironically more often pace. The complexity of the details of this movie are very pleasing (assuming you notice them to begin with). In fact, the complexity of details are woven so deeply in this movie that even the most adept movie critic would likely have to watch this movie more than once to catch most of it. I caught many fine details that were miniscule and extremely creative, which leads to my impression that there are many more details I am completely oblivious to.
In addition to the complexity of the hidden details, another pleasing aspect of the film was the acting and overall feeling/vibes given off from the actors. All of them were, in their own respects, attractive and came across as very artfully skilled in acting. I really feel their acting must be appreciated by all audiences.
The most distinctive aspect of 'Chungking express' is that the movie consists of two different episodes one by one. There are several movies containing few diffenrent stories at the same time such as 'Love actually' but showing two cops' broken-heart and overcoming it through another love in common.
ReplyDeleteEven though this movies has relatively fast development, there are few things makes the audiences immersed in the movie.
The camerawork seems that it follows the characters so that the audience might feel as if they are invloved in the scene.
Also, they can understand the story of the episodes from the aim of the narration. Lastly, the background music such as California dreaming contributes to formulate the atmosphere of each scene.
It is common for people to forget their last love by seeking for another one. Even though two cops shows a different style of overcoming, it is impressive that each of them holds meaning on the object such as can of pineapple or doll.
As times goes, those things become nothing for them just like past is.
Chungking Express was a movie that I thoroughly enjoyed that focused on how relationships are often ephemeral and can lead to much emotional pain. The two male protagonists are policemen who rely on their relationships with women for happiness. This flaw in their personalities inevitably leads to their periods of sorrow.
ReplyDeleteOfficer 633 is lonely and heartbroken after his relationship with an air hostess ends. When he learns about a letter from her, he immediately knows what has happened because he suspected that the time had come for them to part ways. At first he is in denial about their break-up and would "sense" her when she wasn't there. While preoccupied with his sorrow, he took up talking to inanimate objects in order to fight the loneliness. He projects his sadness to the objects and gives them their own personalities. They seem alive to him because when Faye starts taking care of his apartment and switching his inanimate "friends" with new versions, he doesn't suspect an intruder, but merely a change within the objects' personalities themselves. His bar of soap is depressed and has stopped eating. It becomes very thin and he advises it that he shouldn't let the pain effect it so badly. After Faye replaces the bar with a new one, he talks to it as if it is the same character and tells it that overeating will not solve its problems. His hand towel was tattered and ripped, and was no longer absorbent. It's dripping was synonymous with crying, yet after it was replaced with a fresh towel, he doesn't acknowledge that it is a new towel. He only acknowledges that it still cries. His sorrow and loneliness blinded him from realizing that there was a new woman who is in love with him.
The film Chunking Express by Wong Kar-wai is composed by two portions. Two different story talks about two different stories in same space of two cops. It was interesting to connect two stories smoothly with the scene that first character of cop passed by woman character of second story. The director uses lot of camera skill to express the scene more animate. Firstly, he uses lot of spying shot that follow after the character with long take. Another skill I notice is that moving camera action so fast. However, it makes me kind of dizziness because of its out focusing but it certainly express animated scene.
ReplyDeleteMost memorable thing after I watched this movie is the music, especially “California dreaming”. The director of this film definitely uses sound well. The scene where cop’s 663 standing left side of flame and girl standing right side of flame and suddenly the background music was muted and the scene continues for 5~6 seconds was very impressive. Interestingly, the director uses narration in order to help understanding certain action what he or she did. Some action was exoteric but the narration help what it means.
The movie is composed of two stories. The similarities in the two stories are that a policeman loses his love finds other love and cured. It was just simply romance movie but what made this movie so great were the way how two policemen overcoming their conflict. The first policeman, 223, buys pineapple can that expires on his birthday, and jog to not cry. The characteristic of 223 was so pure that he almost seemed silly. However, what cured his broken-heart was his silly behavior which to fell in love with the first girl he sees; 223 smiled when he received a call from the blond girl saying happy birthday. In the second story a policeman, called 633 loses his love and living a hallow life. He talks with things in his house to gain relief from the emptiness but what gets rid of the emptiness was starting new love with Faye. What really caught my attention is director showed how great cop 633’s hollowness by him not realizing something is going on in his house when Faye comes into his house and practically changes all.
ReplyDeleteI guess the first story focused on relationship between two people and the second one on love. The first one is just relationship because even though he promised to love the next girl he sees love cannot just pop up because he decided to. I believe what the director wants us to see is a small kindness can cure even people who are totally different from you: The policeman and the woman had nothing in common; job, food, personality, gender, etc. Different does not mean there cannot be any relationship.
Made up of two different stories that are weaved together by a transition scene and the common theme of getting in and out of love, Chungking Express is one of the rare films with an incomplete and disjointed plot. However, it is interesting to read the theme of the film together with its style. Set in the backdrop of Hong Kong’s modern world with its convenience stores, fast food restaurants, shopping malls and nightclubs, the filmmaker expresses the fast pace of life via quick and sudden camera movements. Especially at the start, following the handheld camera made my head spin and I felt chaotic and confused. These choppy camera movements are motivated both by what the characters see and by their own movements. In addition, overcranking and undercranking are often used to create a slow motion subject with a fast motion and blurred environment, with the former sometimes in the foreground and sometimes in the background. This emphasizes the loneliness and emptiness of the protagonists – Despite the fact that there are many people surrounding them, everyone else is too busy trying to catch up with the speed of the city and thus has no time to be concerned about others. To reveal the sad truth about city dwellers, i.e. how the wellbeing of the material aspect often comes at the expense of that of the psychological, we observe how people like Cop 663 from the second story resort to chatting with items like the soap and towel, and this is supported with frequent tilted camera angles which seem to suggest distorted personalities.
ReplyDeleteTwo other points that I want to mention are languages and numbers. It is striking how multilingual Chungking Express is, with the use of Mandarin, Cantonese, English, Japanese and Tamil. This is especially the case when we observe how Qiwu from the first story makes calls to girls as well as approach the woman in blonde wig using the former four languages. The use of different languages, accompanied by the changing lights and colors, as well as the incorporation of pop culture with the image of the woman in blonde wig and dark glasses and the frequent play of “California Dreamin” by the Mamas and the Papas, fully demonstrates how Hong Kong is a cosmopolitan and vibrant city on the surface. Yet, with the use of numbers, we uncover the cold and icy hearts on the inside. By knowing the protagonists by numbers like 223 and 663, we understand how names are not important in this society. There is no personal touch, and only cold hard numbers that are associated with growth and wealth matter. It is therefore no wonder why people like Fayne use loud music to block out the outside world and hide in her small personal space.
And of course, there is no doubt that this film is pretty much commercialized with the starring of gorgeous Takeshi Kaneshiro and Tony Leung~
Hui Wen, Tea
In the first part of the movie “Chungking Express”, the handheld camera was used a lot. It made it seem like that area of Hong Kong was very chaotic and busy. This was mostly true when there were chase scenes, it made Tsim Sha Tsui seem like a place where people could easily get lost in. It also made the city seem both busy and overwhelming. The director wanted to portray how diverse Hong Kong is through the interaction of people from different cultures. Language also played an important role to portray this interaction because Japanese, Mandarin, Cantonese, Hindi, and English were used throughout the movie. When watching this film, I noticed that out of the main characters, Cop 663 was the only one that was absolutely fluent in Cantonese. This also shows the diversity of Kong Hong when other people are moving to this vibrant city, learning the local language, and trying to get by.
ReplyDeleteIn this busy city, the characters could only relax and take their minds off of their personal issues when they are by the snack bar. Before 1998, the cops in Hong Kong have been known to be corrupt. This can be seen by how the director portrays the two cops who are too busy getting over their love lives instead of having lots of scenes where they actually catch criminals. I’ve actually watched this movie when I was younger and remembered the scenes where Cop 663 talks to all the inanimate objects in his house. Back then I found it very funny and I still do today. It’s almost like he cannot comfort himself or face reality, so he doesn’t want any change in his life. When his bar of soap was almost used up, he complained and when he had a new bar of soap, he also complained. Acceptance of reality takes time and people shouldn’t forget that.
Callie Disney
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed the film Chungking Express. The camera work and inclusion of two different story lines is what makes this film so unique. The dynamic camera movements, cuts, and angles were interesting and a technique I have not seen before. I especially enjoyed the mixture of using a handheld camera with the still cameras throughout the movie because it added intensity and playfulness to the scenes in the film. I think the different camera work also reflects upon one of the messages of the film about learning to look at life or situations with a different perspective. I also liked that the two different story lines shared common themes and meanings about life, love (and how crazy it can make some people), moving forward, learning to look at life differently, breaking the routine, and the unexpected situations or people life gives you. It was also nice that the film included the perspective and thoughts of each of the four main characters, not solely from one male or female’s perspective in each relationship, which seems to be the case in most romance films. This allowed us to understand the characters better and sympathize with them. I think it’s the most uniquely filmed movie we have watched in class.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThe movie separates into two stories, But they (two stories) both share some commons. The guys both are police, and the sunglasses are used as an accessory for both women. Also, both guys have met his "new woman" while the guys are going through the break-up with their previous girlfriends, (which both guys are dumped by their girlfriends), and both guys will be changed by these two women. So there is a link between these two separate stories.
ReplyDeleteThe first story talk about things with time frame. #223 says that he does not realize all the things would come with a expired date. He is reluctant to change himself, but he gives himself a time frame; that is, a collection of 30 cans of preserved pineapple. To the lady, who #223 has met at the bar, she also has a time frame; that is, to find those Indians before the can food is expired. However, the second story talks about things with no time frame. Like #223, #663 is going through a relationship break-up, too. #663 is also being reluctant to change; however, he does not give himself a time frame for his relationship - maybe he thinks that he will change in someday, who knows. The first story emphasize that things will start to change once they reach their "expiration date". The second story emphasize that maybe people do not need to set a time frame, things will starting changing around people, which will cause people to be changed without acknowledging. Different time frames show the differences between these two stories.
Actually, it is better to say that #223 is changed by himself, and #663 's change is helped by Fei. As i have mentioned before, #223 is setting a time frame for his relationship. Once he reaches his goal, he needs to move forward. The lady he has met at the bar, change his point of view. Instead of looking forward to have future with his ex-girlfriends( because he has said that he just realized all the things would have a expiration date, which he has thought that his relationship with his ex-girlfriend will last forever), he starts cherishing his memory with this random lady, and if time frame is necessary, he wishes it can last for 10 thousands year. However, #663 does not have time frame for his relationship; he is also reluctant to change, because he always say "will see" and "take my time", "it is what it is" is the best thing to describes he status now. But, he is changing, without knowing it, because Fei is changing his surrounding secretly, which cause him to change,too. Actually he knows it, things are changing in his life, and he just go with it, maybe he thinks that since things start changing in his life, it is time for him to change, too. #633 may not able to change without Fei’s help. I thinks fei changes #633's behavior on purpose. The first time i watched this movie, i did not really get the conversation between fei and her cousin about changing a new place to pay the electricity bill. And this time i watch in class, i have different thought about this conversation. By saying the electricity company is too busy, too many people, i think she is referred to #633 ’s heart which now is occupied by another woman, and he is too busy to deal with fei. But fei is not giving up, because she says she can come to pay the bill next time. Suddenly, a word from her cousin gives her an idea to change #633's behaviors. Her cousin says if this electricity company is too busy, then u can change another one. Of course, fei is not going to stop liking #633 and to try with another guy. She sees this hint as changing #633's surrounding and #633. Maybe one day this "company" will be empty, and it is available to take her electric bill. And at the end, #633 is totally transformed under Fei’s help.
This movie, in my opinion, wants to tell people that change is necessary for love, change can be internal and external. And time frame of love is really depended on different people, instead of giving a time frame for something is unknown in the future, giving a time frame for memory perhaps would be better.
DeleteGrace Chang
ReplyDeleteChungking Express features two similar but different love stories of police officers in the same urban space of Hong Kong. The only similarity between our two male protagonists is that they go to the same restaurant quite often and have private conversation with the owner especially about their relationships, but they never get to meet with each other. However, they share common ground when it comes to their characteristics; they are heart-broken due to their previous relationship, and each of them has obsession in certain elements of their lives. For instance, the first policeman, He Qiwu, is obsessed with number and “time”. Whenever he describes certain events that occur regarding his love relationships, he starts out with counting number. When he first encounters with the blond-haired woman, he says that the distance between him and her is 0.01cm, but he will eventually fall in love with her after 57 hours from now. He remembers his birthday and even the time of his birth, which is May 1st, 6:00AM and constantly reminds himself that he will turn into 25 later on. He engraves April Fool’s day into his mind as it was the day when he broke up with May and searches for canned pineapples that expire on May 1st. He Qiwu wishes that the memory between him and May would never expire, but he has to face the end of the relationship after realizing that May would not come back to him again. Our second male protagonist, cop 663, is obsessed with “space”, yet he does not know how to take care of it until he falls in love with Faye. He talks to his belongings including teddy bear, soap, and a dirty towel. Unlike cop 663, cop 223 gobbled pineapple cans and four different chef’s salads at the hotel as a result of an attempt to comfort himself and to get rid of the feeling of loneliness. It is similar to us as we crave for sweets and ice-cream when we feel blue. Cop 663 shows how he is lonely through talking by himself at his apartment where he still kept his ex-girlfriend’s properties, hoping that she will return back to him one day. However, he never shows a great interest in his properties, making him not to realize the importance in the value of each one of them. After Faye interferes with his life, he begins to notice differences that were made by Faye in his room. Overall, the movie’s sequences were divided evenly, making it convenient for the audiences to watch the movie. The usage of hand-held camera invites the audiences into the screen and makes us feel as if we are with the protagonists, and this method was especially used when the blond-haired woman was storming in and around the city district in search of the Indians. Also, the narration supported the explanations of protagonists’ action, and the music created a huge impact in controlling audiences’ emotion and the flow of the movie itself. ‘California dreaming’ represents Faye’s ideal happiness and utopia. They stop the music when they have conversation about cop 663’s ex-girlfriend, giving us the sense of reality.
The chungking express’s director Wong Kar-Wai quickly established himself among art house cinema circles worldwide as a new voice in Asian film with this unconventional set of tales about modern love in Hong Kong. Before then, he and other Hong Kong directors had stuck mostly with 'kung fu' flicks, using the formulas popularized by Bruce Lee with young audiences worldwide. 'Chungking Express' took a new direction, sweeping the 1995 Hong Kong Film Academy awards and gaining attention at other festivals in Europe and the USA.
ReplyDeleteI think Chung King Express had great scope. The initial feel of the film was one of a love struck Romeo. Soon, I realized that the film was much more. The film had two guiding plots: the cop who had just lost love and the cop who would soon find it. A yin/yang love story put together masterfully. The plots flowed together one right after the other and if I weren't paying attention, I missed the transition. The strongest part of the film was the character interaction. The actors of the film were sincere and realistic. I believed in the characters and I believed in their emotions and conflicts. The second strongest was Wong's cinematography. Each shot had purpose and pushed the feel of the film. The contrast of every shot was beautiful. In addition, I loved all the sound tracks of this movie. Especially, I really enjoyed “what a difference a day makes”. The song gave dreamy atmosphere in the movie.
Chungking Express, directed by Wong Kar-wai, is a film about two cops and their romantic ties. This is a very unique film to me because it is split into two different stories with a common theme. I wasn't exactly the biggest fan of this movie and that is partly due to my lack of understanding the plot. However, there were certain elements that I enjoyed about this film and the theme was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteThrough this film, I learned that a person comes into contact with many people throughout a day. However, there isn't a sense of communication and we simply walk pass them without thinking about their personal story. Chungking Express shows that two different stories can always have a certain commonality. This commonality in Chungking Express are the stages of a relationship. This crisscrossing of a certain theme and construction of a relationship creates a very unique experience while watching Chungking Express.
Tyler McBride
Chungking Express is an ensemble film that is torn into two stories, exploring he concept of love, through two different perspectives of protagonists. In fact, both stories don’t consist a standardized narrative outline. Both carry distinct qualities and are slow-paced in general, which makes the film interesting and coherent. The visuals in the first half of Chungking Express emphasize a great sense of disorientation and confusion in the populated city of Hong Kong. The busy setting is shown, with the surrounds of illegal immigrants and exclusive activities, such as drug trafficking. Wong Kar-Wai, the director of this film had utilized unique camera effects and handling jobs in order to tie the broader theme of love and its effect on characters’ lives and actions. In the opening scene, the camera moves through various locations and tends to show the visuals of surroundings with constant movement. This creates a sense of viewer’s presence within the space of the film. Kar-Wai seems to intentionally create spaces that are often cramped and crowded, in order to build the emotional energy within the characters. For an example, in one of the scenes, the camera closely follows the blond-woman, as she is walking along the tight hallway. The camera tends to naturally create movements that actually feel as if someone is following the character. When the woman stops and turns around, the camera also stops as well. The camera seems to act as a person, adding the realistic senses.
ReplyDeleteIn "Chungking Express", I feel that the two seemingly unrelated stories are talking about the same story, which is about metropolitan life, about loneliness, about disturbance hidden inside people, and about relationship between human beings. The director, Kar Wai Wong, managed to express these abstract feelings through a loosely organized story in his distinctive film-making style.
ReplyDeleteFirst, Kar Wai Wong demonstrated highly creative film-making techniques in Chungking Express. In many shots, handheld camera was used to highlight the mood of fast-pace and disturbance. In addition, blurring of image further strengthened disturbance, which resides both inside of people and outside in the environment. Interestingly, in several scenes such as Cop 223 making phone calls, the camera was leaning, almost 45 degrees, in order to convey the emptyness and disturbance inside the character. In contrast, music and cuts were used extensively when depicting how Faye makes changes to Cop 633's apartment. These cuts not only helped the story-telling through indicating time flow but also created the mood of happiness and innocence together with music. In "Chungking Express", metropolitan life is colorful, chaotic, and lonely. I could get this feeling easily because of the various film techniques adopted by the director.
Another interesting I found interesting is the characters in the film. The film did not talk much about the background or experience of these characters. The relationship among the four characters seems to be random and loose. Cop 223 met Faye for only one second. Faye suddenly fell in love with Cop 633 at the store, not to mention that the woman who stayed with Cop 223 remained anonymous. However, the loose and random relationship can be exactly what the director wants to express: the distance between people in metropolitan life. Just among these four random characters, we see how Cop 223 and the woman heal each other and how Faye and Cop 633 evolve their loveline. Maybe this is just the way of metropolitan life, nothing to be judged. I noticed that the woman who stayed with Cop 223 wore raincoat and sunglasses at the same time. This seems to be an abstraction of people's inner disturbance. They are so nervous and fragile towards the uncertainty in life.
Finally, I want to make some comments on the lines in this film. I heard about Kar Wai Wong makes film without fixed script, and maybe this explains the innovative way in which lines are organized in "Chungking Express." Monologue was used frequently in this film in order to convey the loneliness of human beings. They have too much inner feelings which could only share with themselves. Cop 633 kept talking to things like towel and soap as if they are alive. This seems to be exaggerated, but it further expresses loneliness and emptyness. The other thing I noticed in the lines is the exact demonstration of time, such as "after 6 hours" and "6:00 am in the morning." This accuracy was later contradicted in the film by the dissynchronized time flow, where people are moving fast in the background while Cop 633 is sitting still and moving slowly. The director might want to express the contradiction of time in metropolitan life: On one hand, the fast life pace forces people to calculate time accurately. On the other hand, people can be so insensitive that they are not observant of fast changes around them.
I enjoyed watching "Chungking Express" a lot because of its artistic film-making and witty lines. Moreover, "Chungking Express" provided me a chance to pay more attention to the symbolic meaning rather than the plots in the film.
Shangqing Li
Jae won Lee
ReplyDeleteWhen I always think about wong kar-wi's film I feel emotionally touched deeply inside mg heart. The movie always reminds me about the times of the memorable days that I was alone and felt solitude after deep love. The story of two cops make a contrast of a mature love and also a immature side of love that everyone should feel once in a life time. The color and the mood of dark red light mis-en-scene and the vintage feeling of the film makes the audience feel the mysterious emotion and nostalgia of some memory according to our own youth and love time. The music also creates the favorable mood for me, besides California dreaming rest of the songs are all good too. Critics says that 2046 is the best romance movie of wong kar-wi but I think chungking express is the one the best film of him.
Amanda Kim
ReplyDeleteChunking Express, unlike many of the other movies we’ve seen in class, seems the most down-to-earth and realistic. As I was watching it, I felt like I was looking through someone’s memories. I believe the camerawork was purposely done to create this realistic feeling; the handheld motivated camera movement and the washed out color scheme all contribute to this sense of a stark reality. Even though this film told the story of two different relationships, each relationship was presented in a similar fashion in that both male protagonists were preoccupied by one or two aspects of their now-over relationships.
Through the telling of stories, the director relied heavily on certain recurring motifs, such as the foods each character was associated with – pineapples and coffee – as well as a recurring song, California Dreaming. The director does a good job of signaling each of the characters with these items; as soon as coffee, pineapples, or California Dreaming comes on the screen, we as the audience automatically know who the scene’s about. We are also able to sense the mood of the scene through the lighting, as well as the angle of the frame. Throughout the course of the film, you see many colors used as overtones, which are telling of the character’s feelings at that moment. Oblique angles are also used to show the imbalance of the character’s current state of mind. It shows the chaos that goes on in the environment around them, as well as the chaos that goes on in their minds. Even though this film was less fantastical than the average movie, I greatly enjoyed it because I feel like I was able to get in to the characters’ heads and really understand them through more than just their words, greatly owing to the camera movements and color scheme.
Christina Ho
ReplyDeleteWong Kar-wai's 1994 Hong Kong drama film "Chungkin Express" is a beautiful collage of memories of two policemen who are dealing with relationship break-ups. What struck me most interesting about this movie was every line sounded like a metaphor, and every sentence possessed multiple meanings. And in a city like Hong Kong, where people can speak in Mandarin, Cantonese, Japanese, English, or Hindu, it's no coincidence that the director decided to play with words and imagery.
Concentrating on the first arc, this story centers around He Qiwu, Cop 223, who is trying to get over his last relationship, and the blonde woman he meets by chance in the bar. The metaphors revolved around pineapples and May. May 1st is his birthday, and his last girlfriend May broke up with him on April 1st, almost one month prior. In addition, in Mandarin, "May" also can sound like the word for "beautiful." From just the woman's name, we have a multilingual play on months, names, and meanings.
The cop's most poetic monologue comes on the night of his birthday, when he comes to the realization that May was not coming back to him. Every day from April 1st to May 1st, the cop purchased a can of pineapples that would expire on May 1st. The cop expected May to return within a month, and so by purchasing pineapples that expired on May 1st, he only wished to preserve the memories of May until then. If she were to come back, new memories could be created, and he would not need to forget her. Though pineapple is May's favorite fruit, not Qiwu, and he manages to finish all 30 cans by himself. During this scene, the film shows him garnishing the pineapples, trying to share them with his dog. This scene was jarring because of the juxtaposition of how calm Qiwu the narrator was, while the Qiwu in the scene was so clearly distraught, eating away the pineapples as the pain of May not returning eats away at him. The scene is dark and in shadows, and finally ends with a shot of the messy pile of empty cans representing the emptiness he feels.
The second poetic speech is given by the woman in the blonde wig that Qiwu meets at the bar on his birthday. As an ice-breaker, he asks her "do you like pineapples?" in four different languages until he finds one she understands. Later in the scene, the woman glances up at the ceiling, and we see triangle fragments, like pineapple slices, of herself and the cop. She thinks to herself, "someone may like pineapples today and something else tomorrow." That statement is applicable to the cop, who liked his ex-girlfriend, the "pineapple", but is currently trying to find a new "fruit" for company. Then, like the image of the ceiling, the present scene becomes fragmented, with bits of what seems to be the woman's old memories jammed in between the current reality of the bar, with little transition. Perhaps the statement now is applicable to the woman's drug baron, who is making love to another woman who looks very similar to the blonde.
Finally, nearing the end of Qiwu's arc, he gets a message on his pager in the morning wishing him a happy birthday. After this, his narration reads "May 1st, 1994, a woman wished me a happy birthday. If memories can be canned, I wonder if they have an expiration date. If so, I hope that they last for 10,000 years." Again, the images of preservation, pineapples, and expiration appears, but this time, it's on a positive note. Instead of waiting for his memories to expire, he wishes to preserve them. Unlike the previous scenes, this scene is brightly lit and is set outdoors. From the smilie on his face and the light in his eyes, we are left with a sense of hope that he will be able to find love once again.
Christina Ho
DeleteThe story itself is very human and relatable to those who have ever been in love, or have even felt a shadow of the emotion. The despair that follows the initial break up, and how little insignificant things like pineapples suddenly have a huge emotional weight attributed to them because of the association is very realistic. People tend to become terrible (or terribly great) poets when our hearts become broken, and I believe that this arc captured that. Eventually though, like this cop, we snap out of the gloom and find hope again. Though there is still emotional baggage, clinging like the dirt on Qiwu's shirt in the last scene, new love may be found again.
This was one of the most beautiful experiences I've ever had with a film. Like most of us, I get bored with some of these films or with the concept of summer school, and today, too, I tried to zone out. I really did. But there was a problem: the film wouldn't let me. I had me phone laid out in front of me for almost the entire movie, prepared to use its light to doodle on a piece of scrap paper. But when I saw the turbulent, impressionistic style of the first few shots, the brilliant depiction of a Hong Kong in transition – a city on the cusp of self-rule, 21st century technology, and increased globalization - and then the portrayal of two convincingly beautiful and unlikely romances, I didn't bother to take the cap off my pen, and my phone stayed off. My experience with handheld photography was mostly limited to the Bourne series, and its obnxious overuse in the "found footage" films like Cloverfield and The Blair Witch Project. But this was completely new, different. Its environment was like that of a Tarantino film, a gritty setting and frequent reference to pop culture; and visually, like a Monet painting – a shimmering impressionism concerned more with how things are perceived, and not how they're seen by an objective, static observer. The camera work was close and subjective, but at times also voyeuristic. We'd see a character filmed at a distance, from behind kitchen equipment at a sandwich shop, but later we'd see them from only a distance of a few inches, sharing in their experience. Simply put, I was in a trance from start to finish. I hadn't eaten breakfast, and several times considered leaving to find food. But, once again, the film wouldn't let me. You can count of me watching this one again.
ReplyDeleteNg Hui Shin
ReplyDeleteIn the beginning of the film, characters were shot from a distance using long shots, creating a sort of distancing effect for the audience. At the same time, it also adds a sense of secrecy to the characters. This adds on to the mystery of the plot and the roles that the characters play. However, during the later part of the film, more close-ups and medium shots were used, which closed the distance between the audience and the film. At the same time, it can also imply that a fruitful ending is drawing closer.
While it appears that two separate love stories were presented, the two stories actually revolve around similar themes; both involve heartbroken men in search of new love. This is quite a fresh take on the party who suffers in a failed relationship; often, it is the girl who is portrayed as the one in pain. Also, women in both stories wear sunglasses, and both their face contours look similar as well. This could be Kar Wai Wong’s attempt to mystify the characters, and let the audience wonder if the two girls are perhaps the same person. However, in the first story involving He Qiwu, the woman does not show her eyes to him at all, which could signify that ‘she [wouldn’t] like him. However, in the second story, the girl shows her eyes to cop663 right from the start. But she is not ready to commit to their relationship, which is why her sunglasses are halfway down; the sunglasses represent the possible seclusion or inclusion of a relationship.
Also noteworthy are the sexual references throughout the film; this is especially so in the second film. For example, when the girl was playing on the bed, her poses appear erotic. Also, the use of the aeroplane appears to symbolise sexual acts, where the girl repeatedly placed it over parts of her body. I suppose Tony Leung Chiu-Wai’s (Cop 663) acting skills also helped add on the sensualised effects in the film; his gaze and expressions are able to convey much more (both emotions and sexual suggestions) then just mere reiteration of the script.
Sunghun Jeon - Chungking Express
ReplyDeleteThe movie, Chungking express made by Kar-Wai Wang is a romance movie that especially emphasizes on the lines of each character throughout the movie. Rater than simply a typical movie with happy-ending, the director tried to seperate two kinds of love story with meaningful themes of humen's pure loneliness in metropolitan areas. Interesting point is that the movie is likely to keep annoymous characters with not much of background to each character who essentially falls in love with someone. With these characteristics of the characters, the movie is also emphasaized on the 'reality' of love in our society such as cop663 and Faye. While the cop more likely to live in the reality by still having a feeling of his ex-girlfriend, Faye who is dreaming to enjoy her life without many plans suddenly falls in love with the cop in order to suite her dream in California. Also by repeatedly playing the same music of California as OST, it keep putting the pure dream of Faye when significant scenes are shown such as the scene of cop waits for Faye at Cafe. Moreover, back to the first story of the movie, there is a significant line of the character when asking if she likes pineapple at the bar. As she answers herself as liking something like pineapple can be also changed tomorrow, it suggests a main theme of disturbing feeling of each character on their lives and loves.
JiEun Lee
ReplyDeleteChungking Express
This well known film by Wang Kar-Wai has such a strong absorptive power not only by the two stories but also by the splendid camerawork with light spreading and dynamic movement. Moreover, the usage of music in this film is also crucial: California dreamin‘ by mamas & papas narrates Faye’s personality and her dream while the police man 633 talks to his stuff expressing his sense of loss.
In comparison with another Wang Kar-Wai film, In The Mood For Love (2000), which ties delicate tension between man and woman behind their real world, Chungking Express shows unvarnished surfaces of the characters’ situations and emotion in the time of cross culture with foreigners, languages and music. To me, the second story was more intense than the first one because it ended with some other potential.
Chungking Express
ReplyDelete(I know it is way too late, but I want to share some point for partial credit)
Many argue that the director Wang Kai-wei, succeeded in depicting metropolitan, globalized streets of Hong Kong. I doubt it a bit in a sense that I think he focused more on the characters, and the theme of Hong Kong Romance. I saw “blurrying,” “Monet-like” scenes, especially when there were fights or gun shooting (fast movements), that made me think that the director is hiding the whole scenery of Hong Kong. I mean many places appeared : fast food restaurant, shoe repair shop, an airport, houses, market, antique shop, a luggage bag shop, etc. But not exactly as to where they are related to each other. If I map them in order, it would be impossible. So I could see the big picture of where actors are heading, almost like an unanswered journey. However on the other hand, the flamboyant colors, structures of places, complicated settings, and absence of “one-color” blend helped to bring out detail of the director’s work.
Also, handling two romance stories, I believe the sequences are well cut. About 45 minutes of each, I was able to follow the movie more easily without being disturbed due to a radical change of a plot. The stories are held in the same place at relatively similar times. So why bother another story of romance?
What I notice the most interesting about is that the background music. “California Dreaming,” is placed copious times in the movie. I never seen such a movie that has a foreign song played that importantly in Chinese movies. So new approach has certainly proved that the globalizing in Hong Kong is occurring and the movie appraises the coming of globalization.
Narration, very close zoom-ins of four main characters motivates concentration as well.
The movie is seperated into two different parts of the story. The two stories does not connect with each other but they both take place in same place, Hong Kong. One deals with Hong Kong during day time and the other during the night time. The movie has a lot of fast cuts and wild camera scenes. I think that the director of the movie whose name is Wong Kar-wai wanted to show how crazy love can be.
ReplyDeleteThe movie title Chungking Express literally translates to Chungking Jungle in Chinese matching the starting scene of the movie. The movie starts with busy city. The breathless sets of colors and camera angles create a mesmerising portrait of Homg Kong in 1990s.
Chungking Express was one movie that turns Noir movies that was reigning Hong Kong Film industry by using around the delicate emotional sound and color. To understand Chunking Express needs few essential point, which are the characters shared spatial and temporal cross of the person.
ReplyDeleteWhen you watch this movie, there are few points that 4 characters crosses spatial and temporally. For example, when the main character calls his ex-girl friend other guy answers the phone and gets angry. He runs up to the escalator, and crosses with the police watching him running up to the escalator.
When you first watch this film, majority of people might think that there are 2 scenarios of this film. However, the director Wong did not make this movie that way. Even though there are 2 big parts in this movie talking about 4 different people’s relationship but he wanted to show that all 4 people share same time and space.
(I know it is too late to post it)
ReplyDeleteChungking express was directed by Kar-Wai Wang which two love story. First episode was interested because people always changed their feelings of someone or something as when she was questioned by him whether she likes pineapple or not. In first episode, the man tried to wait until May 1 (his birthday) her girlfriend to call him but he eventually didn’t get a call. Later, he ate whole of cans to let his memory. This scene was interesting part to me too. People have their own way to let someone in his or her mind. Eating a can of pineapple is his way of it. In second episode, it has no ending. Audience could image what it will be in the end. This was interesting part that I remembered.