The second story is very loose in pacing, but also extremely precise. There’s even a clock involved the dates of the present action matter to the story and characters. The first story takes place over two and a half days.
It’s jarring when director Wong changes the pace for the third act. That style-infused with bubbly-just further spotlights the film on Faye Wong. While Express is a film about quiet, sometimes private moments between people, Wong uses the enormity of the city-artificially muffled, but still sharp-as the stage for those moments. He never breaks from the film’s sharp visual focus. Director Wong always keeps this really light mood to Faye Wong hanging out in Leung’s apartment and messing with his stuff. Comically and lovably, but definitely stalking. Director Wong went through the first part so we could see Faye Wong’s story, which almost entirely without narration as she starts stalking Leung. She starts as a foil then becomes the protagonist. Director and writer Wong gives them this third act story with the narrative distance changing to transition things along. But instead it’s a deliberate drama with Lin and Kaneshiro sometimes meeting in their orbits and how it affects them.īack to Faye Wong and Tony Leung. Chungking Express is an exemplar of how narrative distance and style can work together while going at very different speeds.
Wong has some of the same styles-the slow motion action sequences all work the same-but there’s some other visual distinction. There’s this fantastic contrast between their two stories. Meanwhile, Lin’s sometimes mercurially merciless. He’s a complete sad sack and comically naive in his narration. He has this great subplot about expired pineapple. Even though she never goes to the restaurant so has no crossover with kindly owner Chen Jinquan.Ĭhen gives romantic advice to Kaneshiro, who spends most of his time in the film at the restaurant waiting for his ex-girlfriend to call him. She doesn’t get much narration and even though Kaneshiro gets a bunch, he becomes secondary. When Lin does get the narration and makes a revealing statement or two, they send these shockwaves through the rest of the first story. You get to know her from her actions and behavior, not narration like Kaneshiro. She’s been a complete mystery-sort of unsympathetic but funny as she bosses her mules around, but still sympathetic because Baker’s clearly got some weird thing going on with her, which she might not even know about. And her narration is the best in the film. Because even though Kaneshiro is the narrator at the beginning, eventually Lin gets some. Director Wong really did just do a warm-up. And where Kaneshiro also gets his coffee.
Wong works at the counter-only restaurant where Leung gets his coffee. Leung is a different cop, a little older, and in uniform. The second part is Faye Wong and Tony Chiu-Wai Leung. Until it turns out Lin and Kaneshiro’s violent, melancholy romance is just a warm-up. So presumably Express is going to be that story. Kaneshiro, narrating, explains he’s just come so close to Lin without meeting her and in two days, he’ll be in love with her. Director Wong opens the film with stylized slow motion action Kaneshiro running through the crowded Hong Kong streets after a suspect or something, almost bumping into Lin (who’s in a blonde wig, raincoat, and sunglasses-at night-all movie). If Lin can’t find them, her creep boss (Thom Baker) will have her killed. Simultaneously, sort of middle person drug trafficker Brigitte Lin loses her latest batch of mules (once they’re loaded up with the coke in luggage and person and at the airport, they run off when she’s buying the tickets). First part is lonely young plainclothes cop Kaneshiro Takeshi counting down the days to his birthday, which is also thirty days since his girlfriend of five years dumped him.
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