Part of the magic of “Chungking Express” is that you may not process just how mundane its setting is until long after the credits have rolled. Shot in Hong Kong’s sprawling, labyrinthine Chungking Mansions with a shoestring budget and a faint sketch of a script, the action largely takes place in a cluttered snack bar, cramped apartments, and the endless hallways of shopping centers.
There is little in the way of traditional glamor to be found in the film, and yet, through director Wong Kar Wai’s vision, all these locales become spaces of boundless romance, longing and possibility. Screening at Woodmere Art Museum on Tuesday, Nov. 19 at 7 p.m., as part of the Tuesday Nights at the Movies series, “Chungking Express” defies easy categorization, but leaves an indelible mark on its viewers. Part genre pastiche and part effervescent character study, “Chungking Express” is an intimate portrait of love and loneliness in a bustling and commercialized city, and 30 years after its debut, it still feels years ahead of its time.
Told across a pair of vignettes, “Chungking Express” follows the lives of two police officers. Cop 223 (Takeshi Kaneshiro) and Cop 663 (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) are reeling from recent breakups and are struggling to move on. As they drift through their lives, their stories converge at the Midnight Express snack bar, each stumbling into brief, but meaningful encounters.
The Hong Kong these lovelorn policemen haunt feels at once impersonal and alluring. Director Wong Kar Wai borrows the visual language of film noir, the action movies of John Woo, and cyberpunk films like “Blade Runner” to enchant a city that offers its leads little in the way of personal identity outside of the job they perform. (It’s no surprise neither officer is ever given a name).
Kar Wai expertly uses soundtrack needle drops and subjective cinematography to place viewers in the headspace of his characters. Blaring repeatedly through a tinny boombox, “California Dreamin’” by the Mamas and the Papas is transformed from a pop song, to an auditory wish, and eventually into a declaration of intent. Cop 223’s late night McDonald’s trip is imparted with noir mystery as he broods in deep shadow, backlit by the glow of the Golden Arches. As Faye (Faye Wong), the girl at the snackbar counter watches the subject of her secret affection sip coffee at the end of the counter in slow motion, her desire dilates time around his coffee break. The visual language of “Chungking Express” evokes that the characters can only gesture towards in their narration.
It’s perhaps a tired cliche to say that the city in which a film takes place is like a character, and yet it’s hard not to feel as if Hong Kong itself has top billing in “Chungking Express.” The film is first and foremost a sketch of the city in the years immediately preceding its return to Chinese control, and the quiet, ordinary lives that are lived there.
But like all great works of art, the specificity of “Chungking Express” taps into something universal: a craving for connection and love in a fast-paced, isolating world. “Chungking Express” endures because it reminds us that romance and wonder are as commonplace as the oldies playing from a stereo, neon lights glowing in the night, and a favorite meal at a snack bar.
“Chungking Express” will play at Woodmere, 9201 Germantown Ave., Chestnut Hill, at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Nov. 19. Light refreshments will be served prior to the screening. Tuesday Nights at the Movies screenings are free, but donations are appreciated. For more information and the full Tuesday Nights at the Movies lineup, visit woomdereartmuseum.org.
