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“California Dreaming” keeps on playing (“All the leaves are brown / And the sky is grey”) while this other man, police officer no. 223 (Takeshi Kaneshiro) as he bumps into the ever-daydreaming waitress Faye (Faye Wong), only to be instantly revoked by his own voiceover narration revealing that in only six hours she would be in love with another man. The song marks the transition between the first and the second instalment, when hope sparks for the lovesick police officer no. In his two-part working-class dramedy set in the jungle of Hong Kong’s crowded streets 1, the Vietnam-era escapist hymn is utilised as a motif that changes everything by seemingly changing nothing at all. Part of the March 2021 March Around the World challenge 3rd out of 30 films.Seldom does a singular song shape an entire film’s atmosphere, nature and subtext as completely as “California Dreaming” (1965) by The Mamas and the Papas does in Wong Kar-Wai’s directorial masterpiece Chunghing Sam Lam ( Chungking Express, 1994). I see this potentially grow on me even more to become one of my elusive five-stars in the future. The more I think about it, the more I appreciate everything about it, and the greater its impact upon me becomes. The camerawork and editing must be praised before all else: artistic, yet efficient - blunt, yet subtle. A concise romance that in so little time touches upon so many emotions, without ever rushing. Story two is better, because of story one, but story one isn’t retroactively raised thanks to its follow-up (in my opinion at least).Īnyhow, given all that, the Cop 636-Faye line is amazing. Don’t get me wrong, the He Qiwu story is good (in and of itself), but it’s a good short film that, within the context of Chungking Express as a whole, principally elevates the Cop 663 feature-length to greater height. While the former cop-falls-in-love-with-drug-lord line would be a more interesting story on paper, I feel like Kar-wai uses it chiefly as an examination of aforementioned theme, and as set-up for the more thoroughly explored latter story.
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The first follows He Qiwu, who falls for a mysterious woman in a blonde wig (secretly an underworld figure) the second follows ‘663’ (the cop’s badge number) who falls for snack bar worker Faye. Wong Kar-wai takes this theme and creates Chungking Express with it a film on one of the most interesting concepts the medium has ever explored.Ĭhungking Express is split into two stories of lovesick Hong Kong cops falling for a new love interest after a breakup. In everyday life we don’t consider such strangers authentic physical beings until we either stand still and cognitively reflect upon on it, or until we get to know them better, and stranger becomes acquaintance, friend, or lover. The fact that every human being - anyone you might pass by wandering the streets - is in all respects as fully a person, with their own life, thoughts, and feelings, as yourself, is fascinating.