AKA: Chungking Express.
Director: Kar Wai Wong.
Language: Mostly Cantonese
Release Year: 1994.
Rating: * * * *
My second outing with Wong Kar Wai’s movie was a meditating experience on love in a very basic, yet a newfound way. From whatever I could collect about his film-making style from his previous movie I’d seen, the breathtaking “In The Mood For Love”, most of those tricks were at play here, too. The moody ambience; blurring neon-lights swishing past in the jarring, shaky camerawork; a layer of subtle, morose and peculiar humor in the face of heartache; and many other elements colluded to make this venture an indelible movie-watching experience.
The movie is about two love-stories, both involving cops, told in a sequence. The first one is about a 24-year-old cop He Zhiwu (Takeshi Kaneshiro), who’s been reeling from a recent break-up from his girlfriend of 5 years. Despite sounding and putting up a tough exterior, he can’t seem to shake off the overly-optimistic notion of getting back with his girlfriend. He’s always on the lookout for an excuse to somehow be in touch with her, or know her whereabouts. He calls up her friends or her distant relatives, under the guise of shooting the breeze, but with the actual intent of getting information on her. He believes, since she broke it off on April Fool’s Day, that it’s just a practical joke, and lets it run its course for a month. In order to christen the day when his one month countdown would be up i.e. May 1st, he buys a can of pineapple every day having the same expiry date as the impending fateful day. On that critical day, either the bleak realization of the break up will dawn on him, or the supposed prank would come to an end. Until then, he languishes around the town, chasing and nabbing bad guys, and ending his shift with the clockwork routine of checking his pager for a message from his former girlfriend.
On one such night, he runs into Ching-hsia Lin (Brigitte Lin), a drug peddler. A tough-as-nails character, she works her illegal Indian immigrants, uses them as mules to traffic drugs overseas. One such assignment goes awry, and she’s left to save her skin from the incensed parties involved in the deal. A no-nonsense woman, she’d even resort to abducting a kid to get her message across. Lugging along her dour self with a hint of disdain for everything around her, she seems to have no time for vagaries and trivialities of life. With his heart worn on his sleeves, He Zhiwu doesn’t waste his breath when he sees an opportunity present itself in the form of Lin. Two disparate souls are seen trying to find a common ground; one out of sheer desperation and dearth of love in his life, and the other out of her life’s monotony which seems to have no sense of direction.
The untied end of the first love story trickles a little into the second one. Here, we’re first introduced to an effervescent character Faye (Faye Wong), who lives by her own set of haphazard rules. She’s a wandering soul for whom stillness is just a matter of stagnating. Working at a fast-food joint, this jovial lass hopes to travel to California some day, until that is, she comes face-to-face with our second lovelorn protagonist, known only as Cop 663 (Tony Leung). A beat cop, Cop 663’s in a stable relationship, but only for so long. His airhostess girlfriend soon breaks up with him, leaving him bereft and meandering aimlessly, getting through the humdrums of his daily life, and ending the day with a visit to the aforesaid fast-food joint.
Just like the first protagonist, even this fellow is put through an emotional grinder after the breakup. Spending his days, with an unfounded notion that his girlfriend may return to him, and things will be the same again. Until then, she is survived by his daily conversation with the inanimate objects in his apartment, and going through the leftover of their memories. Faye, on the other hand, is smitten by this sozzled-in-love character. She even hatches an ingenious plan to get to know him and be close to him. While he’s out on duty, she’d break into his apartment, rifle through his belongings and even go so far as doing his chores. This sets the stage up for the inevitable love and how it’s made to test the waters of human caprice.
First of all, the second love story was more compelling to me than the first. Sure, first was unique in its own way, picking up an uneven slice from someone’s faltered love life, and showing us, for a change, what some guys have to go through. The same formula holds true for second one, too, but this one was articulately sketched out with adorable and eccentrically believable characters. An absolutely simple and charming plot, told in an erosive yet a polished manner.
There are a couple of scenes that reminded me how sheer simplicity could work at so many levels for a movie. One such scene is where He Zhiwu is seen calling some of his past girlfriends (some whom he hasn’t even spoken to since his school days) just to help him out in his moments of loneliness. The ensuing conversation had a sheen of hilarity and somewhat poignancy. There are a couple of scenes where Cop 663 talks to his household articles, as if they were his confidante and a soundboard. The euphemism brought out through his attributing human aspects to those inanimate objects was a very refreshing take on the heartache one goes through in such times. His interpretation of a dripping, wet cloth as shedding tears, a used-soap of having lost weight ever since his girlfriend left, and leak at his apartment as weeping, among many other things, were some of the amazing moments that stood out in the movie.
All the characters doled out a competent performance. Takeshi Kaneshiro as the immature-in-love, heartbroken He Zhiwu, did a fabulous job in shading out the innocent desperation of his character. Ching-hsia Lin was as sturdy as they come, wearing almost a single expression throughout her screen time, but managing to convey all that was going under that façade. Faye Wong was excitement personified, and an absolute treat to watch. Her charm filled the screen every time she appeared. A whimsical character, her presence lent the movie with humor and a breath of fresh air. However, it was Tony Leung for me who took away the first prize. Armed with subtle and minimalist expression, the guy stood for everything that a bereaved lover has to face. Coupled with some dry, tongue-in-cheek humor, Tony made Cop 663 a flesh-and-blood character, whose inside is in constant and tranquil agitation.
It would be stating the obvious, if I were to praise Wong Kar Wai's direction here. His "In The Mood For Love" provided enough evidence of his excellence in film-making. An eminent name in existential cinema, this one, too, is one of his gems, and now a cult classic. Not worth missing.
