Chungking Express Essay Questions

Chungking Express features Wong Kar-wai's unique visual style. Explore the narrative function of his editing, camera movement, and other visual factors.

What Chungking Express lacks in narrative action, it makes up for with a dazzling, psychologically-rich visual style. Notably, Wong's editing style gives the film a vast looping feeling, similar to a series of recurring dreams or a song that you just can't get out of your head. Rarely is the camera stationary. Instead it's always wandering like the characters themselves, lending a subjective feel to our very act of observing these lives. We can note both the voyeuristic and expressionistic aspects of this camera style. Pay special attention to the lighting, particularly how Wong treats the variety of the indoor spaces—bars, the Midnight Express, or places of residence.

Pick a single song and explain its narrative purposes in Chungking Express, keeping track of when it repeats in relation to the story and unpacking its meaning as it unfolds across scenes.

"California Dreamin'" is a great example of how Chungking Express uses pop songs to create mood, draw connections, and enrich character. The song evokes an idealized vision of California, and more broadly of a place to escape to where dreams can come true. California has often served as a shorthand for the "American dream," which itself is part of a broader shift to individualism and consumer fulfillment—the kinds of dreams that characters in a modern, Westernized city like Hong Kong might have. Faye seems to be obsessed with the song and to use it as a soundtrack for her life, pumping her up while she works. But, true to her alienated and ironic 1990s slacker sensibility, she also seems to relate to the song ironically, hamming it up when she sings along, as if she knows that "California dreams" are just that—dreams. As the song is repeated over and over again in the film, in various situations, it becomes a motif, acquiring more and more complex meaning and linking different moments together under the (ironic) idea of the "California dream."

Compare and contrast the two police officers in the movie. How does Wong Kar-wai use them to develop his themes, dramatic irony, and/or aesthetic decisions?

The most crucial relationship between the cops is their role as doubles, or parallel constructions of the same type of character. It's important that the film is split evenly in half, focusing on their love stories individually. You can compare and contrast their fixations, their style of dress, their demeanor, or their pastimes. To discuss irony, explore their relationships with conventional masculinity or with the law that they seek to protect. Much of the humor and peculiarity Wong develops in the characters comes from skewing expectations of how these men should behave and what lifestyles they should lead.

How does Chungking Express fit into the broader framework of cinema in the '90s?

This would be a good opportunity to discuss the history behind Chungking Express, which was a quick experiment by Wong Kar-wai made during a production halt for his much more conventionally Chinese film, Ashes of Time. One could also look into Wong's participation in the Hong Kong film industry, including his roles in producing blockbusters and striking deals so that he'd always have the funds and opportunity to make his art films. Relevant here also is other art film of the '90s; Chungking Express bares comparison to movies by the likes of Quentin Tarantino, Jim Jarmusch, Claire Denis, and so on.

From a feminist or queer theory perspective, analyze the gender roles in Chungking Express.

Wong Kar-wai's 1990 film Days of Being Wild is a story about gay romance, demonstrating early on that his stories of love, longing, and restless hearts would never be solely concerned with normative heterosexuality. Using theory by the likes of Judith Butler and film theory by writers like Teresa de Lauretis, one could analyze the various ways that the characters in Chungking Express perform and shirk their gender roles, as well as the way that Wong treats these performances through camera style and editing. There are many gender inversions in the film, as well as some often comedic plays of traditional, romantic comedy-like "war of the sexes" dynamics.