Summary
Cop 663 has a sudden feeling that his ex has returned to their apartment. He returns to find the place flooded, with several inches of water covering the floor. We watch a flip flop that Faye placed under the couch float out. Cop 663 wonders to himself if he left the faucet running, or if his apart is sobbing, feeling the same loneliness and sorrow that he does. He slowly dries out the apartment using a bucket. He sulks around smoking cigarettes with his shirt open, a masculine contrast to his emotional tenderness.
Upon opening his front door to empty out a dustpan, he finds Faye with a bag full of goldfish. She's startled and terrified. Why is she there, he asks? She goes an awkward explanation about buying goldfish. She seems to be trying to escape, but is stuck in place, both deeply embarrassed but unable to pull herself away from his apartment. He invites her inside.
Cop 663, over voiceover, talks about how he used to massage his ex's legs after she worked a long flight. We watch him massage Faye's legs, and she's huddled up, terrified. As soon as he's done, Faye tries to get out of the apartment, but he asks her to stay. He takes out a CD and hits play on the CD player: it's "California Dreamin'" She asks if he likes the song and he says he doesn't, that his ex likes it. But Faye knows that she left that CD at the apartment when she was there a few days prior. Faye passes out on his couch, and we watch Cop 663 nod off too, cigarette dangling from his mouth. He gets up, looks at her for a minute, and plops down on the couch next to her, joining in the nap.
Back at the Midnight Express, the lights go out. Faye never paid that electricity bill, after all. What follows is a dazzling series of shots in the Midnight Express where everyone there is lighting the place by candles. Back at Cop 663's apartment, he becomes more observant. He thinks the sardines taste different (he doesn't know Faye rearranged the expiration dates), he finds a strange stamp on his mirror. He talks to a bar of soap, a towel, a giant stuffed Garfield, and a shirt of his about needing to move on.
And like clockwork, Faye is back in his apartment doing chores. He returns home to find her there, and again she's startled and terrified. He chases her around the apartment as she tries to hide. She manages to sneak out. But Cop 663 shows up at Midnight Express for the first time in his while, asking her for his letter. Really, though, he's there to ask Faye on a date. She seems vexed, but later when the Midnight Express is crowded, she seems ecstatic in her work for the first time.
Back at his apartment, Cop 663 decides to put all of his ex's things in a box and get them out of his sight. He finds a nice plaid shirt in his closet and puts it on, and we see him later at the California, where he's supposed to meet Faye for a date. He's smoking alone at the bar, having been stood up. The manager from the Midnight Express shows up to hand Cop 663 a letter Faye wanted to pass along. He leaves, goes to a convenience store, and runs into his ex. They have a pleasant, flirtatious encounter, and she runs out to get on a man's motorcycle.
He throw's Faye's letter in the trash, but decides to go back and pick it out in the midst of a rainstorm. He dries it out in the rotating hot dog rack in the convenience store and sees that it's a handwritten boarding pass. The destination has been blurred out by the rain. We go to Faye, who it turns out did go to the California, but missed Cop 663. She talks about deciding to go visit the real California.
The next time we see Faye, she has luggage and is decked out in a flight attendant uniform. She's walking through the streets of Hong Kong and ends up at her cousin's Midtnight Express. Except it doesn't belong to her cousin anymore. There she finds Cop 663, who has purchased the snack stand. They are excited to see each other, but Cop 663 has only one question for her. What was the destination on that boarding pass?
Analysis
In his book Wong Kar-wai, Stephen Teo weaves French philosopher Henri Bergson's concept of durée into his analysis of Chungking Express. Teo summarizes the concept as an articulation of two types of time: "the time that passes and continues, and on another level, it refers to the time that is associated with consciousness and memory." Teo mainly reads the initial sequence of Cop 663 returning to the Midnight Express to order chef's salads and interacting with Faye through the concept of durée, highlighting how the same events repeat over and over, shifting slightly each time, and generally only becoming legible as distinct moments through the difference in Faye's outfits.
The sequence of Faye breaking into Cop 663's apartment could be read similarly. The physical space—the setting of these scenes—is the constant factor which blurs the progression of time. We can barely tell the difference between the apartment each time we return to it, regardless of what Faye has done in terms of housekeeping, and apparently Cop 663 can't either. But we watch the evolution of Faye's interference in the space, as she rolls around in the cop's bed looking for hair and, later, floods the place.
The film finally progresses from its looping repetition of certain scenes when Cop 663 finds Faye in his apartment. Not only does the repetition cease, but the rhythm shifts. For example, when he puts "California Dreamin'" on his CD player, the scene is languorous, a direct contrast to the frenetic motion and choppy editing that has accompanied the song prior to this point in the film.
Indeed, breaking the rhythm seems to be the narrative purpose of this final segment of the film. Wong shows our characters finally breaking out of the rote repetition of their lives and trying new things: attempting to go on a date, leaving behind a job for an adventure, and, finally, Cop 663 and Faye reuniting and shifting their relationship. At the end of the film, significantly, Cop 663 is now behind the counter. Their roles reversed, the two see each other in a new light, and we the audience finally see a possibility for their romance. With this performative role-switching, Wong also subtlety plays with themes of queerness and gender roles, which he will develop further in his film Happy Together.
