Blonde Wig (symbol)
The blonde wig is used to connote women leading an illicit lifestyle. The two people we see wearing it are the main woman with the blonde wig, who is Cop 223's love interest and the one who gets embroiled in a botched drug deal, and her double who dances to reggae and has a fling with the crime boss.
Expiration Dates (motif)
These appear over and over again, first as an obsession of Cop 223, who views them as a symbol for his own expired relationship. The "May 1" expiration date, in particular, appears twice: first in the convenience store when the cop laments that it's his own birthday, and second on the ground near the murdered crime boss, a sly narrative joke on the boss' own expiration.
Water (motif)
Men in this film are often subject to the caprice of water as much as they are to women. Cop 223 jogs in the rain on his birthday to deal with the pain of two rejections. Cop 663 must clean up the water that has flooded his apartment after Faye absentmindedly left his faucet running after watering his plants in secret. Water channels the angst these men experience.
Junk Food (allegory)
As Cop 663 mentions to the manager of the Midnight Express, men in Hong Kong are like junk food: there are plenty of choices. Junk food is an allegory for the functional aspect of the daily grind in the modern city. It's something you buy to eat alone. It's quick and perfunctory, a little hit of pleasure, like so many of the social interactions people have, living that modern city lifestyle. Paradoxically, a junk food counter is also the site of budding love between Cop 663 and Faye.
Raincoat (symbol)
We see the woman in the blonde wig wearing a khaki colored rain coat throughout the film. She says she wears it because she expects it to rain. The coat resonates symbollically, because it signifies her expectation that a storm will come—which for her it does in the form of the Indian men running away.
