Music in Movies Monday: Chungking Express

I hope they last for centuries

Picture this.

You’re laying down with your arm out, already having been reprimanded for moving by the tattoo artist, when you start to wonder if the quote he’s currently, permanently, inking onto the outside of your forearm, might be wrong.

Have you ever disassociated while getting a tattoo? Because there, at that moment, I floated a foot away from my body as I wondered what level of mistake I had just made.

My impulsivity and people-pleasing attitude tend to wage war with one another as the former leads the latter into a lot of scenarios that are precarious at best and usually require backup in the form of my sister or friend. It’s happened a lot with my tattoos, where I’ve been too considerate to tattooist suggestions as my friends scramble in the back to remind me that what they’re showing me isn’t what I was asking for.

This should’ve been easy because it was a quote but it was already bigger than I’d wanted it to be. I felt dumb when I asked for smaller and he told me it wouldn’t age well (and I’m sure he’s right) but at the last moment where I might’ve asked him to stop so I could quadruple check that the translation of the quote I had was right, I didn’t.

So I hovered instead and got the most painless tattoo of my life so far.

The quote I’d chosen, “I hope they last for centuries,” was from Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 Chungking Express, and had other translations in the past. It wasn’t until I sat down with my sister, husband, and friends to watch the remastered Criterion version that I got confirmation mine was correct, and the entire room let out a sigh of relief. Who knows my hysterics had it turned out otherwise if I'd found myself lumped with other white women who got incorrect translations typed onto their skin.

Chungking Express was a world-shifting moment. There was before Chungking Express and after and both sides are envious of the other. The first time I watched it I was laying in bed, it pulled up on my laptop through a not-great link, and Quinn tapped out before we’d gotten to the halfway part where the cast and stories switch. Meanwhile, I stayed awake as he slept beside me, enraptured in this story of missed connections, found companionship, and the loss and love of meeting someone at very specific moments of growth and change in life.

I demanded Quinn watch it from start to finish soon after and he too became an immediate fan as I caught on to more of the humor and asides that are easy to miss the first time watching when spellbound by little more than atmosphere and attitude and Tony Leung’s face.

And we continued to work our way out of order through the work of Wong Kar-wai, a director both of us would consider an all-time favorite. And while we may argue over our placements of what film resides where in the final rankings of his work and I can’t argue with him putting In the Mood for Love at the top of his list, there’s no use denying that, for me, Chungking Express will always lead the way.

Shortly after we showed the film to my sister on the eve of the three of us making our then annual ten-hour drive to Toronto for the Toronto International Film Festival. Quinn and I still lived in our Newburyport attic apartment and the windows were open to catch the rainy drafts setting the scene for yet another transformative movie-watching moment as, again, it climbed someone's list of all-time favorites. Carly was floored.

There are too many moments or aspects that I could list that add to how much I adore this film and how it’s painted itself into my skin. The four main performances from Tony Leung, Faye Wong, Takeshi Kaneshiro, and Brigitte Lin are all arresting in their distinct manners, from Leung’s quiet stoicism that, due to enormously expressive eyes, gives way to compartmentalized loneliness and just barely contained yearning, to the enigmatic mystique Lin possesses, oozing cool that goes beyond the costuming. The soundtrack, like most Kar-wai pictures, is superb and character-driven. It’s a handsomely dressed film with cinematography that captures the frenzied, constant movement of 90s Hong Kong.

There’s the humor and wit, the bleeding compassion for its characters, the tonal consistency despite a narrative switch and chemistry between the two central duos that threatens to burn a hole through the screen.

But I’d be lying if I didn’t say that it’s the sequence where Wong’s character sneaks into Leung’s Cop 663’s apartment to adjust his lifestyle and make small improvements that didn’t beat my heart to a pulp. Aided by the backdrop of Wong’s cover of The Cranberries single “Dreams,” the four-five minute sequence never fails to give me chills.

I’ve tried to put to words just what it is about this moment that renders me so emotionally raw, and people who know me well could see the scene on its own and go “yeah that’ll leave Ally a wreck," but the visceral reaction the scene brought forth from me can’t be understated. I was seeing and experiencing film as if I was falling in love with it again for the very first time, a sensation so often associated with these moments in film played to songs that leave my chest feeling wide open.

I’m a sucker for sincerity and naked emotions and, if I had to guess, that plays a large part in what does and doesn’t affect me. I wish there was a guide to explain it thoroughly but it’s so largely based on personal feelings. What I can say, is that the sequence in Chungking Express, to me, is one of the finest examples of showing how music and visuals can come together in cinema to create something that reaches further and surpasses what either medium on their own could do alone. It’s a marriage of two evocative statements, visualizing the heightened sensations of the song while giving into the character's passion for music and pairing a moment of private elation with a sweepingly romantic song about a woman’s first experience of falling in love.

For all its visual wizardry, the story at the heart of Chungking Express is deceptively simple. Four souls wandering the bustling streets of Hong Kong, looking for someone to see them and their needs, be it a place to rest, a message on a birthday, time to heal, or seeing the potential for more. Kar-wai elevates this with minute moments of intimacy, ranging from cleaning a pair of heels to a sensual spar in a tucked away apartment during a heatwave. It’s an intimacy that’s felt during the “Dreams” sequence like we’re voyeurs taking part in watching the blossoming of something new, something promising, and something worthwhile.

God, I love it.

Elsewhere from me. I reviewed the dull Don’t Worry Darling, which, more than anything else, is so goddamn boring I could hardly stand it. I dug the new album from Djo, aka Joe Keery, which I also reviewed at TheYoungFolks.com. Upcoming this week I’ll have an interview with God’s Creatures directors Anna Rose Holmer and Saela Davis, a review for the album by the pop-punk band The Wonder Years, a review of the first four episodes of Andor (very good), and, maybe, a review of Blonde.

Also, this is important to me mainly, but I created a near-perfect playlist for rainy gray days. Check it out if you need something to listen to.

Thanks for reading - Chungking Express can be watched on the Criterion Channel and HBO Max. Also, not to brag, but I have the Criterion Wong Kar-wai boxset which is gorgeous, so that’s an option for some.

<3 <3 thanks for reading friends.