I have been a film aficionado for a long time. My father brought me up on classics like David Lean's adaptations of Oliver Twist and Great Expectations as well as the various black and white classic comedies of Charlie Chaplin and Laurel and Hardy. However, I became interested in cult TV series and films whilst attending university. Our campus was media-centered and as a result it had a huge catalogue of videos to rent, free of charge. I ploughed through many often taking the maximum 8 out at a time and consumed them voraciously. As a result I believe that I am quite literate in films and TV. It was also around this time that I really got into foreign language films, devouring the works of Akira Kurosawa, Krzysztof Kieślowski, Shunji Iwai and Wong Kar-Wai.

In the case of Kar-Wai, the first film I remember seeing of his was Chunking Express. I have the film on DVD in its Artificial Eye version and remember liking it. However, it has been 30 years since its release and about 27 or so years since I last saw it so I thought I'd revisit it.

Since watching the film, I have had the fortune and misfortune of staying at the Chungking Mansions twice. The first time, I had intended to stay there for just a couple of days whilst travelling through Hong Kong in 2011 on my 6 months sabbatical from teaching. Unfortunately, the Japanese earthquake put paid to my plans so I remained stuck in Hong Kong for an extra week whilst altering my travel plans to include Shanghai. Now, accommodation is incredibly pricey in Hong Kong and the Mansions were the only really affordable place so I stayed there, biding my time before I could travel on to Sydney, Australia.

The buildings have a bad reputation as a den of inequality and crime and, whilst they are indeed incredibly cramped and a huge fire risk (there was only a couple of lifts for the whole building from my recollections) I found the people there to be friendly, welcoming and reasonable with their prices for tourists like me. In fact, I had some of the most authentic Indian and Asian food from there and all at under £5 (in 2010 prices mind you).

The second time, my wife and I stayed there for a couple of days whilst on holiday for a week in Hong Kong from Cambodia. Indeed, my wife appreciated the food and great location but less so the cramped but clean room and the interminable waiting in the queue for the lift.

Anyways- away from my own personal reverie- watching the film now fills me with nostalgia as I can spot some places that seem familiar to me and feel the vibe that Director Kar-Wai and Cinematographer Christopher Doyle have captured so vividly in this work.

There have been several film movements which revolutionise the language and aesthetics of the medium including Soviet Formalism, German Expressionism, the French New Wave, Italian Neo-realism and Dogme 95. Film movements are the result of a shared common philosophy on the film-making process or a political agenda. The first Hong Kong New Wave included the works of Tsui Hark and John Woo, who were outward looking as Hong Kong and it's financial clout rose in influence in the late 70s and 80s.

The second Hong Kong New Wave, of which Chungking Express is a part of, took the references of Western globalisation but filtered it through a local cultural lens. There were anxieties about Americanisation, growing Western influence, mental health, isolation and, more worryingly, the handover of the territories back to China in 1997. These uncertainties bled into the post-modern films that looked at these concerns in an artistically creative way. The second Hong Kong New Wave style in Chungking Mansions reminds of the French Nouvelle Vague as both movements sought to break free from traditional conventions and experiment with new forms of storytelling- the two stories wend and wind into each other in playful ways.

The first story- such as it is- involves a policeman names Wu, played by Takeshi Kaneshiro, who operates in and around the Mansions. He is broken-hearted after being dumped by his girlfriend of five years, so he tucks into cans of nearly expired pineapples and calls up old girlfriends and acquaintances. It's very sad really. Meanwhile, a mysterious blonde-wigged woman operates a drug running business but when her mules run away she is on borrowed time to get them back. The pair meet by chance late night in a bar and connect after a tetchy initial exchange- both seem like lost souls and connect on this night in a platonic way, revealing a bit of their true self only to part and never see each other again.

In the second story, we meet Faye who works at a takeaway in the mansions. She likes her music loud and plays California Dreaming a lot. She meets a cop (played by a dashing Tony Leung) who is heart-broken after his air stewardess girlfriend leaves him. Faye falls for the cop but he is surrounded by things that remind him of his ex at home so he can't move on. She decides drastic action is needed and manages to obtain his house keys and slowly start to replace the items that illicit hurtful relationship memories as well as watering his plants, buying him new goldfish, getting him new bedsheets and cleaning his house.

Writing that I can see how problematic this sounds now but back in the mid-90s this was considered cute and not stalker-like behaviour. Different times man. Obviously, this is a romantic part of the film so flights of fancy are allowed but in real life this is most definitely a red flag and a long costodial sentence!
However, under Doyle's cinematography and Kar-Wai's direction, this is a whimsical tale of love in the most unconventional sense. The themes of love, loss and remembrance are central to the story but so is the idea that life is an adventure and we must be open to it.

The soundtrack for this film is amazing, taking in the South and East Asian melting pot cultures that exist in the Mansions and adding a dash of Western pop music from The Cranberries and The Mamas and Papas. The latter especially features heavily in this film.

I really love this film as the characters are not stereotypes but seem genuine and bizarre- y'know, real with agency, idiosyncracies and nuance. The storytelling seems freewheeling but is actually poetic, showing the real human interactions that can happen in oppressive big cities where it can be easy to be seen as another faceless person in a sea of people. The film is all about connection and this truth; people are more complex, less shallow and self-absorbed than they may appear at first glance. We are all idiosyncratic and individual in our own ways.

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