Updated 15 November 2006
English 212, Section 3: World Cinema
Week 12: 13 November 2006
Professor: Don Larsson
6:00-6:45 Discussion of To Live and Hong Kong Cinema
6:45-8:40 View Chunking Express
8:40-8:50 Break
8:50-9:30 Discuss Chunking Express
Filmmaking in Taiwan and Hong Kong
Taiwan
1949:
§ Chiang Kai-Shek and Kuomintang forces flee from Chinese mainland to island of Taiwan (formerly Formosa, under Japanese rule), recognized by U.S. as Republic of China, in exile
§ Martial law declared, censorship imposed
§ Film productions included anti-Communist documentaries, costumes, operas, love stories
1960s:
§ Brief boom in Hong Kong-style martial arts film, collapsed as new generation looked for native Taiwanese identity
§ Hong Kong filmmakers like King Hu establish production in Taiwan
1970s:
§ U.S. restores relations with People’s Republic of China, recognizes mainland government as legitimate but pledges continued support to Taiwan
§ Taiwan regarded as “breakaway province” by China, continues to maintain separate identity
1980s:
§ Taiwanese “new wave” of art cinema emerges, but ends by 1987
§ Government censorship lifted, allows new freedom of topics and expression
Leading figures: Edward Yang and Hou Hsiou-Hsien
§ Yang: influenced by comic books, uses quick cutting, little dialogue, deals with violence and alienation inn modern life
§ Hou: more personal, contemplative style; episodic narratives, often set in countryside, small towns; use of long takes, static long shots, less emphasis on editing
Hong Kong
§ British crown colony, officially “leased” from Chinese government, legacy of 19th century Opium Wars, until 1997
1950s-1997:
§ Film industry grows in importance, exporting films through eastern Asia
§ Largest production from Shaw Brothers, especially in wuxia (martial arts) film, new emphasis on action, stunts with swordplay
§ King Hu, director producing films in Taiwan, emphasizes simple plots but strong stylistic aspects, especially in acrobatics (A Touch of Zen, 1971, wins Grand Prix at Cannes)
§ Raymond Chow, directs Brue Lee (first film Fist of Fury, 1972) until death soon after
§ Jackie Chan merges action film with comedy, inspired by Buster Keaton
§ Ann Hui directs genres films and films of social commentary: Boat People (1982), Song of the Exile (1992)
§ Tsui Hark, born in Vietnam, directs “supernatural kung fu” films (Chinese Ghost Story), produces films by John Woo (A Better Tomorrow, The Killer)
1997 on:
§ Brief downturn in industry after PRC assumes control of Hong Kong, but industry soon revives
§ Emergence of Hong Kong action stars as international stars: Tony Leung, Maggie Cheung, Chow Yun Fat, etc.
§ Influence on international productions like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Wong Kar-Wai
§ As Tears Go By (1988), gangster film inspired by Mean Streets
§ Days of Being Wild (1991), youth film, wins Hong Kong Film Awards
§ Ashes of Time (1994), martial arts film about time and memory
§ Chungking Express (1994), inspired by French New Wave and early Godard
§ Happy Together (1997), love story of two gay men in Buenos Aires
§ In The Mood for Love (2000), love story about overcoming loss
§ 2046 (2004); science fiction writer tries to change his life
§ Influences include popular culture, especially music; American film directors like Scorsese and John Casavettes; other directors like Godard
§ Has gone on to become important influence to other Asian directors and Americans like Quentin Tarantino
Chunking Express (1994)
Director and Script: Wong Kar-Wai; Cinematography: Christopher Doyle and Wai Keung Lau; Editor: William Chang (and others); Music: Frankie Chan, Michael Galasso, and Roel A. Garcia
Cast:
Brigitte Lin (Woman in blond wig); Tony Leung Chiu Wai (Cop 663); Faye Wong (Faye); Takeshi Kaneshiro (Cop 223)
Synopsis: Two Hong Kong policemen deal with lost loves in unrelated stories, both centered on the “Midnight Express” food store. Policeman 223 waits for return of girlfriend and eats pineapple. Policeman 663 meets a new girl at the store, who begins her own peculiar relationship with him, unknown to him. (“Chunking” is the old spelling
Questions for Discussion:
1. Why do the two policemen deal with the loss of love in their own particular ways? How and why do new women enter their lives? What is their reaction to that change?
2. How does the film use genre conventions to overturn them? How does the narrative differ from our usual expectations?
3. What is the effect of the use of popular culture, especially music, in this film?
4. What does the film have to say about human relationships in a modern urban society like Hong Kong?
DISCUSSION SUMMARY
Although it was made in 1994, the same year as To Live, Wong Kar-Wai’s Chunking Express could not seem more different from Zhang Yimou’s film. Where To Live is a realist epic about the impact of historical forces on one family, Chunking Express is not only set in the chaotic modern commercialism of Hong Kong but is told in an apparently fragmented style that lacks the clear causal relationships and conclusion of Zhang’s film.
Even the two parts of the film seem radically disconnected from each other, although they are related by circumstances—the two male protragonists are both policemen, both go to the same food express shop, and both are reacting to lost loves. But the two stories connect in time and space only by chance. In the first part, we see the blond woman buying a drink while Faye—the heroine of the second part, whom we have not yet met—lugs a big Garfield doll out of a store, and Cop 223, the hero of the first half brushes against Faye but never sees her again.
Like To Live, Chunking Express is about chance and change, but instead of being presented on the level of history and politics, Wong’s film is on the level of the personal and the emotional, and it represents a “postmodern” approach to these themes that is similar in some ways to Almodovar’s All about My Mother. (The joining of stories that are linked only by chance is also similar to “contingency” films like Magnolia, Traffic, Crash and Babel, where different lives and stories connect just by circumstance.) For one thing, the film is very self-aware, presenting itself in contexts that lead the viewer in one direction only to frustrate us or turn us in other directions. The film’s opening, with its mysterious woman in sunglasses and raincoat and Cop 223’s voiceover narration are reminiscent of American film noir, but instead of the “hard boiled” tough guy detectives in such American films, Cop 223 never realizes that the blond-wigged woman is a drug dealer and killer. In fact, he is presented as a hopeless romantic whose girlfriend has left him. He hold on to his hopes that she will return by buy cans of pineapple with expirations of May 1 (one month after April Fool’s Day, when she left him). Can love expire like cans of pineapple? he wonders. The date of May 1 is significant because his girlfiend was named May, and once it is clear that she is not returning, he seeks out another May who works in the express food shop, only to learn that she has been replaced by Faye, who will be central to the second part of the film.
The blond
woman herself has a life that only accidentally intersects with that of the
policemen, since she is caught in comical 
but deadly set of circumstances.
The Indian men that she is using as drug “mules” have disappeared with the
drugs. (Her mode of dress as well as her crime associations refer to Gena
Rowland’s title role in the American film Gloria (1980), directed by her
husband, independent director John Cassavetes). Here the film deliberately
misleads us through a couple of scenes that appear to be flashbacks. We see
the blond wig associated with an American man who is apparently this Chinese
woman’s lover and the money man behind the drug deal. Toward the end of this
section, we see the couple again, except when the American walks out on to the
street, he is suddenly approached and shot by the real blond-wigged woman.
Apparently, he had been cheating on her. Whether it was the love betrayal or
the drug deal or both that got him shot is not clearly explained.
In the meantime, Cop 223 has decided to go with his own life after eating all the pineapple he had been saving and vomiting it back up. His attempt to come on to the blond-wigged woman fails, but he is willing to accept change. Pineapple cans expire and people can change their minds about whether they like pineapple or not, but life goes on anyway.
Change is the main theme of the second part as well. Cop 663 is a uniformed officer, but he apparently has no connection with plainclothesman 223. His own life and routine seem settled. He always orders salad from the take-out shop until the owner urges him to try something different. Soon after, his girlfriend, an airline stewardess, leaves him, apparently realizing that she has choices and possibilities in men as well as in food. While 663 mopes, waiting for her to return, he has already drawn the attention of Faye (played by Asian pop star Faye Wong). She knows that his former girlfriend has left for good because she has the key to his apartment that the girlfriend had returned. She then begins to make subtle changes in the policeman’s apartment, redecorating it bit by bit, but he fails to notice the changes any more than he notices her until he finally catches her in the apartment itself.
But by the time 663 is ready to accept her, Faye is already thinking about her own choices. Her obsessive playing of the song “California Dreaming” indicates her own curiosity about other places in the world, and she winds up traveling to the real California (instead of the California Bar where she was supposed to meet 663) as an airline stewardess. When she returns, ready to take up again with 663, she discovers that their roles had been reversed. He has now become owner of the take-out place, which had been sold because the previous owner himself wanted a change. But even that role is not necessarily permanent. When she left, Faye had given 663 a hand-drawn airline “boarding pass” that had gotten wet. As she now prepares him a new one, she asks, “Where would you like to go?” “Anywhere you want to take me,” he replies.
If To Live suggests that change is inevitable but something that is rarely for the better and a force to be endured, Chunking Express—like All About My Mother—suggests that change should be not just accepted but embraced as a positive force. The same routine—whether in our jobs, the food we eat or our love relationships—deadens our perceptions and our lives, but choice and difference make us aware of new possibilities. Even when those possibilities do not work out, they make us appreciate and truly experience what we had before.