Poster for Chungking Express
Famous for its use of the Mamas & the Papas’ song “California Dreamin,'” Jesse Pasternack interprets how Chungking Express evokes the feeling of pop music.
When I think of films about pop music, some familiar titles come to mind: A Hard Day’s Night (1964), Stop Making Sense (1984), That Thing You Do! (1996)… But when I think about films that embody pop music, by which I mean ones that personify its structural and thematic qualities, an unexpected one always finds its way to the top of the list. That film is Chungking Express (1994), which was director Wong Kar-wai’s breakthrough on the international film circuit.
Chungking Express tells two stories, much like how an old-school pop record would have an “A side” and a “B side.” Both narratives center on policemen who deal with two of the great themes of pop music: heartbreak and romance. The first follows Cop 223 (Takeshi Kaneshiro) as he starts to move beyond his obsession with an ex-girlfriend when he meets a mysterious female criminal in a trench coat (Brigitte Lin). The second is about Cop 663 (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), who gets involved with an eccentric woman named Faye (Faye Wong) who has a passion for breaking into his apartment and playing the song “California Dreamin’” as many times as she can.
Tony Leung Chu-wai and Faye Wong in Chungking Express
In addition to its bifurcated style of storytelling, Chungking Express shares another key structural similarity to pop songs. Many of them use a narrative form of songwriting called “verse-chorus,” which uses verses to tell a story while a chorus repeats the main theme or idea of the song. This is similar to how Wong’s use of voiceover, especially the one that he gives to Cop 223, acts as “verses” which move the story forward. These “verses” act in contrast to the film’s equivalent to “choruses,” which are sequences that feature characters doing repetitive actions like running away from someone or cleaning a beloved crush’s apartment without their permission. These sequences express the hypnotic joy of a good chorus almost better than most pop songs do.
But while this film may have some similarities with how those songs are organized, its true greatness lies in how it captures the way that pop music can make you feel. When done right, it can make your heartbreak feel manageable because other people have experienced similar things, make time pass quicker, or simply make the world seem a little brighter and better because of some good melodies and catchy lyrics. Chungking Express makes you experience all of that through its adroit storytelling and brilliant sense of cinematic style. You can find yourself rocking out to sequences of the main characters and their love interests going about their lives as easily as you could to a song by The Beatles or The Rolling Stones.
An idiosyncratic crime film like Chungking Express might not seem like it would be able to reflect a specific style of music. But its innovative structure and thematic exuberance make it feel like the best of pop songs. More than anything, it shares their power to, in the words of legendary rock musician Steven Van Zandt, “stop your life and start it up again.”
A new 4K restoration of Chungking Express will be screened at IU Cinema on June 29 as part of the Critics’ Pics series.