Love and Loneliness: Chungking Express

(Warning: Spoilers ahead!)

It's April Fool's Day, and it's a coincidence that I just watched Chungking Express (Hong Kong, 1994) in which this young and handsome police officer is jilted by his girlfriend on the first of April. Initially, he thought it was an April Fool's prank, but she had left him seriously. He decides to wait for a month, and meanwhile eats canned pineapple slices, because she liked it very much. He makes sure every can he purchases from the supermarket had May-1 as the expiry date, which completes one month of his loneliness, beyond which there would be no pineapples for him. His lost lover's name happens to be 'May'. The first of May is his birthday too. After the monthlong wait, he looks for someone who could go out with him for the evening. But he's late. Another May, who is a worker at the takeaway joint he frequents was a prospect but while he was waiting for his lost lover, she had found another person to spend the evening with. He desperately phones several other girls he knows, though he hardly has any contact with them now. They have forgotten him and are busy with other things. One is even married and has kids already. Finally he ends up with an obscure woman at a bar who is an underworld drug dealer, and he spends the night in her room watching old movies while she sleeps out of exhaustion and frustration from her strenuous and risky drug smuggling operations of the day that fizzled out!

There are two different stories in Chungking Express. Apart from the one mentioned above, there is another young cop in the film who had a flight stewardess girlfriend who also left him leaving a letter and his apartment's spare key at the fast food joint mentioned above. He then develops a liking for the food outlet owner's cousin Faye (Faye Wong) who is new there and assists in running the place. She is quirky and vibrant and plays the music at its loudest. She is secretly in love with the officer but is too shy and reticent to express it in the slightest way despite her otherwise vivacious and impish nature and movements filled with vigour. She uses the officer's spare key to steal into his apartment and spends time there pretending to be his stewardess ex-girlfriend while he is out on duty. She fools around there alone, playing with the toy plane reminiscent of the other girl and wears her pair of crew uniform. She arranges things well, makes his apartment orderly, and fills his aquarium with new fish, and leaves before he is back. She repeats the exercise on many days and gets almost caught. He gets a clear idea of what's going on but pretends to be unaware of it. Finally, he asks her out, but she leaves for California for that was one of her dreams, only to return to him after a year as a flight attendant herself. To me, Faye is the best and the most exciting part of the movie. Her character and the role have many possibilities as well as challenges, and she has played the part with utmost perfection.

Shaji N Karun, while being the curator of a film festival, had once included the film Love my Gaspar Noe in the screening schedule even though many could have had thought it was an utterly obscene movie with some scenes easily reckoned porn by some viewers. He argued that he couldn't reject the film for it was about love, and love can have countless manifestations. You will find hundreds of unique hues of love in films. And yet there are many new ones waiting to be discovered. Chungking Express by Wong Kar-wai is a sweet movie that presents yet another facet of love, loss, and loneliness where a tinge of pain hides beneath the fun and frivolity you find on the surface. And it's so Murakami-ish with its bohemian vibes, melancholic air, and the soothing strains of Western music in the background.

(Watch on MUBI)