Shot within 23 days on a budget of 600,000 dollars on hiatus from his martial arts epic “Ashes of time”, Wong Kar Wai’s “Chungking express” was not only the film that jumpstarted Wai’s career but many see the film as one of the most clear triumphs of the Hong Kong new wave movement, fuelled similar to the French new wave by an oncoming major social change (the Algerian war and the Hong Kong switch), the film works on several levels. The films almost methodical level of blurring characters and plot lines to create a dreamlike vision of Hong Kong life, punctuated by the dropped frame rate and high contrasting colours, leading away from common narrative methods and starting further and further into the realm of new wave filmmaking led to the film catching the eye of auteur director Quentin Tarantino. Tarantino ending up founding his own production company (since fallen through) to release the film.

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Speaking first within the behind the scenes context, the limitations of the film in its production evidently shaped into what it became, a nexus of near all new wave filmmaking. Albeit the other new wave films I have studied were also improvisational, the premise of the film and it's wholly original novelty of having each scene be written the day or night before with nothing planned out ahead, gives some brevity to the complete narrative shift after the first third of the film. Still, the two stories share similar plot lines and are set within similar locations. Both following a police officer (known only by their numbers) falling out of love with an air hostess before falling in love with a new love interest. The non linear episodic narrative of the film lends to the concurrent sense throughout of confusion and identity in regards to characters and plot points, a direct choice made by Wai to emphasise his dissection of identity in the film. The matter of identity and homogenisation of culture links perfectly to the motif of national identity in the film and the cultural consciousness of Hong Kong at the time of release, Hong Kong after all has been a melting point of different languages due to its position as a common pass through country for tourists and travellers. This is served by the bi lingual nature of the film, with multiple languages being spoken on several occasions. This sense of liminality is also linked to the film through the motif of flights and airplanes; multiple female characters are air hostesses (an often sexualised field both having the stereotype exemplified in the sex scene and also reduced with the 2nd May’s reveal) aswell as multiple references to flights and airports, aswell as the climax of the first story being set in an airport). All of these references aswell as the repeated motif of expiration dates within both stories again, link intrinsically to the main point of cultural change during the period of the films making and films release. The film was made and released in 1994 leading up to the significant change in 1997 of Hong Kong coming out of the UK’s rule and into China's; here we find the looming threat of conformity and the fear of change, a surplus repression that bleeds naturally into the film. Linking the film to the cultural and social context of the period is intrinsically new wave and was the main purposes of the original French new wave founders from the cahiers du cinema. 

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The films initial wrap around third story would return to officer 223, however this was eventually dismissed and eventually became the basis of Wais next film released the following year; fallen angels. A film more clearly linking to the noir genre whose conventions are flirted with in the first story; as we follow a disillusioned detective and a seperate femme fatale (perpetuated by the use of the tropic sunglasses and platinum blonde wig, very similar to Phyllis from Wilders “Double Indemnity”) eventually coming together, however we do not see them falling in love as the officer eludes to in his narration we must instead come up with our own story. However the film is not solely influenced by the films of old Hollywood, such as Hitchcock, like the filmmakers of the French new wave. One of the key influences upon the Hong Kong new wave and something that Wai's is visibly commenting on in his film is that if the TV soap opera boom of the nineties; domestic dramas that often shift from broad comedy to melodrama to even horrific elements that follow multiple storylines and several characters (often not that distinct in character) and all take place within a few varying locations - much like the multiple numbered cops and may's who all fall into love at the California bar and snack shack.

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Links more clearly to the French New wave in specific can be found I think the multiple uses of temporal editing; which Wai subverts in his own manner with the introduction of his own cross-frame temporal editing (seen in the jukebox scenes and a scene at the snack shack). What makes the film more clearly French new wave is that one can simply not be a passive spectator when watching the film, due to the simple fact that the manner of presentation is very confusing, with multiple characters looking very similar in uniform and dress with similar names. The film does feature brief conventions of cinema verite aswell, in the more documentary style sections of the film following the characters around daily chores or in the streets of along carrying out regular chores. However the film links to both sides of the French new wave movement; the cahiers du cinema (focused primarily upon moving forward the filmic medium) and the left bank (using the same experimental techniques with main focus of propelling social change); the left bank founded within a more literary culture can be found with the examples of officer 663 aposthrosizing to inanimate objects, a very literary technique.

“Chungking” can ultimately be seen as Wong Kar Wai's response to the frustrations and struggles of big budget filmmaking (or as the members of the cahiers du cinema would call it: “cinema de papa”), breaking free from all restraints, the film could be seen as more of an exercise in stress relief than a complete motion picture - yet it is in yet that we films its most new wave elements. After all the frustrations of films made as such as “cinema du papa” were the nexus and spark of all inspiration for the French New Wave.

 - Thomas Carruthers