Chungking Express

The award winning film, Chungking Express, is a tale of two stories told in sequence, each about a lovesick Hong Kong policeman contemplating his relationship with a woman. The movie is filmed in impressionistic splashes of motion and color, which are used to help the audience get a better sense of the time period. In particular, the mise-en-scene, especially the setting, stands out in separating the different stages of relationships that the two policemen find themselves in, but due to the setting being in the same place it also helps connect the two stories. The first story concerns Taiwan-born cop He Qiwu, also known as Cop 223. Qiwu's girlfriend May broke up with him on April 1 (April Fool's Day). His birthday is May 1st and since he saw

By the end of this time, he feels that he will either be rejoined with his love or that it will have expired forever. Meanwhile, a mysterious woman in a blonde wig tries to survive in the drug underworld after a smuggling operation goes sour. The woman even resorts to kidnapping to find out who set her up. After finding out who caused the operation to fail she leaves and goes to a nearby bar. On the same day, which is May 1, Qiwu, looking for romance, approaches the woman in a blonde wig at a bar. After a few drinks and long conversations with Qiwu, she is exhausted and falls asleep in a hotel room, leaving him to watch old movies alone all night and order take-out food in their room. During this scene the mise-en-scene is already giving signs and foreshadows that the two might have a future together, maybe as husband and wife watching movies together. Before leaving in the morning Qiwu shines her shoes before he leaves her sleeping on the bed. This might not be seen as an important scene, but the truth is that by shining her shoes Qiwu leaves with the hope that the blond wigged woman will notice and have a positive impression of him. The next day the woman with the