Blinded by Heartbreak: Cop 223's Existential Crisis

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Wong doesn’t offer enough for viewers evidence to determine whether Cop 223 is any good at his job. In the film’s most energetic sequence, he makes a bust, but once he fixates on Lin’s mystery woman at the bar, he ignores the drug smuggler under his nose. He’s too blinded by heartbreak to notice. Heartbreak has a way of doing that, especially in this film. 223 will soon celebrate his 25th birthday, and like all the dates in the film, that’s significant. It’s the age when, for many people, life stops being theoretical, when those who’ve previously consigned careers, marriage, parenthood, and other responsibilities to the world of grown-ups start to realize they now live in that world. 223’s girlfriend is gone, and for much of his sequence, he …show more content…

And yet, as Wong illustrates in shots of a clock rolling over, the date draws nearer, and his girlfriend remains just as far away. that while images of flight and escape dominate the second half of Chungking Express, the first half is obsessed with looming deadlines the birthday, the pineapple cans, the drug deal and consequently driven by its main characters, nervous energy. Countering that is 223’s narration, which remains romantic and idealistic even in the midst of his personal disappointments and the chaos of the area he patrols, home to residents from around the world, and anchored by the mix of shops, makeshift restaurants, and living quarters, a 17-story complex that covers five blocks. The film suggests that any attempt to impose order on such a place would be futile. Time may be running out for Hong Kong as they know it, but some things never change, It’s hard to imagine any situation that will make Chungking Mansions any less crime-ridden, just as it’s hard to imagine 223’s girlfriend coming back to him. Nevertheless, 223 deludes himself with his hopefulness about his job and his love life, but the film doesn’t mock

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