If In the Mood for Love is Wong Kar-wai’s heartbreak, Chungking Express is his caffeinated fever dream. And I mean that in the best possible way.
I watched this on a night when I couldn’t sleep, scrolling through Criterion Channel at 3 AM, and it felt like the film had been made specifically for that moment. It’s messy and energetic and weird and romantic in a way that only makes sense when you’re slightly delirious.
The film is two separate stories, barely connected. In the first, a cop (Cop 223) eats cans of pineapple with expiration dates matching the day his girlfriend left him, waiting to see if she’ll come back. In the second, another cop (Cop 663) frequents a food stand where a quirky girl named Faye works. She develops an obsession with him and starts breaking into his apartment to clean it and rearrange his life.
That second story is the one that lodged itself in my brain and refused to leave.
Faye is played by Faye Wong, and she’s magnetic in this role—all nervous energy and mischievous smiles. She plays “California Dreamin’” on repeat at the food stand, dancing to it while she works. And when she breaks into the cop’s apartment (which sounds creepy but somehow isn’t?), she doesn’t steal anything. She just… tidies. She waters his plants. She replaces his expired sardines. She redecorates. She’s essentially playing house with someone who doesn’t know she exists.
It should be a horror movie. But Wong Kar-wai films it like a love letter.
There’s something about Faye’s character that I found deeply relatable. She’s in love with the idea of someone, with the possibility of connection, with the fantasy she’s constructed. She doesn’t really know this cop. She just knows the version of him she’s imagined. And isn’t that what we all do? Fall in love with projections, with potential, with the person we think someone could be?
The film is shot with this handheld, kinetic energy that makes Hong Kong feel like a living organism. Everything is neon and motion and crowds. People are always moving, always rushing, always missing each other by seconds. The city is full of people, but everyone is lonely.
I love how Wong Kar-wai uses food in this film. The pineapple cans. The chef salad. The sardines. These mundane objects become markers of time, of memory, of connection. Cop 223 says, “If memories could be canned, would they also have expiration dates?” And I thought: yes. Yes, they would. Some memories stay fresh forever. Others spoil.
The ending of Faye’s story is ambiguous and perfect. She leaves Hong Kong, becomes a flight attendant, travels the world. A year later, she comes back. The cop is waiting. They talk. She asks for his boarding pass. He doesn’t have one. She writes him one. And we don’t know what happens next.
But we don’t need to know. Because the film isn’t about resolution. It’s about possibility. It’s about the moment before something begins, when everything is still potential, still hope, still “maybe.”
I finished watching at 4:30 AM and immediately wanted to go outside and walk through the city, even though I live in a boring suburb with no neon and no mystery. The film made me want to be somewhere else, someone else, living a life full of chance encounters and spontaneous decisions and pop songs that mean everything.
Chungking Express is messy and imperfect and doesn’t quite hold together. But that’s why I love it. It feels like life—chaotic and beautiful and full of near-misses and what-ifs. It’s a film about loneliness that somehow makes you feel less alone.
Also, I’ve had “California Dreamin’” stuck in my head for three weeks now. Thanks, Wong Kar-wai.
