[FIELDWORK]Chongking Express, Chongking Mansions

Chongking Mansions, Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong

This essay will analyze the space in the film Chungking Express. This film tells two love stories—— police Wu fell in love with a blonde woman who was a killer in the California bar after he was lovelorn; and the new waitress Fei in fast food restaurant fell in love with the police 663. The main place the film based is the Chungking Mansions located at Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon, Hong Kong.

Chungking Mansions was originally constructed as a high-grade building for Senior British officers and local stars in Hong Kong in 1961. However, the Chungking Mansions became the place for American officers and soldiers to find prostitutes due to the Vietnam War in the late 1960s. In the 1970s, the originally local families in Chongking Mashions gradually moved out and transferred the property to new immigrants. And the residents and merchants in Chongkong Mansions are from over 100 countries worldwide, which is like a “small United Nations”. Such historical context made this place out of order; many murder cases and illegal transactions happened there. The director adopts the unique context and the specialty of this place to assist the extension of the stories, and make the identity and background of the characters more reasonable:

• The blonde woman does the drug trafficking in this place.
• Police Wu is from Taiwan and deals with many criminal cases there.
• Fei, who is not the local, doesn’t stay in Hong Kong stably.

However, Chongkong Mansions nowadays had been rectified by the government for a few years, so the vibe and environment there are not as horrible as what shows in the film today.

At the film’s beginning, the camera with shaky motion follows the blonde woman showing the mess and chaos of the street strongly in Chungking Mansions, which leaves the disordered impression of the place to the audience. Moreover, Such a demonstration also reflects the states of the characters, the nervousness and hurry of the blond woman of doing illegal things, and the messy and brittle of police Wu who just experienced lovelorn.

 (shaky motion)

Furthermore, two stories have intersections by the shared place, so the two irrelative plots are connected by the same space. The first one is the convenience store. Police Wu came to the store to buy the canned pineapple for discounting the days of waiting for the ex-girlfriend. And 663 received the air ticket given by Fei there and sitting in the store lonely to read it. The convenience store is like a space for releasing the painful emotion caused by love.

 (convenience store)

Moreover, the fast-food store is the transition point of the two stories. Police Wu always went there to wait for his ex-girlfriend, and he met Fei at the end of the first story. After 6 hours, Fei met 663 in the fast-food store and fell in love with him. In addition, the California Bar seems the symbol of the start of love. Police Wu first met the blonde woman formally and fell in love with her in the bar; 663 dated Fei for the first time there. The bar’s vibe is fascinating, which can be an excellent catalyst for emotion. Therefore, the film uses space as the clue to connect the two stories and shows the same topic of fragile love in the modern city.

(fast-food store)

 (California Bar)