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  • Walter's Blog.
  • Home
  • Introduction
  • About Walter
    • 1980 Joining Up - Grafton Street >
      • Arrival and First Impressions
      • First Week
      • Training
      • Passing Out
    • Yaumati Cowboy >
      • Getting on the Streets
      • Tempo of the City
      • Jumpers, pill poppers and the indoor BBQ
      • Into a Minefield.
    • Why Tango in Paris, when you can Foxtrot in Kowloon? >
      • Baptism By Fire
      • Kai Tak with Mrs Thatcher.
      • Home; The Boy Returns
  • 1984 - 1986
    • PTU Instructor & Getting Hitched
    • Having a go: SDU
    • Starting a Chernobyl family
    • EOD - Don't touch anything
    • Semen Stains and the rules
  • 1987 to 1992 - Should I Stay or Go?
    • Blue Lights, Sirens & Grenades
    • Drugs, Broken Kids & A Plane Crash
    • 600 Happy Meals Please!
    • Hong Kong's Best Insurance
    • Riding the Iron Horse
  • Crime in Hong Kong
    • Falling Crime Rates - Why?
    • Triads
  • History of Hong Kong Policing
    • History 1841 to 1941
    • History 1945 to 1967
    • Anatomy of the 50 cent Riot - 1966
    • The Fall of a Commissioner.
    • History 1967 to 1980
    • Three Wise Men from the West
    • The Blue Berets.
    • The African Korps and other tribes.
    • Getting About - Transport.
    • A Pub in every station
    • Bullshit Bingo & Meetings
    • Godber - The one who nearly got away.
    • Uncle Ho
  • Top 20 Films
    • 2001 - A Space Odyssey.
    • The Godfather.
    • Blade Runner
    • Kes
    • Star Wars
    • Aliens
    • Ferris Bueller's Day Off
    • The Life of Brian
    • Dr Strangelove.
    • Infernal Affairs
    • Bridge on the River Kwai.
    • This Is Spinal Tap.
    • Chung King Express
    • An Officer and a Gentleman
    • PTU
    • Contact
    • Saving Private Ryan
    • Family Guy Star Wars
    • Zulu
    • Hard Day's Night
  • The Long Read
    • How The Walls Come Down
    • War in Ukraine - the narrative and other stuff.
    • The Hidden Leader
    • The Big Game
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Chung King Express

Picture
This 1994 WONG Kar-wai movie has a resonance with me. I know all the locations, having worked in Tsim Sha Tsui as a young inspector. The quirky characters and oddball people are also familiar. The movie captures the claustrophobic atmosphere and cheek by jowl life of the Chung King Mansions. A building I’ve spent many hours in dealing with various incidents. 

Two stories unfold in the film, involving two police officers. Both are going through romantic breakups and dealing with it in their own way. Meanwhile, a drug deal is going down and a murder. These are incidental to the main themes,  as characters in a crowded city lead a lonely existence. The cast is superb especially Faye Wong as the wacky cafe worker, who falls for Tony Leung’s patrol cop 663. 

I suppose a subtext to the film is the approaching 1997 handover to Chinese rule. People were looking to move out of Hong Kong. Making a quick buck on a drug deal is one exit strategy. Faye Wong’s character escapes her boundaries taking off to see the world as an air-stewardess. Yet, in the final scene, she returns to the cafe to find cop 663 the new owner. You kinda hope these two settle down to a relationship, although that's uncertain.
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Chris Doyle did an awesome job with the cinematography.  The shots in the rain are his trademark. A catchy soundtrack compliments the mode and pace. What is surprising is the whole thing was filmed to fill time between other projects.  Yet the result supplants other WONG Kar-wai films. I suppose the spontaneity is hard to recapture. 


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