Chungking Express: Hong Kong’s Identity of Becoming

Chungking Express tells juxtaposing two stories of urban lives and modern loves. Both stories’ protagonists work as a cop; Both stories are about their struggle to cope with the loss of their ex-girlfriend respectively. In this approach, the director Wang Kai Wai uses the mutability of the individual identity to indicate the uncertainty of Hong Kong identity. Hong Kong’s social-politics is frustrating through the city’s transition from colonialism to post-colonialism; Its cultural identity is disguised with the popularity of US culture in Hong Kong. Wang Kai Wai attempts to search for a definition of Hong Kong identity through Chungking Express. I argue that Wang conveys the framework that Hong Kong’s identity is constructed upon the conformity of its changing identity.

In Chungking Express, Hong Kong people’s lack of social contacts reflects their dissentient of a collective identity. The physical closeness in Hong Kong is represented through the visual representation of the crowded Chungking Mansion and Lan Kwai Fong, and the narration of the literal distance between two people. Though they share a physical space, people live in their disjointed subjective space. People follow their own routines and own paths with little interference from other people. Though Hong Kong people are physically close to each other, their social contacts are distant. The isolation is highlighted through the repetitive inner monologue. The voice-over encapsulates people in their own emotional world and does not welcome other people to explore their inner emotion. Besides their unwillingness to share emotions, they face difficulty in transmitting the emotion to others. Both Cop 233 and 633 fail to get comfort from other people after losing their lovers, as people solely concentrate on their own life. Thus, they relieve their sadness implicitly by either jogging or talking to their dolls. In the end, the emotional distance metaphorically and literally turns to a physical distance, when Faye goes to California, while Cop 633 stays at the California Bar in Hong Kong. Noticeably, Faye’s decision to go to California is motivated by Cop 633’s attempt to establish a romantic relationship with Faye when he asks Faye for a date. For Faye, starting a connection with people in Hong Kong is harder than leaving her connection with the city. Her escapist attitude of emotional connection highlights the difficulties of affectionate relations at personal level in Hong Kong. Though people live in the same city, they do not belong to a community and agree on a collective Hong Kong identity. Instead, they are passing by each other’s lives, as the beginning line says, “You brush past so many people every day, and some you may know nothing about.”

The refusal of an emotional connection for people in Hong Kong is rooted in the port mentality of Hong Kong people. The Chungking Mansion as the microcosm of Hong Kong society represents the diversity of ethnic groups in Hong Kong. Hong Kong residents are mostly refugees from different countries before 1990s. The language and cultural barrier make communication with people from other ethnic groups difficult. For instance, the worman in a wig cannot notice betrayal of her Indian gang because she does not understand the Hindi they speak; When Cop 233 tries to hook up with Lin, he has to switch among Chinese, Cantonese, and English due to the ambiguity of Lin’s cultural background. Besides the objective challenge to communicate, people hold subjective refusal to establish an emotional connection to the city and the people in the city. Hong Kong for them is a temporary port rather than a permanent destination. Traveling is a major theme in Chungking Express. People are constantly traveling or preparing to travel. Cop 633’s ex-girlfriend is an air attendance who only stop at Hong Kong for some rest; Faye always has the plan to travel to California, and finally, become an air attendance as well. With the port mentality, people refuse to align with a permanent Hong Kong identity, since it is a place they are destined to depart. To fill the hollow of the Hong Kong identity, people stick to their original cultural identity. For instance, Cop 233 shows his fluency in speaking Cantonese through conversation, but his monologue representing his consciousness though is Chinese with a Taiwan accent since he was born in Taiwan. In this light, Hong Kong lacks the power to convert a person’s identity and thus assimilate its residents. The sense of temporary is categorized by Abbas, A. as a floating identity of Hong Kong. Since an emotional connection is usually considered to be permanent, as the Cop 233’s beeper password says, “Love you for 1000 years.” Thus, people refuse to build a permanent connection in Hong Kong as they only consider Hong Kong as a city for transients.

For a long time, Hong Kong people took the absence of a Hong Kong identity for granted, but the last-minute search of a Hong Kong identity becomes an urgent call in the post-colonial Hong Kong. In 1984, with the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration returning Hong Kong to Chinese rule in 1997, Hong Kong has being enduring an identity confusion as it has to say goodbye to its western identity. The relationship between the unnamed drug dealer played by Brigitte Lin and the unnamed bar owner serves as an allegory of the relationship between Hong Kong and the Britain. Since Lin and the Indian woman both wear the blonde wig and we further see the scene of Indian woman making love with the white man, we can assure that Lin is the white man’s ex-lover. In addition, the secret talk between the Englishman and the Indian group behind the curtain shows that the Englishman plays a crucial role in the drug dealing. It is fair to assume that the Englishman was a business partner with Lin and is the ringleader to frame Lin. Lin might initially wear the blonde wig to conform to the white man’s racial expectation. However, as time goes on, the western identity represented by the wig has become part of her identity and hard to take off. Though her western identity is pretended, her affection to the Englishman is more true than fake, as the Englishman’s betrayal for her is described as a breakup of lovers. On the other hand, the Englishman solely believes he maintains a business relationship with Lin. They are friends in business, and enemies outside of the business. If we view the Englishman as a metaphor of the British Government, Hong Kong is on the verge of terminating an intimate business relationship with British as its sovereignty will be handed over to the Chinese government. However, the influence of western culture on Hong Kong is inevitable, and colonial history is not easy to be forgotten overnight. If Hong Kong people initially pretended a western identity to negotiate a space under the rule of the British Government, they realize that the western identity has become an inseparable part of Hong Kong identity. However, when Hong Kong will be no longer defined as a colony of Britain, searching for a Hong Kong identity independent from western culture becomes necessary. Lin’s killing of the Englishman and her forsaking of her blonde wig reflects the painful departure of the western identity and the start to look for a Hong Kong identity.

While Britain’s colonization impacts Hong Kong’s socio-political identity, the dominance of US cultural products in Hong Kong further questions Hong Kong’s cultural identity. US culture is omnipresent in Chungking Express with the frequent US songs and commercial products. Accordingly, Marchetti argues that Chungking Express and other Hong Kong films show the way that: “American goods move beyond the market to construct the individual.” With this notion, she suspects Hong Kong culture is just an extension of “American cultural imperialism”. Rather than a passive receptor of US culture, Hong Kong actively indigenizes the western cultural influence to construct its own cultural identity. For instance, the soundtrack “夢中人” by Wang Fei is an exercise of indigenization. While the song adapts from the Cranberries hit “Dreams”, it has become a Hong Kong pop classic. People may agree the song is an aspect of Hong Kong culture without realizing its western origin. Furthermore, it is questionable whether a cultural product has the power to influence people as a cultural product is subjective to interpret. For instance, Faye’s favor of California Dreamin’ does not correspond to her idolizing of American culture. Instead, she echoes the escapism idea of the song, which talks about the New Yorker’s dream to go to warm California. The California that Faye always wants to go to is an idealized place that allows her to escape the boring urban life rather than actual California since when she physically goes to California, she finds more disappointment than excitement. In this view, the popularity of California Dreamin’, or US cultural products in general, is due to the universal theme it explores rather than the US culture it represents. Furthermore, Faye’s interpretation of the song extends the meaning of the song. As Quintin points out, Faye’s dancing is so unforgettable that audience will naturally associate the song with Faye’s dance after watching the film. The intercultural impact is mutual rather than a one-way from the US to Hong Kong. In addition, if we consider Chungking Express as a Hong Kong cultural product, Wang Kar-Wai composes the film based on various cultural inspiration from French director Jean-Luc Godard, Japanese writer Haruki Murakami, and the Hollywood Film Noir genre. However, as his film gains international recognition, it in return influences various foreign filmmakers. In this light, the uniqueness of Hong Kong’s culture is due to its acceptance of the multiplicity of cultures. When Hong Kong doesn’t define its cultural identity arbitrarily, Hong Kong does not hold a biased view of any foreign culture. Therefore, Hong Kong creates a space where different cultures are respected, imported, merged and developed. Consequently, Hong Kong can produce and export its cultural products based on its multicultural sources. As the intercultural influences are inevitable, the impacts of foreign cultures construct rather than deconstruct Hong Kong’s cultural identity. Abbas defines the Hong Kong culture as a “culture of disappearance” and suggests the Hong Kong culture is not nonappearance, nonrecognition, but misrecognition. When Hong Kong does not realize it can have a culture, Hong Kong uses its disappearance of culture to deal with the disappearance. In other words, the uncertainty of an original Hong Kong cultural identity defines the hybridity of the Hong Kong culture.

Though we realize that people’s frustration to a Hong Kong identity forms the unconventional Hong Kong identity, the Hong Kong people are struggling to find their personal identity due to the commodification of people in a city celebrating the consumer culture. Modern Hong Kong is defined as a “throw-away society”, a city influenced by consumerism and known for overconsumption. In the film, people constantly consume foods, so the fast-food shop Midnight Express serves as a center of the people’s activity in this film. The desire for consumption is dramatized when we see Cop 233 eats chef salad constantly over the entire night with Lin. When people are consumers, they are also a product to be consumed. People are solely identified by their occupation. For instance, Cop 233 and Cop 633 are called by their professional titles, and their real names are hardly mentioned. For other people, they only care about the value a person can provide to their benefits. However, if a person’s identity is his or her social role, such an identity is not unique, as many people share the same occupation. The mutability of such an identity is represented through a couple of duplicated characters, such as the two cops. The two cops live separately in the two own stories. When the first story ends, Cop 233 never reappears and seems to disappear from the world. However, we can argue Cop 233’s story continues as the Cop 663’s story, as his identity is transited to the Cop 663. Nevertheless, saying the two cops are the same person is absurd. Thus, the replicated characters do not rationalize but underline the impossibility to define an identity only by its consumption value. In addition, such an identity is not constant. The comparison between the people and commercial products highlights the temporarily of the person’s functional value. Lin’s last day to find the Indian gang is marked by the expiration date of the Sardine Fish can. However, the expiration of a person’s consumption value is inevitable, as Cop 233 notices that “everything will expire”. When the pineapple can expire, they are thrown away by the salesman and even despised by the beggar. Though Lin is restlessly chasing the Indian gang, when she fails to get them back by May 1, she can no longer work as a drug smuggler and her identity is threatened In this view, the blonde wig not only symbolizes her western identity but also represents her identity as a drug smuggler. Her throwing-away of the wig thus also terminate her drug smuggler identity. Since a person’s vocation is not universal and permanent, the film displays the irony to identify a person by his or her consumption value.

If a person cannot be identified as a product for other people to consume, the film further elaborates the vanity to seek an identity in relation with other people. Wang claims people’s occupational identity is a “borrowed identity”, an identity assigned by other people for their convenience of consumption but not a definitive approach for a person to define oneself. On one hand, the cops are resistant to the commercial culture. Cop 233 thinks the pineapple cans expiring on May 1st marks the ending of his love, so he chooses only the pineapple that expires on that day to eat; Cop 663 views every object in his room as living things and conveys his emotion to those objects, so the room will cry, and the soap will get thin . Besides acknowledging the uniqueness of the replicated products, they also try to find permanency in the changing time. Since for them, love is an enteral promise, their desperate pursuit of a lover is their seek of personal identity. An identity as someone’s lover is consistent since for them love is an eternal promise. It is also unique if we assume a person can only have one lover. However, few Hong Kong people align with their idea. Their lovers conform to the changes, and they change lovers in the same way as they change their food options. Their loss of ex-girlfriends represents the failure to establish a permanent identity in relation with other people who agree on the temporality of modern life.

Since a person’s identity cannot be defined by his relation to the other people, Chungking Express suggests a person’s identity is formed through their experience and their inner reflection of the experience (?). Though the film always jumps to different scenes and different characters, the audience can combine a coherent story of each character from the fragments. We know Cop 233 and Cop 633 are different because they have different stories. Thus, the distinguish story of a person ensures the uniqueness of his or her identity. In addition, they are not like stones being pushed by the flow of river, but actively respond to the changes in the outside environment. The frequent inner monologue reflects their feeling and thought and shows that the characters are actively “engaging” in the story and shape their own story according to their free will. If the two cops start with the confusion of their identity, they more or less rediscover their identities by departing from their past, as Cop 233 leaves his ex-girlfriend and seeks a new one; Cop 633 leaves his old job as the cop and becomes the Midnight Express owner. Moreover, their subjective perception of time highlights their awareness of changes. Time moves in a different speed according to the emotion of the character. Time moves fast when Lin is urgent to escape the chasing of the Indian gang; Time moves slowly when Cop 633 is making love with his ex-girlfriend, as he wants to keep the sweet moment forever. In this light, they are not passively changed by the changes, but act according to their inner reflection of changes. As a person’s story never ends but consistently develops in every current minute, a person’s identity is not fixed at a past point, but constantly evolving. In the end, it might be surprising at the first glance that Cop 663 becomes the owner of Midnight Express and Faye becomes a flight attendant. However, their identities do not shift with their vocations, since director gives us hints of the rationale behind their changes, such as Cop 663 always yarns to go to California, and the Cop 663’s talk with the shop owner reveals the shop owner wants to devote to the Karaoke business. Thus, the story coherent with the cause-and-effect events secures the consistency of one’s identity. Viewing a personal identity as a continuous flow rather than a fixed shape increase the difficulty to name a person’s identity in several words and thus leads to the confusion of the identity when the speed of change becomes visible in the fast-paced modern urban world.

The notion of viewing identity as a changing process can be applied to analyze the Hong Kong identity. Though Hong Kong is having a time of dramatic change, this change does not challenge Hong Kong’s identity, since Hong Kong’s identity is not solely defined by its history, there is no dichotomy between past Hong Kong identity and current Hong Kong identity. On the contrary, the changing present consistently build up the Hong Kong identity on its past. Since the formation of Hong Kong identity is an ongoing process, I argue that Hong Kong’s identity is an identity of becoming.

In Chungking Express, Wang presents Hong Kong in various dimensions and explore Hong Kong’s identity in multiple facets. Firstly, by notifying the political tension of Hong Kong at the 1990s, we realize the western identity is not sufficient to define Hong Kong’s identity, and further an imposed regime lacks the power to convert Hong Kong identity; Viewing Hong Kong as a hybrid of different cultures, we claim the intercultural reference is inseparable from Hong Kong culture and the misrecognition of Hong Kong culture actually allows the intersection of various cultures in Hong Kong. Furthermore, in a modern metropolitan, the commercialism culture does not undermine the personal identity but offers a new framework to approach personal identity. The new concept of the identity underlines the power of presence in the formation of identity and thus allows us to reveal the consistency of Hong Kong culture.