How Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 ‘quickie’ film Chungking Express made Faye Wong a movie star – and Chungking Mansions a cultural destination

Chungking Express, filmed in 6 weeks in 1994, was Wong’s celebration of the Hong Kong zeitgeist, he once said. It features the screen debut of singer Faye Wong

Brigitte Lin was meant to be the star of the show, but Wong made much the bigger impression, and Tony Leung Chiu-wai won a best actor award for his role

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Faye Wong in a still from “Chungking Express”, the film which made the singer and debutante actress a movie star. Shot in six weeks, Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 film has an improvisatory feel.

Published: 4:15am, 30 Apr 2023

Hong Kong film critics love to discuss Days of Being Wild and foreign viewers gush over the sensual In the Mood for Love. But the dizzying and frantic Chungking Express, released in 1994, is arguably the favourite Wong Kar-wai film of Hong Kong film fans.

The low-key, low-budget movie captures the energy and excitement of Hong Kong in the early 1990s. It was a time when anything seemed possible with hard work, and life moved so quickly there was scant time to think beyond everyday needs.

When Chungking Express was released, it simply reflected the time it was set in. Most of the local attention focused on Cantopop queen Faye Wong’s hyperactive performance as a zany youngster with an unusual approach to romance. But viewed today, it’s hard to watch it without feeling pangs of nostalgia for less gruelling times.

Wong did intend the film to be a kind of celebration of Hong Kong life in the early 1990s, the director said in an interview with Filmmaker Magazine.

This is the area that I know. I shot in the area that I grew up

Wong Kar-wai on the locations for Chungking Express

“To me, Chungking Express is like the night and day of Hong Kong.

“Some people say ‘the film is about this or that character,’ but I say, ‘no, the film is about Hong Kong. It’s my love letter to Hong Kong’.”