Chungking Express

publish Saw this movie 2026-05-15 at the Roxie. Movies I’ve seen

TLDR I liked it!

Notes dump

• I enjoyed this a lot, mainly because it felt fresh.
  • It’s a series of 2 character vignettes centered around a sandwich store in Hong Kong.
  • It did this weird thing where it sent my brain into total overdrive for nearly the entire 1.5h, trying to pick out symbolism and meaning from recurring themes, like on expiration dates on canned food, the shirt worn by a recurring character, the presence of the exactly identical {ring, roller bag, …} between scenes
    • It’s especially bizarre that many of these identical props genuinely don’t seem to have meaning. I’d have thought they all do. But I couldn’t pick any out like half the time
      • Which felt… pleasurable? I think? I enjoyed being adrift, only catching the meaning about half the time
      • But on occasion I wondered if the props department ran out of money to fund multiple props
      • I may also simply be dumb
    • It was neat/strange how these recurring themes meant a lot within their self-contained stories (e.g. canned food with an expiration date illustrating a broken heart and a broken contract) — yet showed up in the other story meaning something completely different (e.g. the canned food symbolizing the healing of a broken heart).
      • Similar thing going on with the flight attendant’s clothing
  • Anyways I loved the overarching theme in all the main 4 characters, placing them into one of 2 categories:
    • In flight from themselves, always moving, unable to sit still, seeking change even to the point of self sabotage
    • Unable to move on, ruminating on the past to the point of self sabotage
    • ^ and it’s all pretty nuanced. I felt the characters were pretty developed despite the short screen time.
    • ESPECIALLY in the ending sequence (spoilers), where the pixie girl returns from California with the exact response I’d expect from that character: “it was alright; nothing special”. Like YESS that’s exactly the type of person she is. And how curious/symbolic that she’s returned home! She’s unable to sit still…
      • And I love the ambiguity that, since these 2 characters are going to likely end up together, one of them is going to need to budge. Either the cop needs to pack his bags and change his living situation, or the pixie girl needs to take a breather and get comfortable staying in HK for a while.
  • TBH I wish I could write more but this was weirdly more of a feels-y film than one I can analyze. I’ll leave it at this.
  • Big fan though.
• Also I felt very invested in the characters
• Plus the cinematography was very nice. It felt almost claustrophobic at times; idk if that was intentional.
  • Hot take here but I did not particularly enjoy the low framerate smear shots in the first story. Was a bit of a headache to watch (literally)