Under the Spotlight: Exploring Faye Wong’s magic in ‘Chungking Express’
The Hong Kong icon Faye Wong is best known in Asia for her career as a singer and songwriter. Her debut album Shirley Wong arrived in 1989, and the turn of the following decade saw Wong establish herself as one of the most famous musicians in the Cantonese language, with an artistic outlook that fused the alternative with Chinese pop.
Around halfway through the 1990s, Wong showcased her talents to the Western world, though not as a musician but rather as an actor. She starred in her debut feature role in Wong Kar-wai’s legendary 1994 romantic crime comedy Chungking Express, proving that there were far more strings to her bow of talents than the world had initially realised.
Wong would go on to play for her namesake director a decade later in his 2004 romance 2046, but Chungking Express arguably remains her most iconic on-screen moment. The film is split into two halves, and the first sees a policeman fall for a blonde-wigged criminal woman after he is dumped by his girlfriend.
It’s the second half of the film (arguably the better half) that features Wong in her debut acting role. However, there are similarities with the first in the fact that another police officer (played by Tony Leung) again falls for a rather unconventional woman, Wong’s snack bar attendant, who also just so happens to be called Faye.
Wong’s performance is nothing short of extraordinary, epitomising the very essence of Wong’s romances. She’s spritely to a fault, although she is attentive in exhibiting the kind of shyness that’s often attributed to Asian women. Despite Faye’s clear, profound infatuation with the unnamed police officer, she doesn’t let on for a moment, even right up until the film’s conclusion.
And this very romantic mystery is a testament to Wong’s prowess as an actor. She’s able to play the quirky, ultra-cool, laidback young woman in front of Leung and the many inhabitants of Hong Kong, but is equally plausible in her behind-closed-doors moments of anxiety. Wong simply personifies everything that’s loveable in the kind of character she plays.
One of those most vital things when it comes to the brilliance of Chungking Express is Wong Kar-wai’s use of Western music, showing the colonial hangover of Hong Kong. We can never erase from our mind Faye Wong dancing along to The Mamas and the Papas’ ‘California Dreamin’’ in the snack bar and in the police officer’s apartment, forever burned into our retina.
And we ought not to forget the beautiful cover of The Cranberries’ ‘Dreams’, sung by no other than Wong herself. After all, Wong Kar-wai had one of the most talented Cantonese musicians at his disposal, so it’s only right she contributed to the soundtrack, too, and the result is nothing short of mesmerising.
The use of both of those tracks suggests that the very nature and act of dreaming are essential to the film itself. Not only does Wong Kar-wai deliver a dreamlike narrative of gorgeous romance, summoning up echoes of nostalgia in great force when viewed today, but the dreams and aspirations of the characters, particularly Faye, are examined in good measure.
Faye longs for a better life, free from the drudgery of her uncle’s snack bar, and eventually heads for California before returning to find her beloved police officer still waiting for her. Wong more than delivers in her debut feature role and leaves an indelibly humorous and heart-breaking mark on the audience in the process. There are several iconic moments in Chungking Express, but perhaps Wong makes good on the finest of them.