Wong Kar-Wai Research Papers - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Hong Kong’s “modern new wave” cinematic movement emerged during the late 1970s and early 1980s. According to Abbas (1997), there was a shift in the style and images of film, from the typical Kung-Fu action films, that were popular in USA,... more

Hong Kong’s “modern new wave” cinematic movement emerged during the late 1970s and early 1980s. According to Abbas (1997), there was a shift in the style and images of film, from the typical Kung-Fu action films, that were popular in USA, to a cinema that responds to a specific historical situation. In 1997, Hong Kong entered a phase of uncertainty after the handover of sovereignty from UK to China (Chan, 2004), which caused a lot of confusion and instability among citizens of Hong Kong. Though they were glad to be part of Mainland China, their motherland, still the future for them was vague and unclear due to the appearance of endless possibilities, for example there were fears of less freedom of expression, major changes in the lifestyle and negative effects on the economy (Chan, 2004). Thus, Hong Kong, being a state with no past, became situated within a state of constant motion (Usen, 2013), moving towards nothingness, “a place removed from time, striving for a collective history that will never achieve” (Usen, 2013). The new wave marks the beginning of defining what it is to live in Hong Kong and highlighting the nation as a spatial subject, rather than just a collection of physical aspects (Wypkema, 2005). Among the filmmakers who emerged at that time was the internationally acclaimed director Wong Kar-wai, whose efforts was to preserve Hong Kong’s identity from being lost (Usen, 2013). The aim in this article is to experience Hong Kong’s real life through one of Wong’s critically acclaimed films “Chungking Express (1994)”, where we are immersed in the middle of a chaotic, confusing and an unclear environmental setting, reflecting a certain social and political turning point that was about to hit the nation in a couple of years. Through the film’s fractures images, the characters and the physical settings, I tend to clarify and analyze Wong’s intention when he said in an interview “It’s a movie about Hong Kong. It reflects the way people felt at that time”.