Space and Contrast in Chungking Express and A City of Sadness

Wong Kar Wai’s Chungking Express and Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A City of Sadness are two films which employ different types of space to adjust the pacing and motion of characters. Chungking Express is set in 1990s Hong Kong while A City of Sadness takes place in a small settlement near the Taiwanese countryside in the 1940s. Through differences in camera work, the involvement of multiple storytelling elements, and the ordering of character development, Chungking Express portrays a palimpsestic and fragmented urban space while A City of Sadness creates a cohesive and slow-moving space.

The location of the camera and the type of motion used for shots contributes to the type of space that is portrayed in both films. The urban setting of Chungking Express plays an important role in adjusting the type of shot to be limited to medium and extreme close up shots, since there is no uninterrupted line of sight from further away for the camera to use. In contrast, A City of Sadness has very few extreme close up shots, instead opting to stick with an alternation of medium close up shots incorporating multiple characters and long shots (Nornes and Yeh). This is possible due to the constant changes in setting from the Little Shanghai to nearby fields and mountains. As a result of these differences, the characters of Chungking Express appear to dominate the space, adding their own layer to the visual and auditory components. On the other hand, the characters of A City of Sadness are either dominated by their space or sharing the control with other characters, which Yeh argues is a reflection of the communalism found in traditionally Confucian societies. The limited field of view gained by the close up shots limits the understanding of the space as a whole, leading to a fragmentation of the mental image of the viewer in the former. The latter allows for a much more in depth understanding not only of the few spaces portrayed in the film but also an understanding of the relationships that are developed between the spaces. Slowness is a direct result of the wide field of view of the shots, which gives the actors enough room to maneuver through the scene without interacting physically with their space at all.

Camera motion is another aspect of cinematography that contributes to the nature of the two spaces. From the opening sequence of Chungking Express, we see that the camera is almost constantly moving, relative to the characters’ momentum. The shot reverse shot paradigm is modified to become a camera following the direction of the motion and then instantaneously jump cutting to the other side with the momentum being maintained. A prominent example is in the opening scene when He Qiwu is running and turns a corner [1], leading the camera to be placed along the outside of the turn, before once again following him [2]. This effectively changes the direction of motion seen by the viewer, and results in a fragmented understanding of the urban space, due to how little time is spent developing each individual shot. On the other hand, A City of Sadness typically uses static shots, often through a doorway or entrance, to clarify relationships between characters and their space. This technique creates a much greater degree of visual cohesion and closely ties the space to the characters.

Editing techniques are employed in vastly different ways across the two films as a result of the degree of autonomy to which the directors retained over the course of production. Director Wong Kar Wai is known for his signature step printing and slow motion shots (Abbas 56). Naturally, step printing reduces the total information about the setting available at a given time, both because of the increased blur that comes from a reduced shutter speed as well as the missing information between the duplicated frames. The series of snapshots that make it into the film end up conveying a fragmented picture of the set, which is in itself originating from Wong Kar Wai’s personal and subset experiences of Hong Kong. In contrast to the blur and speed perceived due to step printing, many of the slow motion shots do the opposite and provide as much information as possible about the built environment. For example, in the scene where Cop 663 and Faye are staring at each other while drinking coffee [3], time appears to slow down for only them and their space within the midnight express, as the rest of the movement in the larger space of the city remains constant. One could argue that this is Wong Kar Wai’s way of bringing back a more cohesive space, using the contrast with the previous techniques to make the transition more noticeable. However, I contend that the midnight express doesn’t actually represent the urban space, and serves as more of a refuge from the tight shots and angles that characterize the earlier depictions of the area around Chungking mansions. In fact, the scene that this occurs again at in the California bar starts to blur out the moving pieces of the space. Instead, with all its medium close up shots reminiscent of the scenes from the other film, it deemphasizes loneliness associated with the rest of the city and opens up multiple depths of field at different locations (the cop standing in front of the counter, the worker behind the counter, and the chefs further behind). This doesn’t make the space any less fragmented, but contributes to its palimpsestic nature.

On the other hand, A City of Sadness takes a vastly different approach to editing. Hou Hsiao Hsien explicitly declares his preferences. In a commentary, he states: “I renounced fragmentary editing in favor of a sweeping style of montage, cutting not for the flow of the rhythm, but to capture the atmosphere and ‘feel’ of the shot and smooth transitions between the shots” (Nornes and Yeh). Indeed, many of the long takes wait for the characters to travel a great deal of distance before panning. This means that the space remains static relative to the camera for much of the film, and the small amount of panning mentioned provides as cohesive and integrated a space as possible.

The motion of people in and out of the frame and its direction also influence the perception of space in Chungking Express. Many of the lines present in the smuggling scene with the Indians in the open area and the escalator at Kai Tak [4] create the illusion that there are many different types of people converging and diverging (Abbas 57). This type of linear mapping (motion simultaneously into the screen and horizontally) contributes to the perception of a palimpsestic space and directly adds variation into the shot distance which fragments all the different planes.

The speed at which characters move doesn’t always change the surroundings, but since space is also dependent on viewer perception, the pacing of a film can often affect how a viewer understands the different spaces. An important aspect of Wen-ching’s communication in A City of Sadness is that it occurs almost entirely through writing [5]. As compared to his other brothers, who tend to speak quickly relative to their neighbors, Wen-ching takes his time writing out everything he has to say, while also bringing the other members of the conversation into the same process. This occurs even in very urgent scenarios throughout the film. Often, this borders on excessive pauses, but it also allows for time to examine and refocus attention on the space, even given the medium close up distance. As a result, the actions occurring outside of the conversation in the space appear to be slower, such as the interactions between other guests in the background at the dinner table.

In context, the non diegetic narration of Chungking Express creates the opposite result. Instead of slowing down the space, the narration trivializes it by purporting to offer a better interpretation than one that can be given visually through the space. In doing so, it further fragments the viewer’s ability to see the setting as a whole and focuses the viewer on a specific subset of each frame. For example, He Qiwu talking about his journey to find pineapples often precedes a shot of pineapples within a crowded store, but in doing so, this obscures the rest of the scene. Narration only sometimes advances the plot here, instead opting to provide details and establish a delayed response, whereas narration is almost entirely the source of the plot in the other film.

The space in Chungking Express is also the setting for many interactions that lead to the palimpsestic space discussed earlier. This is done through a careful interspersion of minor cameos of characters from a different vignette to craft the believability of such an urban space that exists on its own and not merely as a canvas for the main characters to interact with. For example, Faye is seen purchasing a stuffed tiger and the stewardess is shown during a brief moment in the first vignette, which matches up with how the events are narrated to be simultaneous. These are all done using oblique shots (Abbas 55) and add a temporal element to the space, with a delay in revelation to the viewer of a simultaneous event, contributing to the palimpsestic space. Even the tradeoff of the two police officers between the two vignettes contributes to this sense of multiple layers and stories.

One could possibly argue that the differences in space don’t have as much to do with the individual directors’ choices, but just the characteristics of the sets that were chosen to film in. For example, Chungking mansions naturally has a fragmented arrangement due to the diversity of small shops and operations in its structure. However, this assertion requires a comparison between controls that maintain a similar setting and mise-en-scene, but reflect different approaches in other aspects. In A City of Sadness, this opportunity occurs in the shot looking down the hill in the center of the town, which is the setting for many of the slow and easily-understood long takes towards the beginning of the film [6]. In Chungking Express, He Qiwu running in the baseball field creates a slightly more sparsely occupied space [7].

The palimpsestic nature of the space in Chungking Express is made more evident in the pop music montages, such as when Faye cleans Cop 663’s apartment to the music of California Dreamin’ [8]. From the perspective of an audience from Hong Kong, these musical interludes follow a KTV aesthetic (Hu 423), which is a clear indication to invite audience participation much like in a karaoke bar. Now, the audience is given a role in defining the space within Cop 663’s apartment through the interactivity associated with the medium, and this occurs twice, with the Cantonese cover of Dreams and California Dreamin’.

We see that the urban space of Chungking Express becomes palimpsestic through layers of urban environment, characters switching with each other, the viewer interaction during the karaoke scenes, and narration during action. On the other hand, a single usage of deep space with the same set of characters and isolated narration creates an immediately cohesive space.

Works Cited

Abbas, Ackbar. Hong Kong: Culture and the Politics of Disappearance. First edition ed. University of Minnesota Press, 1997. Project MUSE muse.jhu.edu/book/31903.

Hu, Brian. “The KTV Aesthetic: Popular Music Culture and Contemporary Hong Kong Cinema.” Screen, vol. 47, no. 4, 1 Jan. 2006, pp. 407–424, academic.oup.com/screen/article-abstract/47/4/407/1621580, https://doi.org/10.1093/screen/hjl032. Accessed 11 Mar. 2023.

Nornes, Abé Mark, and Emilie Yueh-yu Yeh. Staging Memories: Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s a City of Sadness. 2014, https://doi.org/10.3998/maize.13469763.0001.001.