Wong Kar-wai’s 1994 film Chungking Express is in many ways his most evocative masterpiece. A two-part tale of possible romances set in the thriving back alleys of Chungking Mansions, it paints love and lust as an insatiable medley, with frenetic camerawork, neon lights and dynamic editing forming an intoxicating mix at the heart of a multicultural melting pot.
It was an international breakthrough for Wong, screening at festivals and theatres in Europe, Australia, Asia and South America before arriving in the US via Quentin Tarantino and his Rolling Thunder Pictures label. But this scintillating vision of contemporary Hong Kong, lapped up by arthouse fanatics across the globe, was not merely a one-way crossover phenomenon.
A new seven-disc Wong Kar-wai box set released by Criterion describes Chungking Express as a ‘jukebox movie’, a film whose very identity is quantified by the vibrancy of its multinational soundtrack. Cocteau Twins’ Simon Raymonde calls it a “cross-pollination of cultures and music”; in the words of The Cranberries’ Noel Hogan, it’s the kind of movie that makes you go, “What’s that song? Who’s this band?” But Chungking Express isn’t just a great soundtrack movie – it was the genesis of numerous inroads for the pop artists around it, too.
Reggae singer Dennis Brown clashes with Dinah Washington’s smoky jazz hit ‘What A Diff’rence a Day Makes’, while the Mamas and the Papas’ sunshine pop classic ‘California Dreamin’ plays out endlessly in a fast food joint that seems to have plucked its menu from Phileas Fogg’s back pocket. It’s here that Faye Wong’s hip hostess becomes the film’s most captivating fixation, for audiences and leading man Tony Leung alike.
The jangling guitars of ‘Dreams’ by Irish alt-rock band The Cranberries play out several times across the film’s second narrative (as well as over the end credits). A hazy, wistful ballad about romantic opportunity and change, it seems to fully embody the spirit and character of the film. If it weren’t for the vocals, you’d be forgiven for thinking it was the original: Faye Wong’s rendition is, in fact, the only song on the soundtrack sung in Cantonese. As such, it is the track most conducive to the film’s vivid setting in pre-1997 Hong Kong: a Western import given a Chinese-language makeover.
If Faye Wong was already something of a pop star prior to 1994, Chungking Express launched her to new heights. But it wasn’t until the album ‘Random Thoughts’ – released just a few months before the film – that she truly established her identity. And it was her shimmering cover of ‘Dreams’ that cemented her move into alternative rock, elevating her above the traditional Canto-pop ballads playing on the radio. The song was such a sensation that she ended up re-recording it – this time in Mandarin – for follow-up record ‘Sky’.
At the end of the decade Faye Wong was named in the Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling female Cantonese pop artist of all time. She became the first Chinese singer to appear on the cover of Time magazine, and, in 2009, commanded the highest appearance fee for any singer on the China mainland at $1 million per show.
Yet Faye Wong wasn’t the only party to benefit from the success of Chungking Express. By 1996, The Cranberries had become household names in Hong Kong. The success of ‘Dreams’ thrust the Irish band into the cultural mainstream in a manner that was highly unusual at the time for a Western artist.
“I don’t ever remember hearing of anyone else getting their song covered and released in the way that ‘Dreams’ was down there,” says lead guitarist Hogan. “The story we’d been told was that Faye’s version of ‘Dreams’ became the favourite song of the Chinese Prime Minister’s wife. When she’d go places, they’d play the song – and it made it a hit.” Hogan laughs as he recalls the rumours the band heard about the track’s success – another being that the Chinese Olympic team had used it as their team song for a period. “It could have been fiction for all I know, but you’d hope that somewhere in there is a bit of truth.”
