What are the key details behind Chungking Express's production?

Wong Kar-wai made Chungking Express during a two-month break from the editing of his wuxia film Ashes of Time. He said "While I had nothing to do, I decided to make Chungking Express following my instincts,"[12] and that "After the very heavy stuff, heavily emphasized in Ashes of Time, I wanted to make a very light, contemporary movie, but where the characters had the same problems." Originally, Wong envisioned the stories as similar but with contrasting settings: one in Hong Kong Island in daylight, and the other in Kowloon at night. He felt that "despite the difference, they are the same stories": one was about encountering love in the tight city, the other was about the keeping love without physical connection.[12][10]

The screenplay was not finished by the time filming began; Wong finished it when filming paused over New Year. He wrote the second story in a single day.[12] He developed a third story, about a love-sick hitman, but as he felt it would make Chungking Express overlong, he produced it as a separate film, Fallen Angels (1995).

Wong wanted to film in Tsim Sha Tsui, since he grew up in the area and felt a strong connection to it. He described it as "an area where the Chinese literally brush shoulders with westerners, and is uniquely Hong Kong." He was drawn to Chungking Mansion for its many lodgings, mix of cultures, and its significance as a crime hotspot; he felt that, as a "mass-populated and hyperactive place", it worked as a metaphor for Hong Kong itself.[12]

The director once talked about his inspiration by the works of Haruki Murakami.[citation needed] As an example, the original title of the film is "重慶森林", while the Chinese title of Haruki Murakami's "Norwegian Wood" (1987) is "挪威的森林".

The second story was shot in Central, including Lan Kwai Fong, near a popular fast food shop called Midnight Express.[13] "In this area, there are a lot of bars, a lot of foreign executives would hang out there after work," Wong remembers. The fast food shop is forever immortalized as the spot where Tony Leung and Faye Wong's characters met and became attracted to one another. Wong was also drawn to "the escalator from Central to the mid-levels. That interests me because no one has made a movie there. When we were scouting for locations we found the light there entirely appropriate."[12] The apartment of Tony Leung's character was cinematographer Christopher Doyle's apartment at the time of filming.[14]

Wong narrates the story in a fragmented structure and connects the fragments through monologues. By looking at the pictures created by Wong, the emotions and themes central to the story become clear.[15]
During a two-month break from filming "Ashes of Time," Wong Kar-wai began writing "Chungking Express." He finished the screenplay while shooting the film, and the second story was written in a day. The film was shot in Tsim Sha Tsui, as Wong grew up there, in addition to Central, the location that features the famous Midnight Express fast food shop. Wong provides fragmented narration throughout the film, connecting the fragments through monologue, while also conveying the emotions and themes in the story.