Music And Wong Kar Wai
...miss. There was a time when Hong Kong films would always be at the top of the domestic box office. Studio heads were raking in cash left, right and centre, and like any good thing, it didn’t last. Cinema in Hong Kong became commodified, constantly releasing the same thing over and over again, relying on star power and tacky marketing rather than quality writing, acting and directing to bring in an audience. Wong Kar Wai, however, stands tall above the rest, a diamond in the rough. One thing that really bothers me about Hong Kong cinema is the almost careless use of music in a large majority of the films, in particular, dramas, so much so that many movies seem like feature length music videos. While the same comparison has been drawn about Wong’s films in the past, there are innate differences, which I hope to discuss in this paper. I will be discussing Wong Kar Wai’s 1994 film, Chungking Express, focussing on Wong’s use of music and how it acts as a commentary on the themes of the film, such as love, loneliness, and urban isolation. I will be exploring how Wong’s choice of music, and the way in which he uses it, makes Chungking Express such an amazing and unique film.
Wong’s film can be said to have what’s known as universal appeal, and this has a lot to do with his use of music. Collaborating with the likes of Frankie Chan and Roel A. Garcia, Wong Kar Wai has incorporated a diverse range of Asian and Non-Asian musical cultures into his films. Across his films, the likes of Ernersto Lecuona, Los Indios Tabajaras, Xavia Cugat, the Mamas and the Papas, Massive Attack, the Flying Pickets, Marianne Faithfull, Astor Piazolla, Caetano Veloso, and the Three Amigos, and Ennio Morricone supply their works to what is often referred to as Wong’s ‘global jukebox’ (Stringer 2002). In Chungking Express, the multicultural musical fare is in full swing. From the...
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