Trivia for
Chung Hing sam lam (1994) More at IMDbPro »

• This film was shot, edited and released while Kar Wai Wong was on hiatus from the shooting of his epic Dung che sai duk (1994).
  
  
• The film was shot in 23 days.
  
  
• The title is an amalgamation of two "landmarks" in Hong Kong. 1) Chungking Mansions, a drug-filled, rundown hostel populated by Indians, Pakistanis and Nepalese. 2) Midnight Express, a Indian fastfood store in Lan Kwai Fong, a major bar district populated by foreign yuppies (Tony Leung vists California, a bar located directly across the street from it).
  
  
• Cop 663's apartment is in fact the apartment of Christopher Doyle.
  
  
• Originally, there was going to be three parts to the film. The third part instead became Wong Kar-Wai's "Fallen Angels" film.
  
  
• Although the film says it's "introducing" Faye Wong, her first film role was actually in "Beyond's Diary".
  
  
• Wong Kar-Wai modeled Brigitte Lin's character after Gena Rowlands in John Cassavetes's "Gloria", and actress Greta Garbo.
  
  
• The film's split structure came from the need to whip up the movie in short order.
  
  
• The script for arose within the two month period when production on Wong Kar-Wai's film Ashes of Time was slow and was interrupted for those two months. Wong Kar-Wai need a script to fulfill his contract for a second feature. Chungking Express is that second feature.
  
  
• Since Chungking Express was filmed in sequence or "like a road movie" as Wong Kar-Wai has said, Wong wrote each scene either the night before or on the morning on the day of filming.
  
  
• Kaneshiro Takeshi spoke four languages himself in this film. His narrations were all in Mandarin, most of his live lines are in heavily-accented Cantonese, he spoke Japanese when he called one of his ex-girlfriends, and had one line of English when he apprehended a suspect (he said "hands up!" to him). He used all 4 when he approached Bridgett Lin's character.
  
  

• SPOILER: The original ending involved Faye meeting Cop #633 at the airport and the two characters flying off to another country. However, when Wong couldn't agree terms for his ideal location in an airport, he decided to opt for an ambiguous ending.
  
  

Related Links