Discussion Essay on Chinese Films

Posted: August 27th, 2021

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Discussion Essay on Chinese Films

A Chinese Ghost Story and In the Mood for Love

In the film A Chinese Ghost Story by Yan Gaan Do, the director gives a positive impression of the used accessory’s visual effects while featuring a lack of the magical feeling of nostalgia in its theme. In contrast, in the film In the Mood for Love by Wong Kar-Wai, the director successfully manages to create an atmosphere of nostalgia that resonates well with the audience’s expectations. However, as the movie creates an illusion of love permanency, the derived impression is intuitively sensational. Therefore, A Chinese Ghost Story and In the Mood for Love differ completely in achieving nostalgia among their audiences.

            The most exciting and provocative part of the film In the Mood for Love is a cultural intersection where Chow Mo-wan tells a friend how the people in the past kept secrets by drilling holes on trees and covering them with mud. It is provocative how Ah Ping shows her intention to make love with her friend, Mo-wan, as a sign of keeping secrets.

            Assessment of characters via analysis of their interactions helps understand their motives. In the reading, Andrew Yue records the meeting point of two neighbors intersected by the themes of the sanctity of marriage and restraint of affair (124). As they spend time together, they realize that love seems to draw them closer to each other. The story is pegged on the intersection of three regions while providing historic parallelism on how two diverse sets of generational eras used to keep secrets. Consequently, Yue offers a clear comprehension of the film In the Mood for Love and the way societies have misconceived love in extra-marital affairs. For example, a party in a married couple would feel inclined to fall in love with another person in case he or she experiences a feeling of being cheated on by a lover (Yue 126). The perceived love arrangement is subjective on coincidences rather than objective on wish and desire. While reading Love in Ruins by Olivia Khoo, one understands that the film In the Mood for Love is coincidentally subjective in the sense that it fails to meet the intended objective (259). Love cannot involve qualities of intersection and coincidence even though it might appear so. Therefore, love usually results from a desire, wish, or frustration to know more than a gaze of the eye. The love featured in the In the Mood for Love cannot seem coincidental since the healthy stage-managed spouses of the characters are not seen but rather choreographed to bring an intersection.

Farewell China and Chungking Express

The film Farewell China by Clara Law conveys an impression of universality that resonates appropriately with the audience on how an actual love story seems profoundly moving. The story’s meaningful truths are more culturally and personally specific, especially by a succinct illustration of the family amidst a crisis. In contrast, director Wong Kar-Wai creates a lasting poetic impression in Chungking Express and captivates the audiences with its softly arousing kinetic effects that embellish via its tale of romance. Whereas the film Farewell China offers a perception of the changing landscape of Chinese cultures and styles due to the need to merge with the American trends, Chungking Express differs slightly  and signifies the shift in one’s routines after a relationship breakup. Both films imply parting ways with previously held onto ties.

            The most exciting scenes in the film Chungking Express entail how the passive observation of Faye Wong, an employee at the Midnight food express, shifts to curiosity. She develops mad interests in the breakup affairs of the two cops who frequently visit the food mart. Thus, the provocative aspect of this scene is a parallel ground of the same situation that haunts two police officers, compels Wong to have a turning point in life. At first, she was interested in underworld revenge, but then her attention shifts to love.

            The reading on Chungking Express by David Desser underscores how the popularity of film director Wong Kar-Wai has reached transnational borders, especially in Hollywood. The director was formerly unknown to many international audiences. However, his production that focused majorly on the Chinese culture has earned him a high credit of reputation due to the existence of an artisanal style of filmmaking (Desser 320). Besides, the reading by Yiman Wang illustrates how the Chinese films have reconfigured their artisanal style to fit in the international media capitals. Wang’s discussions revolve around the features that make Chinese films more Chinese in style and art. Moreover, he offers reasons that make these films gain international exhibition and reception (Wang 164). Therefore, these two readings positively bear on the film Chungking Express since it offers a series of guidelines on how a production director would make their films attain international exhibition in the United States. The readings stress the need to re-recognizing the Chinese film industry towards artisanal filmmaking features. Consequently, these features cause Chinese movies to gain broad, foreign audiences.

Works Cited

A Chinese Ghost Story. Directed by Ching Siu-tung, Golden Suns Film, 1987. 

Chungking Express. Directed by Wong Kar-wai, 1994.

Desser, David. “Chungking Express, Tarantino, and the Making of a Reputation.” A Companion to Wong Kar-Wai, pp. 319-44.

Farewell China. Directed by Lulu Wang, Golden Suns Film, 1990.

In the Mood for Love. Directed by Wong Kar-wai, 2000.

Khoo, Olivia. “Love in Ruins: Spectral Bodies in Wong Kar-wai’s In the Mood for Love.”Embodied Modernities, pp. 235-52.

Wang, Yiman. “Made in China, Sold in the United States, and Vice Versa – Transnational ‘Chinese’ Cinema between Media Capitals.” Journal of Chinese Cinemas, vol. 3, no. 2, 2009, pp. 163-76.

Yue, Andrey. “In the Mood for Love: Intersections of Hong Kong Modernity.” China Films in Focus II, pp. 121-26.