The Wong Kar-wai film inspired by John Cassavetes: “There’s no rehearsal, no control”

Posted On August 12, 2024August 12, 2024

He may have been a trailblazer and pioneer in American independent cinema before becoming an icon and inspiration, but the influence of John Cassavetes on the moving image ended up being felt as far afield as Hong Kong when Wong Kar-wai looked to him when piecing together an instant classic.

Even though he was a successful actor in his own right, Cassavetes the performer and Cassavetes the filmmaker were two very different people. The latter rejected the industry’s staple traditions in favour of carving out his own niche in the ‘New Hollywood’ movement, which he funded partially through his on-camera pursuits.

Cassavetes would write, direct, produce, and regularly pay for his own productions, focusing on a looser, more improvisational, and actor-driven approach to the medium, with the majority of his finest directorial efforts carrying that signature sense of vérité. Kar-wai was a more stylish and vibrant auteur, but he knew where to turn when he was in need of recharging his creative energies.

After finding himself exhausted with the intricacies of wuxia epic Ashes of Time, the director used an unexpected two months of downtime during post-production to create something, in his own words, “to make myself comfortable about making films again.” The end result was Chungking Express, which went from conception to completion in just six weeks, not that it showed.

With a fragmented narrative, on-location shoot, and a more freewheeling aesthetic, the stories of two disillusioned and lovelorn police officers each falling for an enigmatic woman carried many similarities to the Cassavetes back catalogue, but the most overt was the wardrobe of Brigitte Lin’s mysterious blonde with both feet planted firmly in the dangerous world of drug-running.

However, by taking a dash of Cassavetes, a sprinkling of his muse, and a soupcon of Billy Wilder, an icon was born. “With the film, we started one week early with Bridgitte,” Kar-wai told Filmmaker Magazine. “Something like Sunset Boulevard. In her imagination, she’s playing Gloria, from the Cassavetes film Gloria, which is a Gena Rowlands character. So we spent two days having Brigitte playing this actress, this Sunset Boulevard version of her, and I thought, ‘Well, let’s go directly into this Gloria look.’”

The Gloria-inspired getup wasn’t the only Cassavetes-inspired aspect of Chungking Express, though, with Kar-wai relishing the freedom of improvisation. “There’s no rehearsal, no control,” he continued. “For her, this was a very fresh experience, something very exciting, and you can see it; she looks different, she plays different, her rhythm is different. So I would rather go for that, forget about that Sunset Boulevard idea.”

What followed was one of the finest films in a storied career, with Chungking Express revitalising Kar-wai’s love of cinema after he used what spare time he had to discover that going with the flow and aiming smaller was every bit as fulfilling – and even more acclaimed – than marshalling a large-scale shoot with a huge amount of moving pieces.

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