Slash
possibly 633? This character is in a
similar situation to Lulu/Mimi in Days of
Being Wild, with characters addressing him differently at different points
of the film, except he never even gets a name, just a number. Still, whoever he is (I’m gonna go with IMDb
and use 663,) he’s great and definitely deserving of his own write-up. Before we get started, here’s my A Little
TLC(w) addition to my Chungking Express review. “Recommend? In General
– Yes. It’s lovely and sweet, and
despite the hardcore angst of some of the characters, it’s probably Wong
Kar-wai’s most optimistic film. Tony
Leung Chiu-wai – Absolutely. Leung
is terrific as this lovelorn, inattentive cop, very charming” (a few Cop
663-related spoilers.)
The first
thing you notice about Cop 663 is that he’s set in his ways. We’re introduced to him at the midnight
express, where he buys the same takeout order for his girlfriend every time, it
never occurring to him that she might like something different. Even though he’s been dating a stewardess,
he’s not one for straying far from home, he frequents the same food stalls
every day, and his cupboards at home are filled with stacks of identical
cans. It’s not that he’s resistant to
change – when change does start
creeping into his life, it takes him a ridiculously long time to even notice –
more that he’s caught in his own inertia.
What he’s been doing works for him, so why try something new?
He’s very
even-keeled, deceptively so considering how melancholy he is when he’s at
home. When his girlfriend leaves him,
saying she “needs a change,” he quietly jokes that the midnight express owner
is to blame, having convinced him to switch up his takeout order and put the
idea of change into her head. But he
doesn’t get angry, and he doesn’t recoil at the thought of change for himself. Instead, he just quietly carries on. His same-old same-old routine might not have
worked out the way he’d hoped, but it’s all he has, and so he stays the
course. This extends to keeping his ex’s
uniform neatly ironed and occasionally pretending that she’s still in the
apartment, hiding to teasing him the way she used to. These moments don’t have the same air of
denial about them that Cop 223 does in the first half of the film. Whereas 223 is cheerfully/desperately trying
to convince himself it’s not over, Cop 663 has no such illusions. He knows she’s not coming back, but he takes
unhappy comfort in those memories of her, and sometimes, he allows himself to
pretend he believes there’s still something between them.
Not to
say that Cop 663 handles his heartbreak more healthily than Cop 223. 223 has all kinds of issues, and I can’t
imagine anyone needs to spend more than a few minutes with him before seeing
through his fake-happy façade, but while Cop 663 holds himself together a lot
better in front of others, he’s still got it bad. I love the gentle
montage of him going around his apartment “consoling” his soap, his dish towel,
and his stuffed animals. Cop 223 tries
to push his emotions away, but Cop 663 engages with his by projecting them onto
something else. In his eyes, his whole
apartment is crying, and even when Faye starts surreptiously brightening up the
place, he still finds ways to read moroseness into it.
Tony
Leung Chiu-wai, and the film itself, strikes a really great balance with this
character. The portrayal here is just
knowing enough to be lightly poking fun at 663’s continued mooning, and you
can’t help but smile at him chiding his bar of soap for letting itself “waste
away” in its depression. But at the same
time, Leung’s performance is so low-key and earnest that, even at his most
absurdly angsty, he’s never outright laughable.
There’s just the right mix of honest heartbreak and quiet humor here.
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