Chungking Express

Title Sequence

Cinema 4D, Redshift, After Effects

Awards

Young Ones ADC - Merit
Core Design Awards - Visual Communication (Student Notable)
Promax Awards - Best Use of Music & Title Sequence (Finalist)
The Motion Awards - Student Group Project (Nominee)

Chungking Express (1994) consists of two stories told in sequence, each about a lovesick Hong Kong policeman finding new love after failed relationships. In our sequence, we gathered their mundane yet meaningful objects in the Midnight Express, the snack shop that serves as the intersection of all the characters lives. We took inspiration from Wong's iconic aesthetic to craft an ethereal sequence that bites at fringes of but just barely eludes reality. First we examine these symbolic objects in the shop, and then they begin to float, signifying that in the world of Chungking Express, even the most humble of environments can be home to fantastical experiences for not only the characters in the film, but for us as an audience, about to escape from reality for just a couple hours.

Role

Design, 3D Rendering (Redshift), Concept Development, Storyboarding, Animation

Team

Portia Barrientos
Jessica Yelim Seo
Ella Sangeun Lee

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Studies

We faithfully recreated the snack shop from the film to serve as the landscape in which our sequence takes place.

To represent the characters and space thoughtfully, character studies were crafted that distilled each of them into the symbols that captured their essence.