It was brief as seen in Mood of Love when Mr Sheng slowly forget about his affair with his neighbour.
It leads to the most romantic line after Cop 233 ate lots of nearly expired canned pineapples-“If memories could be canned, would they also have expiry dates? If so, I hope they last for centuries.” He wanted that moment to last but he could not. Perhaps he tried to convey that we cannot ease the pain after we break with that particular person.
In Kar-Wai’s context,it means the bitterness to me-I have very bad experiences with pineapples because of its sharp aftertaste. So I did a little bit of research in particular the Chinese culture,interestingly the Chinese word for Pineapple means luck and wealth because of the pun ( Link). Secondly I just love the idea of canned pineapples in Takeshi’s story (Cop 233),I wonder what is the meaning behind the pineapples. I watched a supplement of the film and the cinematography was done guerrilla style! So it really added to the mood of the film as they could not catch with one another. You also seen in its cinematography (which is quite cool) that the moving figures are blurred while the main character was in focus. It actually really works as it adds the atmosphere of people rushing that they could not pause the time to talk with one another. Interestingly enough Kar-Wai used this location called “Chungking Mansions” which was a melting pot of cultures like N.Y Soho or my country itself. So basically in a nutshell I would call it a anthological tale of two stories that is related to miscommunication or the inability to communicate in a fast-paced world. This to me,I could see Wong Kar Wai’s genius.
I was amazed by his genius and then all of the sudden Chungking Express just simply blow my mind away. I said it was the Asian version of David Lean’s Brief Encounter,with an illicit affair in the 60’s. Well I thought that Wong Kar Wai was pretty awesome when I watched in The Mood of Love.