Chungking Mansions then and now.
Two years ago, Frances Cheong, a lecturer on genome sciences at the University of Washington, showed me two photos of Chungking Mansions, a Hong Kong high-rise featured in Wong Kar-Wai’s 1994 classic Chungking Express. One photo was taken in 2007 and the other in 2012. In the first image, the building looks like it did in the movie: a hive of human activity, timeworn, time-warm—a place managed by property owners who evidently wanted to keep the costs of maintenance to a minimum. In the next image, the building is clean and shiny, like new. Cheong explained to me that the appearance of the place, which is very busy and packed with a variety of small businesses, was improved because the movie made it a popular tourist destination…
