Fragments of Memory and Invisible Connections: Neuroscience, Sensory Perception, and Network Narratives in Chungking Express by Wong Kar Wai

Some memories are best forgotten." This line from Wong Kar-wai’s Chungking Express (1994) is not merely a wistful remark but an entry point into a deep investigation of how the human mind processes time, memory, and emotions. Through its fragmented storytelling and hyperkinetic visual style, the film aligns seamlessly with neuroscientific theories on perception and cognition. At the same time, its narrative structure reflects the core principles of network narratives, a model that mirrors the interconnected yet non-linear functioning of the human brain.

By drawing from Bordwell’s rigorous exploration of cinematic form, as well as contemporary research on mirror neurons and embodied simulation, this essay aims to demonstrate how Chungking Express is an intricate cognitive experience that invites the viewer to feel, predict, and relive emotions as if they were their own. Additionally, Elsaesser and Hagener’s sensory approach to film theory provides crucial insights into how Wong Kar-wai's cinema engages perception beyond narrative logic, while Edgar Morin’s reflections on cinema as an imaginary extension of human identity help situate Chungking Express within a broader ontological framework.

Memory and Perception: The Brain’s Fluid Time

Neuroscience has long suggested that episodic memory is not a static archive but a dynamic reconstruction of past experiences. Chungking Express plays with this idea through characters who obsessively measure time and struggle to hold onto fleeting moments. Policeman 223 (Takeshi Kaneshiro) marks the expiration dates on canned pineapples as a metaphor for his lost love—an example of time-stamping, the cognitive mechanism by which the brain encodes memories with temporal context.

The film’s erratic editing and rapid jump cuts challenge the viewer’s perception of time, activating cognitive processes like change blindness and selective attention. Neuroscientific studies indicate that the brain naturally attempts to bridge discontinuities, meaning that Wong Kar-wai’s elliptical storytelling forces the viewer’s mind into an active state of reconstruction, just as we do when recalling incomplete memories.

Moreover, the film’s use of step printing, which blurs motion and distorts time, creates a dreamlike experience. This visual technique directly engages the amygdala, heightening emotional responses and inducing a state of affective immersion, akin to the way nostalgia triggers vivid but unreliable recollections.

Elsaesser and Hagener’s work on cinema and the senses further illuminates this idea. They argue that film is not only received cognitively but felt sensorially, engaging the body as well as the mind. In Chungking Express, the neon-lit streets, the texture of sweat-drenched shirts, and the rhythmic sound of a dripping faucet all contribute to a tactile, immersive experience. The spectator does not merely watch the film; they inhabit its atmospheric density, feeling the humidity of Hong Kong’s narrow alleys and the aching loneliness of its characters.

A toy shop scene from Chungking Express (1994), where Faye Wong’s playful energy contrasts with Brigitte Lin’s introspective solitude, symbolizing fleeting connections and unspoken emotions. This scene also serves as a subtle intersection between the film’s two narrative threads, highlighting the essence of network narratives as theorized by David Bordwell.

Network Narratives and Neural Connections

Although the two main stories in Chungking Express never fully intertwine, their presence within the same cinematic space establishes a hidden network of connections. Bordwell (2006) describes network narratives as films where multiple storylines intersect, creating patterns that mimic the structure of neural pathways. This framework allows viewers to perceive meaning in seemingly random events, much like the human brain forms associations between distant memories.

The small-world network theory, used in both neuroscience and sociology, explains how complex systemsin, including human relationships and neuronal activity, are structured through weak yet crucial links. In Chungking Express, spaces like Chungking Mansions and the Midnight Express food stall serve as neural hubs where characters’ paths cross in ways that may appear coincidental but ultimately shape the film’s emotional resonance.

The audience, deprived of a traditional omniscient perspective, must infer relationships between characters and events, engaging theory of mind, the cognitive ability to attribute mental states to others. This process is heightened in sequences featuring Faye (Faye Wong), where her non-verbal cues and micro-expressions invite the viewer to simulate her inner world, activating mirror neurons responsible for empathy and emotional recognition.

Morin’s reflections in Il cinema o l’uomo immaginario add a crucial dimension here. He views cinema as an extension of human imagination, a medium where the self and the image dissolve into one another. In Chungking Express, the characters themselves seem trapped within a liminal space between reality and fiction—Faye listens to California Dreamin’ on repeat, as if trying to reprogram her emotions through musical simulation, while Cop 663 projects his feelings onto inanimate objects. Morin’s idea that cinema serves as a mirror of dreams finds a perfect case study in Wong Kar-wai’s film, where characters exist within a hazy, neon-soaked reverie that is neither fully real nor entirely imagined.

The Neuroscience of Emotion: Mirror Neurons and Embodied Simulation

One of the most compelling ways Chungking Express engages the brain is through the theory of embodied simulation, proposed by Vittorio Gallese and closely tied to the discovery of mirror neurons; these neurons allow viewers to experience the emotions of characters on screen as if they were their own.

For example, when Policeman 663 (Tony Leung) interacts with objects left behind by his ex-girlfriend, speaking to them as if they were alive, the film invites an affective mirroring response. The audience does not just observe his loneliness; they feel it in their own neural pathways. This aligns with embodied simulation theory, which suggests that spectators internalize cinematic emotions through sensory-motor engagement rather than detached observation.

Music plays a critical role in reinforcing this process; the repetition of California Dreamin’ and Things in Life functions as an emotional anchor, triggering associative priming in the viewer’s brain. Neuroscience has demonstrated that repeated stimuli reinforce neural pathways, meaning that each recurrence of these songs deepens our emotional identification with the characters' longing and isolation.

Furthermore, Wong Kar-wai’s cinematography, with its compressed telephoto shots that isolate characters and wide-angle lenses that distort space and recreates the perceptual distortions linked to anxiety, loneliness, and desire. The result is an immersive experience that mirrors the way emotions alter our own perception of reality.

Tony Leung and Faye Wong in a daytime café scene from Chungking Express (1994), capturing themes of longing and fleeting connections.

Cinema as a Simulation of the Mind

Far from being a conventional love story, Chungking Express operates as a cognitive and emotional experiment, placing the audience in an active role of memory reconstruction, pattern recognition, and affective immersion. Wong Kar-wai’s non-linear narrative, filtered visuals, and use of space all contribute to an experience that simulates the way the brain processes time, emotions, and social interactions.

Through Bordwell’s analytical lens, we can appreciate how the film’s network narrative structure transforms seemingly unrelated events into a cohesive cognitive experience. Meanwhile, the neuroscience of mirror neurons and embodied simulation reveals how the film does not merely tell a story—it transmits emotions directly into the viewer’s neural circuits.

Elsaesser and Hagener’s theories remind us that film is not simply a visual experience but a sensory immersion, while Morin’s reflections position cinema as an imaginary extension of human consciousness. In Chungking Express, these ideas converge: the film is at once an intricate neural network, a tactile dream, and a poetic meditation on time and memory.

Ultimately, Wong Kar-wai does not ask us to merely watch his film. He asks to become part of its fragmented yet deeply interconnected world.