Opinion | Is Chungking Mansions a trap for Wong Kar-wai movie fans?
China’s younger generation, in the wake of the Chungking Mansions rape, wonder if fans of Wong Kar-wai's cult movie are staying at the iconic building at the price of their own safety
Inspired by Wong Kar-wai’s award-winning film Chungking Express, a young journalist surnamed Han had booked herself a room at a hostel in Tsim Sha Tsui's Chungking Mansions out of what she later called “excessive curiosity”.
Han, who was visiting Hong Kong with two girlfriends from China's northern Tianjin last week, stayed only one night. She decided she had had enough “adventure” and moved out first thing on Saturday morning to a pricier hotel on Hong Kong Island.
The hostel they stayed in is run by an old Shanghainese couple, she said. It was clean and well-managed overall. But the three of them were alarmed after a man followed them into an elevator as they returned to their room on Friday evening. The man didn't press any buttons and followed them off the elevator at their floor. After he walked off in a different direction, the girls called the hotel staff.
"We were scared he would come back again and feared that the lock on the door was not secure enough if anything happened," Han said.
Little did Han and her friends know that a fellow backpacker from Beijing, who would check in hours later, would have a more tragic story about her stay at Chungking.