During the long production of "Ashes of Time", Wong faced a two-month break as he waited for equipment to re-record sound for some scenes. He was in a negative state, feeling heavy pressure from his backers and worrying about another failure, and so decided to start a new project: "I thought I should do something to make myself feel comfortable about making films again. So I made "Chungking Express", which I made like a student film." Conceived and completed within only six weeks, the new project ended up being released two months before "Ashes of Time".