The character He Zhiwu, who is mute but able to communicate with the audience through narration, tells us he became mute after eating a tin of pineapple with a past expiration date. A character in the earlier Kar Wai Wong film, Chungking Express (1994), is obsessed with the expiration dates on tins of pineapple. In addition, they are both named He Zhiwu (though the character in Chungking Express (1994) is a cop, and the character in this film is a former criminal) and both are played by the actor Takeshi Kaneshiro. Also his cop number and prisoner number are the same.