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In the Mood for Love collage; a woman on the left and a man on the right

In the Mood for Love

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Hong Kong director Wong Kar-Wai spent two years obsessively shooting and reshooting this tale of two neighbours, Chow (Tony Leung) and Su-Lizhen (Maggie Cheung) who are drawn together by the long absences of their spouses. When they realize why these absences always coincide, they are shocked and hurt. In their imaginations, they entertain scenarios of revenge and tit-for-tat, rehearsing the infidelities so as to understand what can have gone awry, even as they vow never to stoop to such betrayal. And over time, quietly, but unmistakably, they fall in love…

A hypnotic, intoxicating film, In the Mood for Love is radically experimental, but only ever concerned with revealing the human heart. Wong never shows us the spouses. He structures the movie as a cycle of myriad echoes and repetitions. Yet in the space between the repetitions we sense everything that cannot be said: desire, passion, rapture and rhapsody.

In the Mood for Love has long since been recognized as a modern classic and came fifth in the 2022 Sight & Sound poll of the greatest films of all time.

+ In The Mood for Love 2001 (9 mins)

Initially conceived as one third of a triptych about food, In the Mood for Love was expanded into a stand-alone feature that won immediate recognition as a modern-day classic. Another third—intended as the “dessert,” as Wong Kar Wai has put it—was, until now, only screened during his masterclass at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Now available in wide release for the first time, In the Mood for Love 2001 demonstrates the director’s masterful ability to generate palpable atmosphere and striking characterizations on a miniature canvas—with Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Maggie Cheung Man Yuk once again providing the sizzling chemistry— evoking the mystery of transient, unexpected connections in the modern city through his inimitable romantic touch.

Wong expands the simple anatomy of a thwarted love affair into an elastic meditation on personal unrest, political statelessness and the violence of time’s unrelenting passage.

Guy Lodge, Sight & Sound

Director

Wong Kar-wai

Cast

Maggie Cheung, Tony Leung

Credits
Country of Origin

Hong Kong/France

Year

2000

Language

In Cantonese and Mandarin with English subtitles

Awards

Best Actor, Tony Leung, Cannes

19+
107 min

Book Tickets

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Credits

Producer

Wong Kar-wai

Screenwriter

Wong Kar-wai

Cinematography

Christopher Doyle, Mark Lee Ping-Bing

Editor

William Chang

Original Music

Michael Galasso

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