User reviews

When I fist watched the movie, I said to myself, "so a film can be made like this." Wong Kar Wai's gorgeous poetic love story captured me throughout and even after the film. I must admit this is one of the best love movies, maybe the best of all, I have ever watched. The content and the form overlaps perfectly. As watching the secret love we see the characters in bounded frames that limits their movements as well as their feelings. Beautiful camera angles and the lighting makes the feelings and the blues even touchable. I want to congratulate Christopher Doyle and Pin Bing Lee for their fantastic cinematography which creates the mood for love. Also the music defines the sadness of the love which plays along the beautiful slow motion frames and shows the characters in despairing moods. And of course the performances of the actors which makes the love so real. Eventually, all the elements in the film combined in a perfect way under the direction of WKW and give the audience the feeling called love.

I think that New York Times film critic Elvis Mitchell wrote the best one line review of In the Mood for Love when he said that it is "dizzy with a romantic spirit that's been missing from the cinema forever." How true those words are! Truly romantic films are so rare these days, while films that include plenty of sex and nudity (which are often portrayed in a smutty and gratuitous manner) abound. So, given this cinematic climate, Wong Kar-wai's latest film feels like a much needed breath of fresh air. In the Mood for Love is about the doomed romance between two neighbors ("Mr. Chow," played by Tony Leung and "Mrs. Chan," played by Maggie Cheung), whose spouses are having an illicit affair, as they try "not to be like them." But after hanging out with each other on lonely nights (while their spouses are away "on business"/"taking care of a sick mother"), they fall madly in love, and must resist the temptation of going too far.

Several factors are responsible for making In the Mood for Love a new classic among "romantic melodramas," in the best sense of that term. First, the specific period of the film (i.e. 1960's Hong Kong) is faithfully recreated to an astonishing degree of detail. The clothes (including Maggie Cheung's lovely dresses), the music (e.g. Nat King Cole), and the overall atmosphere of this film evokes a nostalgia for that specific period. Second, Christopher Doyle's award-winning, breathtakingly beautiful cinematography creates an environment which not only envelopes its two main characters, but seems to ooze with romantic longing in every one of its sumptuous, meticulously composed frame. Make no mistake about it: In the Mood for Love was the most gorgeous film of 2001. (It should also be mentioned that Wong Kar-wai's usual hyper-kinetic visual style is (understandably) toned down for this film, although his pallet remain just as colorful.) Third, there is the haunting score by Michael Galasso, which is accompanied by slow motion sequences of, e.g. Chan walking in her elegant dresses, Chan and Chow "glancing" at each other as they pass one another on the stairs, and other beautiful scenes which etch themselves into one's memory. The main score--which makes its instruments sound as though they're literally crying--is heard eight times throughout various points in the film and it serves to highlight the sadness and the longing which the two main characters feel. Fourth, Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung both deliver wonderful performances (Leung won the prize for best actor at Cannes) and they manage to generate real chemistry on screen.

The above elements coalesce and work so nicely together to create a film that feels timeless, "dizzyingly romantic," and, in a word, magical. In the Mood for Love, perhaps more than any other film of 2001, reminded me why it is that I love "going to the movies." And I guess that is about the highest compliment that I can pay to a film.

In 60s Hong Kong, a man and woman move in the same day into adjacent apartments with their respective spouses. Soon they suspect their ever absent spouses of having an affair with one-another. A strange bond emerges between the man and woman as they cope with their sadness by taking turns playing each other's spouse, before a more complex bond emerges...

No summary can do it justice, for Hong Kong auteur Wong Kar-Wai's "In the Mood for Love" is nothing short of a miracle. A story about sadness that manages to be touching and at times funny. A romance that never feels forced or fake. No doubt the director's method has a lot to do with that.

Directed from an inexistent screenplay (though the concept largely flows from a Japanese short story) to favor improvisation, the film is immediately set apart by the freshness of it's performances. All the film revolves around that and the rest is pure enhancement. At the core of the film are two characters that will ease into your heart and stay there long after the end credits roll: Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung are simply amazing and no language barrier undermines a single fragment of immediacy and truth they display. The additional material is also top-notch: the films is magnificent to behold (in part lensed by "Hero"'s Christopher Doyle) and the music is heartbreaking.

This is something everybody must see, if only because it is by far the most heartfelt, mature and authentic "love story" out there. Unmissable.

I won't bore you with story and plot lines, as they have been presented many times already on this page, so… It's been along time coming since I have seen such a film. Beautiful, elegant and restrained, with a narrative pace to match. A film with sensitivity and understated qualities that is rare in these times of clichéd plots. The beautifully subdued photography, saturated in rich luxurious colors, and for lack of better words, each frame is filled with an air of tension. The settings and locations are used repeatedly but the film manages to breath new life into them each time they featured, there always seems to be a key prop, light fixture, or set piece to slightly clue the audience as to where we are in the characters world.

The acting reminds me of the "The Bicycle Thief", not the style, but the fact that you forget that you are watching two actors engaged in their craft. There is meaning behind every gesture and almost every movement has assigned significance to explain the inside world of the characters, the relationship, the feelings, and situation of the two lovers. The dialogue is sparse but like the rest of the movie, is imbued with meaning. Speaking of meaning, the soundtrack is infectious. Used here it becomes a story telling device. And although the film is of Chinese origins, even a song sung in Spanish by Nat King Cole imparts the film with subtle meaning. The orchestrated soundtrack is repetitive, but the repetition is what makes it comfortable. It is used in conjunction with the story, and not just a means to put music to action, or to cue the audience to feel a certain way at a certain plot point.

I would not recommend this film to anybody, I fear most people would be jaded by the calm flow of the story, but I would recommend it to someone who is looking for an alternative to the romantic schlock that fills the multiplexes on our side of the world. I must say that I was completely taken by this film, and continued to watch it night after night. The story takes time to present itself and bears repeated viewings as very few films in this genre are open to such a broad interpretation. A very beautiful movie.

It's easy to see why many people consider In the Mood for Love to be Wong Kar-Wai's best film. The toned down appeal of the film, centering on the studied view of a relationship put through an emotional ringer, is a retread into Happy Together territory but without the hyper-kinetic patchwork of jarring film stocks and hyper-saturated sequences that have become a trademark of Kar-Wai's films since Chungking Express. Like Soderbergh's The Limey, this is a different kind of curio for Kar-Wai; where dialogue and plot are forsaken by mood and composition in order to create a tale of two delicate lives in a seemingly confining emotional stasis.

It's a testament to the genius of Kar-Wai that he is capable to making such a simple tale so resonating. Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) move in next-door to each other within the same apartment building. He's a journalist who dreams of publishing martial-arts novels and she is a secretary at a shipping company. Their eventual coupling is obvious from the beginning but the pleasure here is the way that Kar-Wai ambiguously paints such a journey with his grand masterstrokes.

The key to the success of the film is Kar-Wai's use of the interior space, playing with foreground and background planes in ways that are similar to the works of Polanski. During the wooingly sensuous first half of the film, Kar-Wai isolates Leung and Cheung within shots in such a way that the second person in a conversation is never visible. Kar-Wai is concerned with environment and space here, creating a cramped emotional dynamic between his characters. It's also telling that Kar-Wai never chooses to focus on the physicality of Mo-Wan and Li-zhen's spouses. Their faceless partners are noticeably absent from the film, as they are tending to their own love affairs with each other.

This is not to suggest that In the Mood for Love is a confining experience because Kar-Wai manages to inundate his film with broad splashes of hypnotic camera movement and sound. There is one shot where Cheung's slow, sensual rise up a metaphorical stairway turns into Leung's descent down the very same stairwell; their movements perfectly compliment each other, bookending the shot and creating a sense of erotic duality between the two figures. Their souls have connected but they have yet to physically unite. The erotic displacement of these scenes is both fascinating and frustrating, as two star-crossed lovers reject physical consummation due to their humble fidelity.

Other scenes in the film are punctuated with brief slow-motion shots of Cheung erotically moving through her interior surroundings, set to Mike Galasso's hauntingly beautiful score. Cheung's dresses beautifully compliment her exterior space as she moves slowly through her surroundings. Her movements slowly build up to what seems to be an inevitable fusion between Li-szhen and her dream lover even though the seduction process seems to be entirely sub-conscious.

If I make it seem that these two characters are more like two birds unleashing pheromones on each other, it probably isn't that far-fetched of a statement. The tight bond these two characters have with their internal spaces is almost as intense as their relationship to the exteriors. The film rarely moves into an exterior space and when the camera does it is usually to peak through oval windows and symbolic bars that always remind us that these characters are like confined animals. Kar-Wai continues to tease us even when the lovers get close enough to touch, shattering the couple's proximity to each other by shooting them through mirrors or through gaps within articles of clothing located inside of a closet. Mother Nature even seems to respond to their love lust, often unleashing a soft crest of rain over the characters after their bodies have glided near each other.

Kar-Wai's hauntingly atmospheric shots of a waterfall allowed Leung's Lai Yu-Fai to experience a cathartic release in Happy Together, even if Leslie Cheung's Ho Po-wing was not there to enjoy it with him. By that film's end, love was so inextricably bound to the act of war that a third man's muted declarations of love signaled Yu-Fai's realization that his dreams of seeing a waterfall would bring him inner peace, even if it would not bring him back his lover. Mo-Wan's journey terminates within the confines of a crumbling temple. His own emotional depletion is paralleled nicely with the political climate of his country, and the absence of Li-szhen is only made tolerable by the fact that Kar-Wai allows Mo-Wan to experience a release of sorts. Mo-Wan caters to an ancient myth and his secretive release into a crack in the temple leaves him capable of living his days with the hope that all his loss and heartache somehow served a higher purpose.

I was recommended this film as one of the best love stories ever told. And as I am huge fan of love, I bought the tickets and sat myself in the theatre. After 90 minutes I left the theatre with nothing but disappointment and the theme song as the only positive thing of the film. I was appalled at the story itself, that two people can love each other but be so afraid as to never act it. I just couldn't go passed the language barrier and the cultural barrier. The second time I ran into it... I was in a different mood, no longer had any expectation ... and had more patience, more relaxed mind to "see" the film... and as soon as I opened my eyes, I discovered the love... the beauty of the film. I went beyond the language and the love story and saw the acting (not even for a moment did I ever felt like they were acting!) and the cinematography. The first time I heard a definition of what a film is, I was told that it should be a chain of perfectly balanced photographs (shots) and this is the film to match the description. Almost every shot has an idea behind it, and combined with the music... and the light effects... the result is just a masterpiece! And a masterpiece is just something that you must have in your collection of films.

Two people living in the same flat complex find their partners are having an affair with each other. As they try and piece together how it happened, they also embark on an emotional journey that aches for a resolution…

Building on his previous success with Happy Together and Chungking Express, Wong Kar Wai gives us this rather old fashioned and marvellous story of reawakened passions, yearning and unrequited love.

Possibly, In the Mood for Love is not to everyone's taste. It wanders in rather lazily at 98mins: not particularly long for a film, but it appears longer because not a lot really happens. But this lazy feel conceals a quite tightly constructed film. Most of the story is cunningly woven around a series of set piece role plays, where the characters act out presumed scenarios between their respective spouses, trying to work out how the affair started. I say cunning because, of course, this makes it difficult for the audience (and the characters) to tell what is "in-role" and what is genuine.

If all this sounds rather arty and self-conscience, that's because it is. Unashamedly so. And it is played to perfection by two of Hong Kong's finest, Maggie Cheung and Leung Chui Wai, with some excellent support from Ping Lam Siu and Rebecca Pan.

It is also a virtuoso performance by Wong Kar Wai, who treats the audience to a sensory, and sensual, overload. Bringing together Christopher Doyle (who later deployed his lush, over-ripe style on Hero) and Pin Bing Lee (whose beautifully understated style can be seen on Springtime in a Small Town) was cinematographic genius. It has all the bold beauty of Doyle, without, frankly, the Athena-poster cheesiness of his work on Hero. The music, as always with Wong, is prominent. From Nat King Cole singing in Spanish, to the haunting strings of the main theme, it perfectly matches the eclectic beauty of the images.

All in all a top film, whether judged on plot, acting, cinematography or soundtrack. Similar to, but more accessible than, Wim Wenders' Wings of Desire, this is a beautiful, old fashioned story about love lost and regained.

And watch out for Tony Leung's hotel room 2046, which presaged Wong's recent film of the same name.

Whenever a serious list of the 'Greatest Films Ever Made' stretches into the the new millennium, bets are "In the Mood for Love" is included. I would personally not heap such praise upon the film, but it is hard to deny it boasts one of the most nuanced and subdued relationships in modern cinema.

The film plays like an Asian "Una giornata particolare". Our Loren and Mastroianni are Maggie Cheung and Tony Chiu-Wai Leung, known for playing action heroes and lovers, (or both, together, in the case of "Hero"). Here, they play everyday people: an editor and a secretary, both married, neighbours in a narrow Hong Kong apartment building.

Their respective spouses are never fully seen. More often than not they are absent, always at the same time. It is hard to say when they begin to suspect, but before long our leads are faced with the fact that their partners are having an affair with each other. This discovery brings the two of them together in need of consolation and, perhaps, love. They are visibly attracted to each other, but agree to keep their relationship platonic.

It is the smaller things that earn "In the Mood for Love" its place on the 'Best of All Time' lists. The acting, writing, and directing are so subtle that describing the film in terms of events renders it meaningless. The great touches of drama lie in the way a person slightly turns his head, moves weight from one leg to the other, or closes a door.

That being said, "In the Mood for Love" suffers from too much of a good thing. The film's central fifty minutes follow the same pattern over and over again: our protagonists make an appointment; they meet; they decide not to have sex; repeat. Sometimes there are minute variations -- he decides to write a newspaper serial; one time it is raining -- but the basic pattern of meet, cut, repeat does not change.

This repetition is intentional to a certain extent. Whenever characters retread locations -- the street, the stairs, the hallway -- they are always filmed from the same angle, like rhyming stanzas in a poem on mundanity. However, these scenes stop presenting new information before long. The emotions don't intensify, they just drag on. We already know the relationship between these people is not going to change, yet are put through the motions another five or six times.

It is one of the medium's great tragedies that nobody cares about one-hour films. We have accepted that novels can be 100 or 3,000 pages long, that paintings can be the size of a matchbox or The Night Watch, but motion pictures of less than eighty minutes rarely qualify as feature films. "In the Mood for Love" certainly would have benefitted from being an hour long. Its intimate filmmaking demands to be seen, but for a 98-minute film to be this long-winded is a flaw too prominent to disregard.

I don't think I've been so shocked by a high rating on IMDb before. There are so many glowing reviews here I was expecting some kind of masterpiece but for me this was the biggest yawn fest I've seen in some time.

For one thing, I absolutely love foreign films and watch world cinema far more than Hollywood movies... I'd also seen Chungking Express from the same director as this movie and I quite enjoyed that..

While technically well made, with some beautiful cinematography, good cinematography does not a good film make.. You could equate it to a photo realistic painting of a stone wall, while the skill is impressive in doing that, it would still be a boring painting.

The dialogue was boring, and the plot was thin to say the least! I just couldn't get invested in these characters enough to care.. It became dull and tiresome very fast. Then the same music was used over and over which became very repetitive. I also noted this in Chunking Express which is making me rethink that film and the director...

Overall: I'm giving this film a 5 mainly for the cinematography, but I really feel like I wasted what was left of my night watching this instead of something better..

The most attractive factor that lies in this masterpiece of a film is not the beautiful lead actors. It isn't their outstanding acting and sizzling chemistry either.

To me, it is the mis-en-scene of the entire movie. The settings, the lighting, the props... all add to the mood for love between the main characters. A whiff of smoke from Chow's cigarette tells us his state of mind, the ever-changing tight-fitting cheongsams of Lizhen reflects the constraints of decision-making, the ruins of Angkor Wat ties in with the deteriorating relationship of the two leads.

The excellent use of mis-en-scene gives the film just the right amount of feel needed to flesh out the complicated nature of the characters' relationship. The film leaves the audience fruitlessly yearning for more.

IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE - will make you fall in love with Wong Kar Wai, especially, if this is his first film that you are watching. My thoughts on this sumptuously crafted and subtly woven film can end here for certainly that is the summary of it all. But there is a lot more to talk about the film.

(But before that - in a city like Bhubaneswar there aren't any public avenues to watch World Cinema. Certainly the larger demographic is oblivious to what World Cinema is. To most here Hollywood represents World Cinema and what could have been more disturbing than this? One can argue in favor of Netflix and Amazon Prime, but watching a thought provoking film in a big screen along with other curious mind(s) is an experience that no argument can counter. In such a scenario the Film Society of Bhubaneswar is the only savior. They screened Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love along with Days of Being Wild as part of their June screening. I experienced Wai for the first time with "In the Mood for Love".)

One would instantly notice the detailing that has been maintained in every scene throughout the film. The slow panning has been interestingly used to bring the subject into frame, rather the frame onto the subject, thereby driving your empathy gradually towards the predicament the subjects are in. The other thing that has also been very uniquely used throughout is the screenplay from behind veils, translucent curtains, through gaps found in the back of chairs and such. It always gave into a mystery and mystic feeling about the characters who are in focus yet out of focus - signifying a lot about the many confusions that cluttered their minds: emotions and the natural urge versus the high moral standards they want to uphold to.

The film's main narrative is nothing different if one would say it in plain text. But like an auteur's film, IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE wins you through its screenplay, usage of light, cinematography, acting and music which takes the entire context of adultery and morality deeper with a higher philosophical undertone. Set in Hongkong of sixties, the film is about two characters - Chow Mo-wan (played by Tony Leung), a journalist and Su Li-zhen (played by Maggie Cheung), a secretary from a shipping company, both of whom rent a room in an apartment of a building on the same day. Their encounters on the streets or in the stairs were limited to exchange of pleasantries but both of them shared together a lot of loneliness and pain separately in each of their apartment rooms. Chow's wife and Su's husband are most of the time out of the town on their work assignments thereby leaving their better halves to lead a monotonous life in an otherwise crowded city.

There are beautifully shot motifs with lovely background scores showing both these characters carrying forward with their mundane jobs with a smile in their face and hollowness in their heart. During the course of time both gather that their spouses are almost always out (of town) during the same time eventually realizing that they were having extra marital affairs. Chow and Su feel devastated to acknowledge this in front of each other, initially thinking, that only one of them knew about it. [Generally, had the film been made in Bollywood/Hollywood there would have been some very obvious direction that the narrative would have moved. Wong Kar Wai's mastery lies in exploring beyond the obvious even in such a straightforward plot.] Both Mr. Chow and Ms. Su become curious to know why their spouse's cheated on them or how it would have begun. Their conversations used to be "What would they be doing now?" followed up by some role play to understand their respective partner's psyche. While it was a futile exercise to do, they made a point - "We would not be like them" and they agreed, rather promised, to each other.

Mr. Chow nurtured few other aspirations, one of them was to write his own comic books series but never found inspiration. Ms. Su wished to have somebody to talk and share with but never had a soulmate beside her. For each other they filled these empty slots and they felt happy about it. But were careful about the fact that both had agreed "not to be like them". With passage of time, however, conversations became - "Why did you call me today?", "I wanted to hear your voice". They come close to each other literally, when Ms. Su in a reflex leans on Mr. Chow's shoulder and cries about her failed marriage, yet a dignified respect keeps them apart. The film actually goes on a high from here speaking a lot about the unspoken. You feel you have entered into a terrific drama (minus the melo) where both secretly craved, loved and desired for each other but wanted to uphold the other person's moral character. It's so suffocating at one level - where as an audience you also feel for their situation and want them to express their love for each other yet the film and filmmaker has a different plan. There could not have been a better emotional beating than this.

There are coincidences and narrow misses - which both understand and acknowledge - like the burnt cigarette with the lipstick mark in Mr. Chow's apartment in Singapore (where he had moved to so that Ms Su doesn't have to suffer since he has now developed feelings for her) informed him that even after a year's gap Ms. Su has not forgotten him. She had come all the way to Singapore just to see him, waited for him (to return) yet left without meeting him. And then many years later both turn up into the same apartment where once they lived, to look for the other, yet they could not meet.

Wai also touches upon the political issues of Hongkong in those days and how the society was conservative enough to dismiss a lonely married woman's late night outs or friendliness between two separately married man and woman. This would have also offered psychological resistance to Chow and Su from succumbing to their urges.

The film is filled with nuances and it ends on that note. The narrative becomes subtle and deep just because it never attempted to show any of the "obvious" action, throughout, yet you end up feeling obviously that's how it should have been. Though you cringe for their love to blossom, you know the beauty of their relationship lies in their mood to love each other without the obvious physical expression of it.

A must watch!

Beautiful film set in 1962 Hong Kong about a man (Mr. Chow) and woman (Mrs. Chan) who become close friends when they suspect their spouses are having an affair. Stylistically, the film is also beautiful. Wong Kar-Wai uses a lot of slow motion and close-ups on parts of the body (feet, hands, waist). The film itself has a reticence and properness that suggests its time period. It's sexy without showing everything. Wong Kar-Wai also doesn't allow the audience to see what the spouses look like, suggesting that Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan should be together. Smoking is even made to look elegant with close-ups of the curls of smoke. A really lovely film. Just prepare yourself for the ending.

it is indeed a poem!

i'm aware of the fact that not everyone is going to enjoy this movie.. it's not about "getting it" or not.. it's about a certain sensibility.. you have to be receptive to it.. if you are able and willing to get lost in the movie's atmosphere you'll certainly love it.. i love it..

what an incredibly intensive tale.. so deeply sad and poetic.. and the score! particularly the score.. it's a piece of art..

just overwhelming

This film's strength lies in its mise-en-scene and cinematography. 1960s Hong Kong is brought to life through careful attention to detail and dynamic interplay of movement, colours, textures and rain. All of this is interwoven with the main storyline to infuse every moment with an unspeakable pathos that elevates the imagery beyond its rather pedestrian storyline. This is probably its main weakness - for those with no interest in human relationships like myself, this film will seem to have slow pacing and very little happening beyond colourful brooding.

In Hong Kong, 1962, the editor Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and his wife, and the secretary Su Li-Zhen Chan (Maggie Cheung) and her husband simultaneously move to an old building. Each couple has just rented a room in apartments on the same floor. Their wife and husband stay most of the time away from home, and Chow and Li-Zhen have the same habits: they like kung-fu stories and noodles and soap from a restaurant nearby the building. Their close contact becomes friendship and a sort of platonic and repressed love. Later they realize that their mates are having an affair, Chow falls in love with Li-Zhen, but her shyness and probably repressed condition of married woman keeps her love in a platonic level. 'In the Mood for Love' is a very slow, beautiful, melancholic and romantic love story, with a wonderful photography and soundtrack and a very unusual edition. The film had not had a screenplay, and the actors were never sure about what they would be shooting. Later, the director edited his story based on the footages. When Chow moves to Singapore, there is a gap of many years in the story until 1966, when its conclusion is intentionally open and not well defined, leaving questions such as who is the boy with Li-Zhen. My vote is eight.

Title (Brazil): 'Amor À Flor da Pele' ('Love on the Surface of the Skin')