(I should note the version I saw, which is screening with 4K screenings of the full In the Mood for Love feature, runs 9 minutes nit 32 as listed here)
On one hand, I am always glad to see something by Wong Kar Wai that has eluded me (or just been unavailable outside of digging through torrent sites online or for a poor copy on youtube), and this is fascinating in the ways that WKW lets his performers have a freedom to play in what are otherwise carefully composed and timed compositions (even, probably especially when, they seem to be freewheeling and hand held shots). On the other hand, the title of this could be misleading for some who have little idea what this actually is.
From what little I've read, this was meant to be its own part of a trilogy of films about... food (the actual feature of In the Mood for Love just got to be so long as its own thing). That makes more sense as this is much closer to the rougher street-level kind of stylized naturalism that Wong had with his mid 1990s films like Chungking Express or Fallen Angels, up to and including a washed out color palette. If not for the now immortal musical cue by Shigeru Umebayashi being featured briefly, it would have little outside of the two leads to connect it to the feature, albeit there is a poetic streak that runs through the narration that speaks to something of longing for Leung to Cheung here... just not that subdued kind you may be expecting.
I still enjoyed this a lot for what it is which is a scenario surrounding a botched shoplifting, a punch in the nose and a lot of iced cakes being gorged by the two leads, and it does get in and out quick enough that the shallow pleasures that abound are enough for it to get by. It is an extended sketch more than something that requires a fleshed out narrative, but the actors are present and their chemistry as before is electric so that helps. A lot.
