Directed by Wong Kar-wai
Starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung
I'm...not a fan of romances. Which is shocking, I know. You're reading (but probably not) a guy who's written something like 400 reviews of horror movies. I enjoy romance as a part of other genres, your actions and your dramas and your comedies (except for specifically designed romantic comedies - those things are the spawn of the devil) and even your horrors. Because The Fly rules! But the truth remains that I'm unmarried, extremely jaded and extremely unlucky-in-love. Thus, there's nothing that pisses me off faster than the bad fanfic Twilight and the bad fanfic version of the bad fanfic 50 Shades of Gray. Ick. Just keep it away.
So, here we are with a true-blue romantic film. The first and last of the project, and one of the most praised movies of the 2000s. Seriously, look up the Rotten Tomatoes page for In the Mood for Love and you'll read some of the most over-the-top fappening of the mouth that you ever done will read. You can definitely tell that I'm writing this review in a severely sleep-deprived state. Anyway, this movie was released in 2000, a joint French-Hong Kong production directed by Wong Kar-wai. Normally, this is the part where I go through the director's filmography and talk about other films that I'd seen of theirs, but in this case, I got nothing. I did know of this film in a very special way, however, via a book by Mystery Science Theater 3000 producer/writer/puppeteer Kevin Murphy called A Year at the Movies where he recounts his hilarious experience watching this movie, falling asleep three times, and finding the movie so repetitive that he initially thought he'd slept through the whole thing and was watching it again. That was what I thought I was in for with this flick. Lo and behold, I actually liked it.
In the Mood for Love is is an exercise in minimalism, a movie where the setup, execution and payoff are all done in a way that wastes as few beats as possible. There are only two characters of real consequence within the film. The first one we meet is Su (Maggie Cheung), also known as Mrs. Chan, who has just moved into an apartment with her sometimes heard but never seen husband. Almost simultaneously, Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) moves into the same complex with his rarely seen and rarely heard wife. Most romantic films tend to pile on side characters, and this movie has its fair share (coworkers, bosses, neighbors, etc.), but they're all window dressing to Su and Chow. This movie is all about being lean and mean, and the screenplay trims all the fat around its main story.
The first act of the film is a series of vignettes showing the two characters piecing together that their respective spouses are, in fact, sleeping together. This leads to the initial conversation between Su and Chow where they do something other than exchange courtly greetings - but not what you think. One line that I remember vividly from Kevin Murphy's review of this film in his book was that any American movie would have them humping like rabbits at this point, and he's right. Nothing in this film is quick and easy.
Writer/Director Kar-wai shows great invention at this point with how to present the story he wants to tell. The most important word in that title is "Mood," and he milks it for all it's worth. At the beginning of their friendship/romance, Su and Chow act out the parts of their counterparts, performing the scenes that they imagine in their mind as their unseen cheating spouses make their initial moves. This breaks the ice, and from here the relationship slowly builds to the pair developing a strong bond. Chow is an aspiring writer who has given up on that dream but enlists Su's help in coming up with a martial arts serial. They wind up renting a hotel room to write together so as not to rouse the suspicions of their neighbors. Considering how Maggie Cheung looks in those amazing form-fitting dresses, +2 points to Chow for his sticking to the duo's "we're not going to be like them" moral commitment.
The film continues to pile on the mood, with the characters clearly showing their romantic interest in each other without ever saying a word. It's all about glances and occasional hand holds - that's how much adherence the script pays to its formula of restraint. The narrative takes some sudden twists, with Chow getting a job in Singapore and asking Su if she wants to come with him. Spoiler alert: she doesn't, and the rest of the film deals with this near-miss and what could have been. The movie flashes forward in time twice, leading up to a conclusion that goes on for eons but serves as a fitting closure to what we've seen for the last 90 minutes. Su and Chow are the equivalents of two people passing each other in the night. Heavy-handed, yes, but very effective.
When I was watching this film, I couldn't help but think that a person's enjoyment of a movie depends more heavily on where the viewer is in life than people think. I can think of no better example than Ju-On, my favorite horror film of all time. I bought a cheap used DVD of this movie sometime in the winter of 2008, just a few months after my brother passed away, and was blown away by the movie's non-linear storytelling and sad-yet-fun tone. I watched the sequel the next night, and then repeated the whole process again countless times in the ensuing weeks. Ju-On got me through some tough times, and because of that, I don't know if I'll ever like another movie as much as that one. I think that if I saw In the Mood for Love at that same time, I likely would have hated it, viewing it as a maudlin and frustrating story that I wanted no part of.
But this isn't 2008. It's 2021, where I'm 38, lonely, and feeling some occasional bouts of longing myself. As a result, this movie connected with me. This bias was enough to make me look deeper into the film than just its surface level as a romantic film that takes place in 1960s Hong Kong. I was able to see the wonderful performances by the two leads and the moral and emotional dilemmas that they go through. The cinematography is also top notch, painting everything in a strangely colorful palette for such a dreary and somber film - first and foremost the floral dresses worn by Cheung. The film is pleasing to look at, but it goes deeper than surface beauty and makes you want to see what comes next for its main characters. This is a film that will get you invested.
Rating time: *** out of ****. This definitely isn't my type of film, and that might be the heaviest praise of all since it was able to hold my interest and get me to care. Maybe things would have turned out differently for Su and Chow if one of them had broken this out:
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