Movies - In the Mood for Love

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	Movies - In the Mood for Love

In the Mood for Love (花樣年華, Yale (Cantonese): fa1 yeung6 nin4 wa4, Hanyu pinyin: huā yàng nián huá, literal translation: "The Magnificence of Years Past like Flowers") is a 2000 Hong Kong art film written and directed by Wong Kar-wai, starring Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu Wai.

Plot outline

The movie takes place in Hong Kong, 1962. Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai), a journalist, rents a room in an apartment on the same day as Su Lizhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk), a secretary from a shipping company. They become next- door neighbours. Each have a spouse who is working and often leave them alone on overtime shift. Despite the presence of a friendly landlady and neighbours, Chow and Su often find themselves alone in their rooms, and they begin to strike up a friendship.

On one occasion, Chow and Su discover their respective spouses are having an affair with each other, and the discovery shocks them. They spend more and more time with each other, to draw comfort in each another's presence. Chow invites Su to help him with a martial arts series that he is writing for the newspaper. As their relationship begin to draw closer, people begin to notice, and Chow and Su try to persuade each other that they will not end up as their spouses.

Novel artistic devices

Two novel artistic devices are used in this movie. One is the use of seemingly repetitive scenes and the other is that certain sequences which look like one scene are actually a collage of numerous encounters of the two main characters in the movie. These techniques gave the audience the impression that these two characters were doing the same thing over and over again everyday over a very long period of time. However, paying close attention to the dresses (qipao) that Maggie Cheung wears reveals that she wore a different dress in every single shot in those sequences. Obviously they are not the same shot edited over and over again but actually artistic shots with different costume and makeup for each shot.

Soundtrack

Shigeru Umebayashi: "Yumeji's Theme" (originally from the soundtrack of Seijun Suzuki
's Yumeji)
Michael Galasso: "Angkor Wat Theme", "ITMFL", "Casanova/Flute"
Nat King Cole: "Aquellos Ojos Verdes", "Te Quiero Dijiste", "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás"
Bryan Ferry: "I'm in the Mood for Love" (the inspiration for the title, found on e.g. the French 2 CD Soundtrack, not in the film)

Cast and roles

Tony Leung Chiu Wai
- Chow Mo-Wan
Maggie Cheung
- Su Lizhen Chan
Siu Ping Lam - Ah Ping
Cheung Tung Cho 'Joe' - Special appearance
Rebecca Pan
- Mrs. Suen
Lai Chen - Mr. Ho
Chan Man-Lei
Koo Kam-wah
Roy Cheung
- Mr. Chan (voice)
Chi Chi-ang - The amah (female servant)
Yu Hsien
Chow Po-chun
Paulyn Sun - Mrs. Chow (voice)
Wong Man-lei - Koo Kam-wah
Julien Carbon - French tourist (uncredited)

Awards

Best Actor, 2000 Cannes Film Festival
Best Foreign Film, 2001 César Award
Screen International Award, 2000 European Film Awards

Miscellaneous

The movie forms the second part of an informal trilogy, together with Days of Being Wild
(released in 1991) and 2046
(released in 2004).

While set in Hong Kong, the actual filming location of outdoor scenes was Bangkok, Thailand. The movie also incorporates footages of Angkor Wat, Cambodia.

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