Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6707 in DVD
• Released on: 2001-04-16
• Rating: Parental Guidance
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL, Widescreen
• Original language: Chinese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 94 minutes

Special Features
Anamorphic Wide Screen
DVD 5
Chinese
Region 0
Dolby Digital Chinese
Dolby Digital
Original Theatrical Trailer
Star And Director Filmographies
Scene Selection
Stills Gallery
Film Reviews
English

Synopsis
IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE centres around Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung) and Su Li-Zhen (Maggie Cheung), neighbors living in a crowded apartment building in 1962 Hong Kong. Both married to people who are always away, they spend many nights home alone. The two make each other's acquaintance and soon find that they have a lot in common: Both enjoy martial arts, frequent the same noodle stand--and eventually discover that their spouses are cheating on them. (Mo-Wan's wife is having an affair with Li-Zhen's husband.) Hurt and angry, they find comfort in their growing friendship even as they resolve not to be like their unfaithful mates.
Wong Kar-Wai's seventh film reunites him with Leung and Cheung, who provide perfectly evocative performances as the two hesitant would-be lovers. A slight departure from his more recent films (in which he used hyperkinetic camera movements to reflect the frenetic pace of modern Hong Kong life), here Wong uses fixed shots and stages static tableaux to capture a lost historical moment. Yet the film is filled with Wong's unique style, with its lush pageantry of colors, sounds, and images. A thoughtful and provocative exploration of memory, tradition, historical change, inevitability, and love, this vivid period piece offers a rich cinematic experience.

From the Back Cover
Hong Kong, 1962. Chow (Tony Leung) is a junior newspaper editor with an elusive wife. His neighbour, Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung), is a secretary whose husband seems to spend all his time on business trips. They become friends, making the lonely evenings more bearable. As their relationship develops they make a discovery that changes their lives forever
In this sumptuous exploration of desire, internationally acclaimed director Wong Kar-Wai creates a world of sensuality and longing that will leave you breathless. In The Mood For Love has seduced audiences and critics alike, winning awards at Cannes 2000 for best actor, cinematography and editing.

Customer Reviews

Beautiful
In The Mood For Love is a film of such outstanding quality that it is difficult to know how to adequately describe it. In terms of cinematography, it is faultless, with the composition of each shot apparently considered equally as fine art. Each scene is constructed with an aesthetic so perfect as to be almost wounding. Having said that, this is a beautifully human film and visual impact is never allowed to overwhelm the narrative. The two principle characters are played with a subtlety and compassion echoed by and understood by the camera.

The alchemy of the achievement is completed by a beautiful soundtrack in which the setting resonates and that keeps the audience in touch with and enchanted by the humanity and tenderness expressed by the two protagonists. Overall the experience is breathtaking. It is hard to think of a better example of the art of filmmaking. A jewel. Absolutely wonderful.

A Hong Kong 'Brief Encounter'
Here is a film that fills all your senses to saturation point, that takes as it's cue the idea that each minute detail in a moment carries equal weight and hat some people do rise above the mundane in their search for love.

Every frame of this film is lovingly prepared and the screen bursts with the vibrancy of its colours whilst keeping the protagonists in an emotional dead calm, where they cannot quite overcome their own sensibilities. Some may indeed find the film slow, perhaps indulgent. But that is to miss the point - when one falls in love on savours every moment, every feeling. Each resonates in our minds and amplifies in our heart to form a new, more powerful memory. When those feelings cannot be acted upon, then life becomes a secret trade in dreams and whispers.

Chow (Tony Leung, as great a presence as Gregory Peck on the screen) and Su Li-zhen (the effortlessly graceful Maggie Cheung)are neighbours in a Hong Kong tenament block. Both are married to spouses we never fully see, just hear in conversations or phone calls. Both appear slightly isolated from their place in the world. Chow dreams of writing kung-fu series for a living whilst Su waits to become a mother. Through a series of quilted scenes (one of the joys of the movie is how scenes are repeated, refracted, revisited and we are never quite sure of the timeline of the story) we learn, just before the characters themselves do, that their spouses are infact having an affair. They are drawn to each other not so much by this but by the loneliness of their spouses' absences. Converstaions are hesistant, filled with silences. The camera prowls around,viewing them from a slightly greater distance than normal. Often half the frame is obscured in the tenament by a door, a desk or a body. We are like the child in Henry James's 'What Maisie Knew', slowly putting together the motion of their romance in our own mind. It is remarkable cinema; the editing only enhances our slight confusion and requires us always to double check our understanding. Kar-wai Wong, together with his cinemaphotographer, takes us ever closer to these people.

Everything about this film is first class; the script is a marvel of concise storytelling and the acting would surely be lauded if it came from two Hollywood stars. The ending is in someways an enigma - but if you like Kieslowski or just great romantic film making you'll find this a film you can wallow in over and over again.

A sumptuous feast of cinematography
The only word for "In the Mood for Love" is sumptuous. The film is set in 1960s Hong Kong and its exquisite cinematography captures the look and feel of the era perfectly - from the steam of the Chinese noodle vendors and formica furniture of the main characters' appartments to the perfect copies of American haistyles and Twiggy-style dresses sported by Maggie Cheung. But there's also a deep sadness to the film, and a sheer electricity between the lead 'couple' that will leave you spellbound - the sexual tension between the two is palpable. It's sensual, tense and engaging stuff: see it.