It’s 1962 British Hong Kong and we open on Su Li-zhen securing a room rental for her and her husband. Moments later, Chow Mo-wan rents the room next door for him and his wife. We see snap-shots of Su and Chow in their respective apartments—each having to explain to their neighbors why their spouse never seems to be around. Long hours at work. Business trips. Sick parents. Su and Chow notice each other, but interact minimally. But curious and suspicious, they eventually go out for coffee. Asking questions about each other’s partner, their suspicions are confirmed: their spouses are having an affair with each other. Su and Chow commiserate together. They talk about how this could have happened. They act out their imagined dialogue. While waiting for their spouses to get home from abroad, the two dine together. No one understands their pain like the other does. And then something happens—in their loneliness, in their dialogue, and in their mutual burden, Su and Chow begin to develop feelings for each other. The two wrestle with an emotional affair. Each was hurt by their partner, but does acting on this love make them no better than their adulterous spouses? Oh what to do.
Wow. I am often asked how I pick my films, and one of my main sources is 'interesting films I see on CineFix movie lists', on YouTube. And boy do they mention this one a lot! And I get why—this was a fantastic, lonely, heartbreaking, beautiful, tragic romance film by filmmaker Wong Kar-wai. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung (yes, the man you just saw as Shang-Chi’s ring-wearing father) were brilliant. I think if this film were made in America, it would resolve in some romantic or sexual embrace. But (spoilers) we are denied that here, leaving only the anguish carried by our actors' faces to portray these complex feelings. The film is shot claustrophobically, creating this sense of loneliness amidst crowded conditions. It charges forward from scene to scene, cutting out unnecessary detail as one might when remembering the specifics of past love. And the soundtrack is fantastic, with latin crooning and the melancholy waltz “Yumeji’s Theme” underscoring all of the unexpressed rage and passion-left-unspoken in stunning, out-of-time sequences.
This film isn’t about Hollywood-endings, neither ecstatic nor soap opera-tragic. It’s about reflecting on everything left unsaid, remembering or misremembering the past, trying to make sense of the pieces we do not see, and wondering “what-if”. Anyone who has ever loved and lost, who is patient with non-American film, will immediately sense the soul of this story.