In the Mood for Love
花様年華
The Moonlight essay
CinemaIn the Mood for Love and the Desire That Lives in RestraintRead the essayMore essays on this title
CinemaIn the Mood for Love and the Ache of What Never HappenedCinemaRestraint That Reads as ActingStoryline
The whole story, ending included.
Two neighbours whose spouses are sleeping together rehearse the affair they refuse to have.
Hong Kong, 1962. On the same day, two couples rent rooms side by side in a building full of Shanghainese émigrés. Chow Mo-wan is a newspaper journalist. Su Li-zhen, known as Mrs Chan, is a secretary at a shipping company. Both their spouses are hardly ever home, and the two neighbours pass each other politely under the eyes of the landlady, Mrs Suen, and her mahjong-playing friends.
Then each notices something. Chow's wife has a handbag exactly like the one Su's husband brought Su from abroad; Su's husband wears a tie exactly like Chow's. Their spouses are having an affair. Hurt, Chow and Su begin to meet and try to work out how it started, acting out its first moves; Su rehearses confronting her husband, with Chow playing him. They promise each other not to be like them. Chow is writing a martial-arts serial and Su helps him, and when the neighbours begin to talk, he rents a hotel room where they can work unseen. Their feelings grow. Chow decides to step away, and when they rehearse their goodbye, Su breaks down in tears.
Chow takes a job in Singapore and asks her to come with him. She decides to go, but reaches the hotel after he has left. A year later she visits his room in Singapore, telephones him and says nothing when he answers, and leaves a lipstick-stained cigarette in his ashtray. Chow tells a friend about the old custom of whispering a secret into a hollow in a tree and sealing it with mud.
Three years on, Su calls on Mrs Suen, who is leaving for America, and asks about renting the old flat. Some time later Chow comes back to visit his former landlords, who have moved away. He hears that a woman and her young son now live next door, and leaves without knowing it is Su. In Cambodia, at Angkor Wat, he whispers into a hollow in an ancient wall and seals it with mud, watched only by a monk.
Starring
Maggie Cheungas Su Li-zhen (Mrs Chan)
A secretary at a shipping company who discovers that her husband is having an affair with her neighbour's wife.
Su Li-zhen (Mrs Chan)’s story
Su, a secretary at a shipping company, has a husband who is hardly ever home. When a tie and a handbag show that he and Chow's wife are lovers, she and Chow begin to meet, act out how the affair might have started, and promise not to become what hurt them; she rehearses confronting her husband, with Chow playing him. She helps Chow with his serial in a hotel room, and when they rehearse saying goodbye, she breaks down. She decides to follow him to Singapore but arrives after he has left. A year later she slips into his room there, telephones him and says nothing, and leaves a lipstick-stained cigarette behind. Three years on, she asks about renting the old flat. When Chow comes back, she is living next door with her small son, and he leaves without knowing.
Tony Leung Chiu-waias Chow Mo-wan
A journalist who writes martial-arts serials and discovers that his wife is his neighbour's husband's lover.
Chow Mo-wan’s story
Chow, a journalist, moves in next door to Su on the same day. A tie his wife gave him turns out to match one worn by Su's husband. The two begin to meet, act out how their spouses' affair might have started, and promise not to be like them. When the neighbours talk, he rents a hotel room where they can write his martial-arts serial unseen. As his feelings grow he decides to step away; when they rehearse their goodbye, she weeps. She arrives too late to go with him to Singapore. A year later a lipstick-stained cigarette in his ashtray tells him she came. Back in Hong Kong he leaves without knowing she lives next door, and at Angkor Wat he whispers into a hollow in an ancient wall and seals it with mud.
Rebecca Panas Mrs Suen
Su's Shanghainese landlady, warm and watchful, whose flat is always full of neighbours and mahjong.
Why it matters
In the Mood for Love is a film about an affair its two lovers refuse to have. The betrayal that sets it in motion stays almost out of sight; what the film watches is two neighbours who will not become what hurt them, and what that restraint costs. Wong Kar-wai set it among Shanghainese émigrés in the Hong Kong of 1962, a world of rented rooms where privacy was scarce and the neighbours noticed everything. Tony Leung won best actor at Cannes in 2000, the first Hong Kong actor to do so, and in the 2022 Sight and Sound critics' poll the film was ranked fifth among the greatest films ever made. Often called a love story, it is closer to a study of timing: of two people who meet at the wrong moment and are too decent to take the moment anyway, and of how long such a moment can go on living in a person.