Wong Kar-wai didn’t just make a movie in 2000. He built a trap. It’s a lush, red-velvet cage where time moves like honey and Tony Leung’s cigarette smoke hangs in the air forever. Even now, decades later, being in the mood for love isn’t just about watching a film; it’s about a specific, crushing feeling of "what if."
People usually talk about this movie as a simple story of two neighbors—Su Li-zhen and Chow Mo-wan—who find out their spouses are having an affair with each other. But that's just the surface. Honestly, if it were just about cheating, it wouldn't have that 91% on Rotten Tomatoes or a permanent spot in the Criterion Collection. It’s the restraint that kills you. They decide they won't "be like them," and in doing so, they create a kind of romantic torture that is arguably more intense than any actual physical relationship could be.
The stuff people get wrong about the ending
Most viewers walk away from the 2000 masterpiece feeling a deep sense of loss. You’ve probably seen the scene at Angkor Wat—Chow whispering his secret into a hole in a stone wall and plugging it with mud. It’s iconic. But there’s a massive misconception that this is a movie about missed opportunity.
It’s actually about the preservation of a moment.
Maggie Cheung, who played Su Li-zhen, famously spent five hours a day in hair and makeup just to get that perfect, stiff 1960s bouffant. She wore 21 different cheongsams (qipaos) throughout the film. If you look closely, the dresses actually track the passage of time and the shift in her internal emotional state. When she’s feeling the most constricted by societal expectations, the collars are higher, the floral patterns more chaotic. Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-chiu, the cinematographers, used these visual cues because the characters weren't allowed to say what they actually felt.
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Wong Kar-wai is notorious for not having a finished script. He’s the kind of director who makes his actors sit on set for hours just to "feel" the atmosphere. Tony Leung has mentioned in interviews that he sometimes didn't know what the scene was about until they were halfway through filming. This chaotic process is why the film feels so organic and lived-in. It wasn't "written" as much as it was exhaled.
Why the food is actually the main character
Think about the noodles.
Every night, Su Li-zhen walks down those damp, narrow stairs with her thermos to buy wonton noodles. It’s a mundane task. But in the world of being in the mood for love, a thermos isn't just a container for soup. It’s a shield. It’s her excuse to be out of the house, away from the emptiness of her apartment.
The repetition is the point. We see them pass each other in the narrow hallway over and over. They graze shoulders. They look away. The slow-motion sequences, set to Shigeru Umebayashi’s "Yumeji’s Theme," turn a trip to a noodle stall into a high-stakes ballet of repressed desire. It’s basically the cinematic equivalent of a heavy sigh.
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- The steam from the food mimics the fog of their uncertainty.
- The cramped spaces of 1960s Hong Kong force an intimacy they aren't ready for.
- The fact they often eat alone even when they are "together" underscores the permanent gap between them.
The technical genius you probably missed
If you want to understand why this film looks different from any other romance, you have to look at "frames within frames."
Wong Kar-wai almost never gives us a clear, wide-open shot of the protagonists. He shoots through doorways. He shoots through window panes. He hides the camera behind mirrors. This is called "voyeuristic framing," and it makes us, the audience, feel like we’re eavesdropping on something private. It creates a sense of claustrophobia. You feel trapped in that hallway with them.
Then there’s the color palette. Red is everywhere. Red curtains, red walls, red dresses. Usually, red signifies passion or anger. Here, it feels like a bruise. It’s the color of a heart that’s been held too tight for too long.
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There is a version of this movie that we never saw.
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Wong Kar-wai shot hours of footage of the couple actually consummating their relationship in a secret apartment. In the original edit, they weren't just "playing house" and pretending to be their cheating spouses; they actually gave in. But in the editing room, Wong realized that the tension was more powerful than the payoff. He cut the sex scenes. He cut the explicit declarations of love.
By removing the "action," he forced the audience to live in the "in-between." This is why the film is a pillar of "Slow Cinema." It’s about the silence between the words. William Chang, the editor and production designer, is the unsung hero here. He’s the one who realized that the movie worked better as a memory than as a linear story.
How to actually watch it today
Don't watch this on your phone while scrolling through TikTok. You’ll miss the heartbeat. To truly get in the mood for love, you need to pay attention to the clocks. There are clocks everywhere in the film—Siemens clocks, wristwatches, wall clocks. They are constantly ticking, reminding Chow and Su that their time is running out. 1962 Hong Kong was a place of transition, a British colony with an uncertain future. The ticking isn't just about their romance; it’s about the city itself.
Actionable ways to dive deeper
If you've already seen the film and want to understand its DNA, follow these steps:
- Watch "Days of Being Wild" and "2046": These form an informal trilogy with In the Mood for Love. 2046 acts as a semi-sequel that explores what happens to Chow Mo-wan after he leaves the secret at Angkor Wat. It’s much more surreal and sci-fi, but the emotional core is the same.
- Listen to the soundtrack separately: Beyond the Umebayashi theme, listen to the Nat King Cole tracks like "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás." The choice of Spanish-language songs in a Cantonese film reflects the cosmopolitan, displaced nature of Hong Kong at the time.
- Read the short story "Intersections" by Liu Yichang: This was the primary inspiration for the film. It explores the lives of two people who pass each other in the street, their lives mirroring one another without ever fully merging.
- Analyze the "Rehearsal" scenes: Pay attention to when Chow and Su are "acting" as their spouses to figure out how the affair started. Notice how the line between "acting" and "reality" blurs until they (and you) can't tell the difference anymore.
The film ends with a title card that says: "He remembers those vanished years. As though looking through a dusty window pane, the past is something he could see, but not touch. And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct."
That’s the whole point. Love isn't always the thing you catch. Sometimes, it's just the mood that lingers after the door has already closed.