In the Mood for Love

Pros: Stars were excellent, compelling character study...
Cons: ... very slow in places, subtitles often unreadable

In The Mood For Love (or, to give it it’s original title in Hong Kong, “Fa yeung nin wa”), is a melancholy love story about two lonely hearts who come together (sort of). This movie / director (Kar Wai Wong) is said to have been the ...

Pros: Beautiful to look at
Cons: Painful to watch failures of connection

The key word in the English title is “mood.” (The Chinese title is something like “Beautiful Memories of Long Ago.”) Although the predominant color in the color scheme is red, the film’s mood is blue, blue, blue.

The film begins with two...

Pros: Kar-Wai's Story/Direction, Cinematography, Editing, Costumes, Music, & Cast including Chui-Wai & Cheung.
Cons: None.

When Sofia Coppola won the Oscar for Best Original Screenplay for her 2003 masterpiece Lost in Translation, one of the people she thanked was a Hong Kong-born director named Wong Kar-Wai. Admitting to borrowing elements of his work into her own ...

Pros: Beautiful artsy cinematography, superb performances, moody soundtrack, challenging and original theme
Cons: Too slow for some; too frustrating for some (sexual tease without culmination)

In the Mood for Love is about romantic love and intense longing without sexual culmination. It is about the sacrifice of passion at the altar of fidelity. Some viewers will find the film overly frustrating, like an extended bout of foreplay ...

Pros: elegant imagery, a few good scenes involving the two characters
Cons: Ultimately empty, often too artsy and tedious.

In the Mood for Love is a Hong Kong film from the director of Chungking Express, and is a fairly interesting but slow film that might need a second viewing in order to be fully appreciated. I need a second viewing, that’s for sure! My first viewing was...

Pros: Great acting, concept, potential
Cons: Too artsy for artsy sake, ending didn't quite work for me, musical score

Let me preface what I'm about to say by letting you know there are things in this review that may or may not be spoilers.

In The Mood For Love
***/***** (3 Stars)

This film has generated a fair amount of buzz in the festival...

Pros: Musical score is an utter delight; camerawork is gorgeous; acting is phenomenal
Cons: Misleading advertising campaign; structure and pacing are surely not for all tastes.

An intoxicating two-hour slowdance of a film, and a beautifully stylized, riveting tour de force, "In the Mood For Love", from director Wong Kar-wai ("Happy Together"), is a tale of supressed passion, played out in urban 1960s Shanghai. Mr. Chow (Tony...

Pros: Beautiful art direction, costumes, and cinematography
Cons: None.

Wong Kar-Wei, the Hong Kong director renown for his visually sumptuous, unscripted films (Chungking Express, Happy Together), delivers another story about detached human relationships.

This time it revolves around two individuals, veterans...

Pros: Beautiful imagery, powerfully restrained acting, disjarring passion
Cons: Some may find its disjointed narrative a bit offputting

In director Wong Kar-Wai's emotionally devastating IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE, the audience is taken to early 1960's Hong Kong, where two neighbors unwittingly become more than that when they discover that their spouses have been having an affair.

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Pros: Emotionally deep. Glorious look, music, acting.
Cons: Not for the Adam Sandler set.

I watched this movie 6 months ago, and my mind is still reeling. In The Mood For Love is a story about two lonely people who found each other, became friends... and fell in love.

After discovering that their spouses were having an affair, Chow...

Pros: Terrific performances by Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung; great atmosphere.
Cons: Won't satisfy anyone's need for a story.

Longing has always been a recurring theme in Hong Kong filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai's body of work that it was only a matter of time before he made a feature that centered on the feeling. And that's exactly what In the Mood for Love is about, plain and...

Pros: Very strong visuals, superb artdirection, great acting, smooth soundtrack
Cons: Little story, much left in the open

Anyone who has seen earlier work from writer/director Wong Kar-Wai will be amazed by the grace and pace of In the Mood for Love. Clearly Wong is moving from a multi story film like Chunking Express and Fallen Angels towards concentrating more on the...

Pros: beautiful cinematography, good acting, novel plot
Cons: timing may be a bit tricky

A film set in Hong Kong during the 1960s, two couples move into empty rooms in apartments adjacent to each other. Through careful observation and suspicion, Mr. Chow realizes that his wife is cheating on him with Mrs. Chen's husband. Chow and Chen...

Pros: "In the Mood" is a dazzlingly beautiful film made with virtuosic technique...
Cons: But it never gives us a chance to get inside its characters' heads

Pros: The leads; the photography; there is great beauty in this film
Cons: I was bored out of my skull

The only other Wong Kar-wai film I've seen was Chunking Express, thanks to its video release by Quentin Tarantino's "Rolling Thunder" distribution company. I liked it, and searched in vain for other work by the Hong Kong auteur, such as Happy...