2046




How to be a pimp with Tony Leung.

2046 (2004) is Wong Kar-Wai’s semi-sequel to In the Mood for Love (2000), featuring the same author character played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai. Years after pointedly not having an affair with his neighbor’s wife, the author is living back in Hong Kong and making ends meet by writing whatever will make him money. He’s become a heartless ladies’ man, dating an endless progression of loose women. The plot, such as it is, follows some of his platonic and not-so-platonic relationships, particularly with women who live in the apartment next to his, numbered, of course, 2046. These women include Faye Wong as the landlord’s daughter, Zhang Ziyi as a call girl, and Carrina Lau as the dancer she played in Wong’s early film Days of Being Wild (1991).


In the future all romance is defined by bad Patrick Swayze songs.

It’s all beautiful and poetic. Like all Wong movies it’s beautifully shot, and the soundtrack is a feast. Just don’t expect any big revelations or coherent storylines. 2046 wanders through the author’s life until the movie ends, and that’s about it. The most striking images in the movie are the least consequential, the science fiction scenes aboard a train traveling to (or from) a city called 2046, where nothing changes and you can revisit your memories. I think these scenes were shot for a prior incarnation of 2046 that was supposed to be a sci-fi movie (this was even before In the Mood for Love was shot), but they’ve been incorporated into the final movie as scenes from one of the author’s novel.

Posted: Sun - February 5, 2006 at      

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