2046 (2004)

Up until this point I was a massive Wong Kar-Wai fan.My first exposure to WKW was Fallen Angels, which blew me away. Chungking Express is a bit disjointed but great at its best and very interesting at its worst. Happy Together was almost painful to watch at times, but it certainly left an impression. In the Mood for Love is one of my all time movies; hauntingly beautiful.So to say I was looking forward to 2046 would be an understatement. But somehow it leaves me cold. It has the beautiful cinematography that's the hallmark of a Wong / Doyle collaboration but it doesn't do anything with it. The plot, such as it is, is disjointed and goes nowhere.To be fair, this movie is more about the development of Chow mo-wan as a character rather then the events that form him and therein lie much of my complaint with the film. I just don't like the way he is developing.Perhaps I'm hampered by being too much of a fan of In the Mood for Love. I adore his (and Maggie Cheung's) character there and was happy to leave them in the state they were in at the end of that film. A sequel feels entirely unnecessary and especially a sequel that takes them to places I don't appreciate. Like seeing a sequel to E.T. where he returns to invade the earth and ravage the population. It somehow seems to cheapen the original experience. It's almost enough to make me wish I'd never watched this movie at all.But that would be going too far. Because despite its flaws, the movie isn't a total loss. There is beauty here as well, and interesting characters. The highlight for me would be the futuristic scenes, supposedly set on a train in the year 2046, where a man struggles with his feelings towards a machine. Now there's a Wong Kar-Wai film I'd like to see! 6 stars out of 10.

I was unawares that this film was a trilogy - and so this review is based on my initial viewing not having seen the first 2 films (although some googling gave me a basic understanding of what happened in the first 2 films). This is a story more so about the past than the future. A writer, Mr. Chow, caught up in the throws of a previous failed love affair, tries to recapture the past but is unsuccessful each time in each new woman that he meets.His new love interests all have some element of romantic tragedy about them - his writing assistant, who is deeply in love with someone who her father will never approve of, a call girl who has a desperate unrequited love for Chow, a gambler with a mysterious past, very much like Chow... all of them will never replace the one he lost so many years ago.From the get go, potential viewers should know that this is a deeply depressing film. By the end, viewers will leave with a feeling of emptiness and feeling that "This can't be the end." Much like Gone with the Wind (although, I won't say that this is equal to or greater than that classic), this film is about love at the wrong times and places. I suppose the strongest message that I can get out of the film is that everything changes - there is no way to recapture the past, and if one tries to do so, it will never go the way that one plans. Although confusing at times, and often drifting in and out of time sequences, the film is beautifully directed, artistically stunning and definitely something that will keep you watching until the very end. Tragically beautiful.

2046 is directed by Wong Kar-wai from Hong Kong in 2001. This film is a simple content and complex emotional love story.Different from the other Wong Kar-wai's film, 2046 trying to through the whole story instead of some plots or emotions to build up a whole. The cores are the tangle and give up of Chow Mo-Wan and five women in his life. The love which these attempt to do the perfect but have not completed reflects Wang Kar-wai's characters: love, memory, rejection, communications is impossible and so on. On this point, the figures of the 2046 continue the previous work of Wong Kar-wai's full personality. At the same time, the story is basically valid in the logic. At that, as the time sequence, except Chow Mo-Wan, the other characters appeared in the Wong Kar-Wai's film reached the end respectively.It can be said, all of the Wong Kar-wai's film are about love. And different from the other film, Chow Mo-Wan has extremely rich emotion to love. MS So rescue him became the love. LULU with him is love. Wang Jingwen has grace and innocence is love. Every woman appeared in the Wang Kar-wai films are more brave and insistence than men when they face love.Each Wang's film is telling love story. And different from the ambiguous emotion that can't be said; the kind of love surround Zhou muyun is abundantly in film 2046. Su lizhen was regarded his rescue as love, Lulu approve his temperament and develop to the love, Bai lin and her love is revolve around carnal desire, Wang jingwen's grace and pure still is love. These women in Wang's film when they faced love, they are holding on it and show their more brave than some men. Lulu and the daughter of master of the house- Wang jingwen is this type. The only difference is Lulu die as her insistence, but Wang jingwen go with his Japanese boyfriend also as her insistence. So much famous stars drew them out with these complex love key. In this case, it destroys film's structure and rhythm to an extent. Zhou muyun turns his target from one to another when most forces still in the air.Zhou muyun can't step forward because of his memory about a woman named Su lizhen. Memory became the main actor in Zhou muyun's love. After Wu save his secrets, Zhou muyun came across another Su lizhen. Their momentary love ended with leave of Zhou muyun. When they said goodbye, Zhou said: You could find me again if allow yourself go. Two years later, Zhou muyun understand that exist words was said to himself when he found this woman involve in his memory. At the different or same time, he just regards this Su lizhen as the first one. Same as Lulu, because of her memory and find succedaneum again and again. Obviously, these people didn't live in the reality but in the past and their dream. So, Zhou muyun use his imaginary novel 2047 to weave a dream: somewhere called 2046, almost wonderful memories full of it.Some main plots happened in an restaurant where the place was closed, it seemed that only Muyun Zhou and a female customer stayed next door called 2046. All the other staffs were typical Shanghaineses. This surrounding was brought by dark colors, it showed the wall old which looked like a moldy memories. Even more that opera, dress, suit, shiny hair wax, and banquet were the essential background and must-have stuffs, since they were busy on everything but some serious matters. Old Shanghai's decadence and glossy surface were reborn in 60s of last century, Hong Kong. What we seen in the film of 2046 neither Old Shanghai nor Hong Kong, but the dream of Wong Kar-wai. Film photography, art and landscape setting were perfectly showing noisy but lonely and warm and sentimental. This atmosphere expressed by Wong Kar-wai reflected that he had enriched old knowledge of traditional culture and outstanding ability to control the film.The film 2046 was begging from a voice over of Mucun, it said people lived in yesterday would find a hole of tree and tell it themselves' secrets. In Wong Kar-wai's film, the reason why the love could not come true was that they could not communicate with each other besides the memories they could not give up. Muyun Zhou chose a hole of tree to tell secrets, and in the future, Mucun said the same words over and over again as Muyun Zhou, however, this time Mucun could not gain any response because he said to a female Robert. This had become a fate that could not escape, and that was the way the fate was. Wong Kar-wai strongly went after the number and the time in this film. "2046" looked like a symbol through the whole story, it looked like a mystery, it was a room number next the room where Muyun Zhou stayed, it was one of the recall of episode between Mucun and Lizhen Su, it was a number when he hunted for LULU, it also was a place where happened in his fiction and a never-ending train. There were showed a few lines sentences in twice times: one hour, ten hours, one hundred hours, and one thousand hours. These digitals rigidly reflected the change of time. The time to change laughed at the false promise.

I think part of the difficulty was caused by the difference in culture (Chinese), and my own tiredness, because it was quite difficult a lot of the time to distinguish between different characters (particularly the women). It was quite erratic as well; with a loose miss-match of flash- backs, fantasy scenes, and quotes; which together depict an equally loose interweave of plot-threads. The film had some rather grand moments; when it's general chaos was dispersed to reveal a rather pleasing clarity about any one of a whole series of concepts which the film tried to express. At these moments, I found myself sitting up straight and paying attention, rather than slumped and gently passing the time.I would summarise this film to be Asia's equivalent to the French "Before Sunset" (and probably "Before Sunrise" albeit I have not seen the film yet). I think that I relate to the French mindset better than I do the Asian one.