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 inspiration for Sofia Coppola’s Lost In Translation 3 years later. That film was a love-it or hate-it affair, and I couldn’t stand it. This is a much more satisfying film, but for reasons I shall explain in a minute is not one I would especially recommend to most people.

(Incidentally I am not normally one for watching many foreign films – yes, I know, shame on me – so this is not the view of a foreign film connoisseur, more a foreign film novice!)

It features Su Li-zhen Chan (Maggie Cheung) and Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) as new neighbours, both married, both having just moved in. Chan’s husband and Chow’s wife are often away on business, and both become very lonely. They find a common ground in the martial arts serials Chow starts writing – something he always wanted to do, but never believed he could before. Slowly they become friends and then their relationship starts to show signs of developing into something more, despite their busy work schedules and fleeting visits from their spouses. Their landlords also seem to take an active interest in their affairs…


What I liked about the film

Both main characters are likeable and believable, and their situation is one you can sympathise with. The music is very moody, though somewhat repetitive. I certainly enjoyed this a lot more than Lost In Translation (though that isn’t difficult as pulling my own teeth out would also be more enjoyable!). Even though there wasn’t a lot of action per se, there was a always plenty of hustle and bustle in the scenes with people constantly on the move in the background, which gave you the impression of being zoomed in on two people surrounded by a world they didn’t feel part of anymore. Both stars were excellent in their roles.


What I didn’t like about it

The pacing was rather slow, but became very slow in places due to long scenes of the same shot showing nothing in particular happening. This was most evident when showing one of the characters in the rain thinking – it made it’s point after ten seconds or so, got a bit annoying after twenty, but after nearly a full minute you began to wonder if they had just forgotten they were still filming. The thing that pushes me to give this a “not recommended” rating is the fact that many of the subtitles were basically unreadable (either very fast or white text on a white background). To be fair this may be because the version I was watching came as a freebie with a newspaper – I would certainly hope that this would be something they sorted out for the version they want you to pay for!

Verdict

Overall I did enjoy this film, but with the subtitle problems I couldn’t recommend it fully. The scenes seemed to jump from one to another rather rapidly and also abruptly changed location a couple of times with no warning. I wouldn’t say these were totally negative points but they didn’t particularly help when quite a bit of the dialogue was already lost to a same colour as the text background. If you liked Lost In Translation, I suspect you will love this. However, if not, I think you will enjoy this more – but perhaps not enough more to want to watch it.

(The DVD version I have has no extras.)


Other Information

Rating: PG
Runtime: 98 minutes

This film won or was nominated for a multitude of awards – see http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118694/awards for more details.


Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: DVD