2046 (2004)

Sorry, this movie sucks

Brilliant and touching

Admirable film.

This story has more twists and turns than a second-rate soap opera.

This movie is supposed to be good but actually it was so boring I couldn't even finish it and I was so disappointed cause I was excited to watch something good this is not a good movie and Wong Kar Wai didn't do his even half of the best on it.

2046 (2004) Another beautiful atmospheric piece by Kar-Wai Wong. Nicely ties together Days of Being Wild (1990) & In the Mood for Love (2000). Visually much more similar to the latter; but in content and style, this one seems much more Hollywood and mainstream. For one, there are a substantial number of intense sex scenes. Nothing wrong with that, except when compared to the other two, where the subtle illusion of it forces us to realize how true the adage "less is more" can be. The Good. Christopher Doyle again. I do love his magic. Peering through holes, around edges. Fast forward, slow motion, pause. Long shots, panning shots. Looking up at a hotel balcony. Flying through the steampunk monorail tracks. Close ups on faces as we wait for a tear to form and fall. We move with him, we dance with him, we see a specific vision that is nothing short of amazing. Regrettably, that vision was a story that needs a little improvement. The Bad. A notable concern I expressed for the first two film was the use of Cantonese over Mandarin, for I find Mandarin to be a much more beautiful language, being less choppy and harsh. I feel this is very well exhibited in this film, since Chow almost exclusively speaks Cantonese, while the other characters often use Mandarin. (Especially incongruous as Nat King Cole sings "Merry Christmas" in English in the background and two characters speak alternatively in Cantonese and Mandarin.) I do understand Mandarin, not so much Cantonese- so this was an opportunity for me to see how much the translation suffered. There are many subtle differences. A lot, in fact. ("Difficult to say" becomes "Who can say?"; "Good to me" becomes "Kind to me"; "Do not leave" becomes "Stay with me tonight".) But a couple key ones were actually significant enough to alter meaning. After Chow and Bai-Ling's first dinner, where she wonders out loud whether his girlfriends would be angry. This is actually translated as "Won't your girlfriends be missing you tonight?". The worst ones I noticed use the word "love" when the word spoken was atually "like". The first, when Bai-Ling had fallen in love with Chow and was giving him an ultimatum. The translation tells her saying, "I don't care if you love me or not, I'll love you anyway." In reality, she is using the word like. As in, "I don't care if you like me or not, I will still like you." Big difference. A second incidence is when Chow is telling gambler Su Li-zhen about first Su Li-zhen ("In the Mood for Love"). "You loved her deeply?" she wants to know. In actuality, what she asks is, "You really liked her?" Not sure if the Cantonese translation is any better. If it is as bad as the Mandarin, that puts into question my understanding of these films. Luckily, Kar-Kai Wong's films are much more about mood and atmosphere and visual storytelling, but still. The concern has been posited. The Ugly. Felt like Wong was trying for too much. The first two films in this trilogy fard better with focus. Science Fiction aspect was not to my liking. Maybe made for some nice visuals and fun for the crew (great neon colors in the train, zooming backward through the annular and ever-shifting train tunnel to transition back to reality), but really did not add anything to the story. Rather, it distracted. Fictional world blending into reality and vice versa. Wonderful idea in concept, but executed here did not work. Art over substance. This feels more similar to "Chungking Express" than the first two in this trilogy- trying so hard to be arthouse that his work suffers. "Let's see each other again. Then, if you think we shouldn't be together, tell me so frankly... That day, six years ago, a rainbow appeared in my heart. It's still there, like a flame burning inside me. But what are your real feelings for me? Are they like a rainbow after the rain? Or did that rainbow fade away long ago?" "Love is all a matter of timing. It's no good meeting the right person too soon or too late. If I'd lived in another time or place, my story might have had a very different ending."

"In the Mood for Love" showcased a hopeless love story, that which is lost even before its inception. "2046" portrays the hopeless attempts to overcome the repression of emotions by the repression of identity. Chow's idealized love for Su, which he lost, lead him into a state in which he can't stay true to his emotions. So he moves on without looking back only to look back at those who reminds him of his lost love, which ultimately leads to the realization that he needs to let go of the past. Chow's thoughts are further explored in the sci-fi world of his novel "2046". As each of the characters in his life is portrayed as a character in the novel, his real emotions towards them are exposed, as the writing progresses, even to him.Yearning for love is a basic human emotion that has always been a consistent theme in Wong films. Even when doing action/biography films like "The Grandmaster", the film ends up more or less about love. "2046" portrays the chaos of lost souls who are looking for love from all the wrong places and their suffering when they can't let go of the love they found or get hold of. Like every Wong film, "2046" is also at its best when the visual and musical motifs lead the viewers to feel what the characters are going through.Read full review at www.asianfilmvault.com/2017/07/2046-2004-by- wong-kar-wai.html

"Mr. Chow is seen so much in love with Bai Ling."Chow is not in love with Bai Ling. He is in love with the character in his past, as represented by Maggie Cheung, and with the same name as the Li Gong character.Bai Ling is, however, in love with Chow -- and as result ends up being where Chow has been all along: trapped in the past.And there is fairly direct hint that he's in love with Faye Wong's character -- "the happiest summer of my life"; sometimes he makes and excuse to pick her up at work to take her home, which in the instance shown she declines -- though she not with him.