DVD Review: 2046

DVD Reviews

By Andy McKeague Jun 11, 2005, 16:00 GMT

Wong Kar-Wai's '2046' is like a dream, beautiful, lush, haunting, hypnotic, and sensually scored, but it is much more than style over substance. It plays like a retrospect of Kar-Wai's work to date. The mood of the piece is very much a companion to his previous 'In the Mood for Love', and the casting includes the cream of Asian talent.

Over the span of five years Wong Kar-Wai honed this movie into the form it is today, going through various re-writes and story changes. It was when Kar-Wai was shooting 'In the Mood For Love’ that the characters for '2046' took a turning point. It now feels, with hindsight, that ‘In the Mood for Love’ is the missing chapter in his sad and poignant '2046', showing how Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung) became the bitter and jaded man he is. Looked over for the Golden Palm in Cannes, which went to Michael Moore's soapbox documentary instead, showing there is little justice in the world after all.

Set almost in the same city over a period of years in the late 60's, Chow Mo Wan continues his writing adventures and tales of love and lust. Cynical now to life itself, pleasure is there for the taking but he cannot escape from his own ghosts. He tries to exorcise them in the books he writes, entitling one 2046; a time and place for people with lost dreams. His main fictional character seems to be a reflection of himself, constantly yearning and hoping to recapture his one and only love.

The movie does not follow a chronological order and has glimpses into Chow Mo Wan written world too. Featuring an operatic Hong Kong of the 60’s to the futuristic landscapes where a world is connected by long distance train lines with hostess robots that will serve you in more ways than one. The year of 2046 refers to the last year before the 50-year period the Chinese Government promised to let Hong Kong remain as it is, an end to the proposed period of stability. By the end of the movie the interwoven stories fall neatly into their unhappy places.

A year after the collapse of his love, Chow meets another woman with the same name as his lost love, Su Lizhen (Gong Li), in Singapore. She is a somewhat beautiful and mysterious creature, constantly wearing a single black glove, perhaps a previous gambling day gone wrong, and reminds him of times past. They make a deal, she will help him get his money back to return to Hong Kong, but she looses her heart to the melancholy Chow in the process.

Back in Hong Kong, he catches a glimpse of Lulu (Carina Lau), a girl he remembers from his Singapore days and returns with her to the Orient Hotel, he enters her apartment, room 2046. He returns a time afterwards and asks for her, but it seems that no one recognises that name, so he asks about the room instead indicating that he wishes to stay there. The room is not available and settles into the room next door, 2047, instead. It seems in his first choice there is some redecorating needed; the previous occupant was actually murdered, stabbed to death by a jealous boyfriend.

He draws on the characters around him for the inspiration for the characters in his novel; the hotel owner, his two daughters Jing Wen (Faye Wong) and Jie Wen (Jie Dong), the former in a Romeo and Juliet type affair with a Japanese man, Tak (Kimura Takuya), and the latter is a somewhat precocious girl, and then his new neighbour from 2046, a hostess named Bai Ling (a wonderful Zhang Ziyi).

After times together as drinking partners, they embark on an affair. This is the emotional heart of the movie, Ziyi is absolutely wonderful and heart breaking in her role. Her character of Bai Ling is one of these wonderful creatures that put their whole being into a relationship, heart, body, soul no matter what the circumstances, an all or nothing kind of girl. And looses them all, just as quickly, when Chow Mo Wan tries to pay her for a nights pleasure in bed, she gives him back the money and finally accepts a $10 bill. Although she is a hostess, she remains ever faithful to the playboy living in hope; she too is a shadow of her former passionate self. Each time they sleep together he pays her, this she keeps in a box under her bed, more a token of their love than a payment of service. One night they are having dinner and she gives him all his money back which he pays the bill with, not realising or not caring that each bill he hands over is a little piece of her heart. His fault is that he still holds on to the past, that he is unable to be entirely faithful to the present and anyone that ventures into his path.

During this brief affair, his friendship grows with Jing Wen, who is hiding the fact that she is still continuing her relationship with Tak behind her father’s back. She eventually ends up ghost writing for him too as they while away the hours.

In his writings the stories unfold of what may or may not happen in the future lives of his characters living and fictional (many of the actors play a double role in his vision of the future), above all this is like his secret life being buried away in a tree, something that must be told and something that need not be necessarily found.

The film is gorgeous to look at and to listen to, Christopher Doyle and Shigeru Umebayashi, respectively, provide the canvas upon which Wong Kar-Wai paints his tale. The acting is first rate throughout, although there is very little dialogue apart from a heavy narration, some of the characters you wish for more airtime, and perhaps we will see them again one day. Many class ‘In the Mood for Love’ as his masterpiece, it is one I will agree, but this is equally so.

Just a little note of trivia that may not be so apparent to western audiences, is that when each character speaks, they speak in their own language. Mr. Chow speaks Cantonese, Bai Ling speaks Mandarin, and Tak speaks Japanese even when talking to each other. Even so, they seem to understand each other perfectly.

In the extras, there is an exclusive interview in English with Wong Kar-Wai (only on the UK release), chatting about the genesis of the project and how many twists and turns it took to get to the finished project, from sci-fi tale to a melancholy man writing about his demons, reflections of working with his cast and the rushed premiere at Cannes. An interview with Ziyi is also included, and she humbly indicates that although Kar-Wai methods were something to get used to, he has helped her in the long run. Some scenes of Ziyi in working mode, the Casta Diva music video (the footage used here is very poor), and a few trailers finish off the discs extra quotient. Packaged in a handsome slipcase, including a booklet of film notes from James Mottram and a Tartan catalogue which doubles as a poster for ‘2046’.