(Wong Kar Wai, 2000/2001, Hong Kong, 98 + 9 minutes) 

Ranked the #5 best film ever made in Sight & Sound Magazine’s influential 2022 poll, Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love only gets better and better as the years pass. (And it was incredible from day one!) After establishing an international reputation on the heels of his effervescent classics Chungking Express and Happy Together, Wong dialed back the style he was so widely known for and made this, a reserved tale of romantic longing, set against the backdrop of 1962 Hong Kong. Moving into neighboring living quarters on the same day, Mr. Chow (Tony Leung) and Mrs. Chan (Maggie Cheung, whose character’s full name is the same as her character name in Days of Being Wild, which coupled with the years those two films are set implies a continuation of sorts of that character) are thrown together first by living circumstances, then by social circumstances, as it becomes clearer and clearer that their respective spouses are having an affair with one another. 

“In the Mood for Love 2001” reteams Wong, Leung, Cheung, and DP Christopher Doyle for a modern story that bears more narrative similarity to My Blueberry Nights than to In the Mood for Love itself. Shown only in a masterclass at Cannes in 2001, “In the Mood for Love 2001” resurfaced in 2025 and is only now making its debut on our screen, despite our showing the main ItMfL every couple of years. 

In Cantonese and Shanghainese with English subtitles.