A long-awaited reunion at the beginning of 2025 is that In the Mood for Love has a 25th anniversary director's special edition. The film from a quarter of a century ago was redeveloped on the big screen today, allowing movie fans to once again peek into the emotional secrets hidden in the folds of time.
The slight tremor of Tony Leung's Adam's apple, the curled fingertips of Maggie Cheung when she unbuttoned the collar of her cheongsam, the dodging look in her eyes, the thick smoke floating in the air like sorrow, these details that were once lost in the noise of the DVD are now clearly visible on the 4K restored screen. No matter how many years have passed, the elegant patterns on the cheongsam are still so vivid.
"In the Mood for Love" 25th Anniversary Director's Special Edition Poster
"If there is an extra ticket, will you go with me?" This question that was never asked, in a different time and space, has a completely different ending. Wong Kar-wai said that this version is closer to his original idea of "In the Mood for Love". In his "draft", this was originally three stories about eating, rice cookers, instant noodles, and convenience stores.
Because of the emergence of different levels of convenience, people are liberated from the kitchen, especially women, who have a wider world and choices, which also leads to changes in emotional relationships. The convenience store in 2000 was the first to be filmed, but then the story of the rice cooker in the 1960s became longer and longer, and the instant noodles segment simply ended. So Wong Kar-wai said that the "convenience store" became the secret hidden in "In the Mood for Love" for 25 years.
This "secret" later developed into "My Blueberry Nights", which was opened from a more Western perspective. This time, we have the opportunity to see on the big screen the lovers who have been unable to let go for 25 years, bravely breaking through that layer of window paper in another parallel universe that belongs only to Wong Kar-wai.
Stills from My Blueberry Nights
This plot, which seems to have nothing to do with the original film, is the antidote to time planted by Wong Kar-wai.
Stills from In the Mood for Love
The secret that Chow Mo-wan whispered to the tree hole in Angkor Wat was rewound to the counter of a convenience store in the millennium in the special edition. Su Lizhen and Chow Mo-wan reunited in 2001. The montage stitched together the cheongsam of the 1960s and the jeans of the millennium. The cold light of the freezer replaced the dim light of the tungsten bulb, and the ding-dong sound of the microwave covered the ticking of the old wall clock.
When Su Lizhen in the parallel universe can face her cheating husband with a fierce look on her face, or lie half drunk and half awake on the table of a convenience store with cream on her victory cake, the lip marks left on cigarette butts that were once bound by morality and unwillingly finally evolved into the most direct and fresh passionate kiss in the new century.
Stills from Chungking Express
Many people feel that the last Easter egg segment is similar to "Chungking Express", in addition to the protagonist's more playful and light temperament, it also benefits from the texture conveyed by the light and shadow of the lens. Because the photographer who originally collaborated with Wong Kar-wai to shoot the three kinds of food was Christopher Doyle, and the two were inspired to reshoot in Thailand after shooting the Hong Kong part, so the photography of "In the Mood for Love" that we see now has been changed from Christopher Doyle to Li Pingbin, presenting a more profound and stable image language that focuses on light and shadow contrast. Looking back at the new segment released today, imagining Chow Mo-wan and Su Li-zhen under Christopher Doyle's lens may also be another style worth pondering.
As for the story of the rice cooker, it was also because I listened to the explanation of Wong Kar-wai's pre-screening promotional video of the conversation with AI, so I deliberately paid attention to this detail that was once easily overlooked. Not long after the movie started, the neighbors who were engaged in foreign trade asked Mr. Su Lizhen, who was engaged in the foreign trade industry, to buy a rice cooker for them. In the film, there are many scenes of eating and pictures of pots, which coincides with the grasp of this theme in the creation of that year. When the emotional relationship between the two people changed subtly, in a set of horizontal shots, the old-fashioned earthen pot in Su Lizhen's house was steaming, and Zhou Muyun was holding the rice cooker in his hand in disappointment, which also hinted at the choice tendencies of people in different marriage cages.
Wong Kar-wai said early on that this is not a story about cheating, but about secrets. So even if time passes and modern people have many new perspectives on emotional relationships, this story will never become old-fashioned and outdated. Rewatching the movie is more like a process of "decryption", how did they, and they, start, what kind of detours and troubles there were. The cheongsam is a switch that reveals the heart, and it is also a decoder that marks time. Many scenes that are obviously connected, such as eating, answering the phone, going downstairs to buy noodles, or just a glance in a certain direction, can make people realize that they have been separated by a long time because of the different clothes.
Stills from In the Mood for Love
What trapped people in the film were the graceful cheongsams, the cramped corridors, and the fear of gossip. In the 1960s, Su Lizhen was trapped in the title of "Mrs. Chen". In that Hong Kong without secrets, every blind was a peeping eye, and people who liked each other restrained their love because of the shackles of morality. Every time they wanted to say something but stopped, every time their eyes crossed, every time they passed by, it was a long footnote of regret.
Many years later, when she sneaked into Zhou Muyun's room in Singapore and took away the pair of embroidered shoes, the lip prints of the cigarette butt and the tree holes in Angkor Wat were both unspeakable secrets. When they passed each other again under the same roof, the child's name "Yongsheng" contained a more obscure intertextuality that confirmed the past when they wrote martial arts novels together.
Stills from In the Mood for Love
In fact, I was somewhat looking forward to it before watching it. I wondered if the director would give a different ending 25 years later. After all, in the different versions of the DVD released over the years, we can find clues from various tidbits that the story has different directions. And without a script, Wong Kar-wai has already let the characters interpret the possibilities of their fate as much as possible.
As a result, I saw a lot of ambiguous details that I felt fresh but was not sure whether they were new. Overall, the story was still the same, the regrets were still the same, and there was a bit of disappointment. But on second thought, isn't the essence of In the Mood for Love the missed opportunities that are kept secret in the heart, and the sadness of unrequited love? Those fresh details are just a more classic seasoning to enrich the emotional dimension of the characters. But if this changes to a new direction, I am afraid it will really ruin the classic.
I really appreciate Wong Kar-wai's statement that this time he is "returning movies to theaters." This "longest director's special edition in history" of In the Mood for Love will only be shown in theaters and will not be released on other channels. This willfulness is very Wong Kar-wai. This sense of ritual that belongs exclusively to fans and creators must be immersed in the bright halo, must be wrapped in the accordion tail of "Quizás, Quizás, Quizás", and must ferment in the gap between the leather seats and the smell of popcorn; this "kiss of the century" that is so beautiful that it is criminally beautiful is only willing to meet the audience in the cinema and will not be submerged in the digital torrent.
Stills from In the Mood for Love
Back then, I only remembered that Maggie Cheung's cheongsam was so beautiful, Tony Leung's smoke rings were so bitter, and I thought love was the phone call that Su Lizhen didn't answer. But when the giant screen lit up, I relived the old dream and realized that what I didn't understand back then was far more than just about love.
Of course, as a fan of Wong Kar-wai, I would rather look forward to more varied editing versions, turning over and revealing all the secrets hidden in the film. After all, Wong Kar-wai's works are always on the road and will never be completed!
