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365days365movies · 3 years

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February 10, 2021: In The Mood For Love (2000) (Part 1)

Hey, Hong Kong!

How’ve you been? I mean, not recently, because the answer to that is...NOT GREAT, it’s not great, I know, you guys still need some support, geez. No, I meant since Action January on this blog! The good ol’ wuxia days! Remember Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon? You guys were involved in that! You do anything else fun that year?

Let’s see, you built a tunnel, your economy was amongst the best in Asia, became a bit more democratic...OH! This too!

This movie was a SMASH hit in Hong Kong and China, and is often considered as, and here we go...one of the GREATEST FILMS of all time! Worldwide! Hell of a bar to live up to! Will this be the romance movie that finally makes me cry this month, because I AIN’T SHED TEARS YET BABY. Let’s find out, shall we! SPOILERS AHEAD!!!

Recap

It is a restless moment in Hong Kong, 1962. Chan Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) and Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) move into an apartment building in Hong Kong with their significant others. Their apartments are next door, and they move in on the same day. By the way, I’m gonna be referring to them as Mrs. Chan and Chow throughout the Recap and Review.

Also, I’ll probably bring this up later, but HOLY SHIT Mrs. Chan’s wardrobe and entire appearance is...FUCK, wow. it’s amazing. Her unique qipaos, alongside the straight-up attractiveness of Maggie Cheung, gives this film a memorable aesthetic BY ITSELF.

Anyway, she works as a secretary for a local company, while Chow works as a journalist. Some of his coworkers regularly speaks about being a ladies’ man, and makes various allusions to cheating. And, I can only assume now that our pair here will fall in love, despite their spouses. Good old fashioned romantic film infidelity, probably.

Speaking of the spouses, we haven’t actually seen either Mr. Chan or Mrs. Chow. Heard their faces, sure, but not seen them physically. In fact, in the case of Mrs. Chow, their appearances in front of their spouses are getting ever sparser. All the while, Mr. Chow and Mrs. Chan tend to pass by each other, in hallways, or near alleyways around them.

Time passes, almost effortlessly. Chow’s workmate, Ah Ping (Siu Ping Lam), freshly out of the hospital after some gambling and womanizing shenanigans, tells Chow that he saw his wife walking on the street, with a man. Meanwhile, they both work regular overtime shifts which leaves their spouses alone regularly. And it’s soon revealed that Mrs. Chow and Mr. Chan are in fact sleeping together, and each of them find out separately.

Which means that somebody cheated on Maggie Cheung in this movie. And all I have to say is...REALLY? YOU FUCKIN’ SERIOUS, MR. CHAN? Goddamn, that woman, pardon my parlance, is SMOKING HOT in this movie. And also, real talk, she seems legitimately nice.

And Tony Leung’s also a nice catch! What the hell, you guys? So, anyway, they...

Wait. Infidelity...is the actual point of this movie? Like, not just a thing that gets shoves to the side of the romantic coupling, but the potential REASON for the romantic coupling. Oh. OH. I AM IN, PEOPLE.

Eventually, enough time passes with them passing each other, and they give into their loneliness...a little bit. Over the pretense of being friends, Chow asks her to go out to lunch nearby. And over the course of the lunch, it’s revealed that Chow is wearing Mr. Chan’s tie, given to him from his wife. And by the same token, she is carrying his wife’s bag. And now...they know.

Time passes yet again, and the two begin to get even closer. And this may be the first time that them potentially cheating on their partners doesn’t bother me as much in these films. In fact, the two are also reluctant to do so, and as they grow closer, the begin to grow less reluctant.

Good time for me to mention that the editing here is...FASCINATING. The way that this film is set up is essentially as an extra-strength montage. And this film has, no joke, changed the way I think about film as a whole. Really. Let me explain.

You may have noticed that amongst all of these GIFS, there’s only been one repeated outfit on Mrs. Chan. The establishment of her wardrobe diversity happens at the very beginning of the film. We rarely see where wear the same outfit in a row. Until a scene in which they’re walking home together.

First, they walk up to the apartment together, and she’s wearing that outfit. Chow hits on her a bit, and she pulls away. And then, IMMEDIATELY AFTERWARDS, we cut to a scene that starts in the exact same way, with the same dress. But this time, she smiles. It’s a diffeernt reaction. And because we know how many outfits Mrs. Chan has, we know that this must be on a different day entirely.

Which is when I realized something: these outfits aren’t meant to show her fashion sense, they’re literally meant to show the passage of time. That way, the movie is constructed in a fashion that allowed us to see the build-up of their relationship fairly rapidly, while still allowing them to speak to each other. It’s literally montage on steroids. Holy shit.

FILM ANALYSIS BOIIIIIIIIIII!

As time continues to pass, and outfits continue to change, it all feels like a single conversation with great consequence, but one that you know has taken place over an undefined amount of time. This isn’t a whirlwind romance, but it FEELS like it is based on how the directing and editing are done.

GODDAMN HONG KONG AND CHINA HOW ARE YOU DOING THIS TO ME AGAIN

The unhappiness that the each feel in their marriage begins to seep through to the surface, as their spouses have absconded to Japan, still somehow thinking that they’re getting away with it. They are not. This shit would be obvious to anybody.

Chow is interested in writing a martial arts serialized story for the newspaper, and invites Mrs. Chan to help. This is likely just with the intent to get closer to her. And, indeed, they become much closer, including in their own apartment building. That seems to backfire when they’re stuck in the same room together as their landlady and neighbors play a rousing game of Mahjong.

That game takes place over an entire night, extending all the into the next night. Goddamn, that must’ve been a crazy-ass game of Mahjong. All the while, the two are cautious, as not to rouse their neighbors’ suspicions. However, as she leaves her shoes in his room, it may already be too late for that.

OK, good time for a break, since this is about midway through the film! See you in Part 2!

#in the mood for love #flowery years #wong kar-wai #tony leung #maggie cheung #hong kong cinema #romance february #user365 #365 movie challenge #365 movies 365 days #365 Days 365 Movies #365 movies a year #useranais #userksant #fyeahmovies #blairwitchz

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taiey · 7 years

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The continuing adventures of “taiey writes liveblogs that probably only make sense with a transcript of the movie to line it up with”.

no peter please don't go after him

he really does get the most dramatic lines—ooh, green reflection in the window!

wow, that's. She really does ask for validation a lot of times

:((( this whole goblin kit thing is really elaborate? like, i thought you would've failed science. there is mechanical engineering. and chemical. for bombs.

That's a really, really stable spider web that is also flexible enough to support them without clinging, at that angle

[obligatory evil meteor mention]

Surprisingly evil-looking mail delivery guy! Uuunless you're her dad and you live here or. Oh, okay.

Oh, May.

But, like, no pressure or anything.

!!! her ring.

ahh evil evil scooter. of evil.

Harry this is not a good way to have an honest conversation. Stop punching your friend. No, I don't care that you're in costume, he's not, that makes it—DON'T STAB HIM!

I guess by the time your friend is yelling at you about his father, while wearing his green goblin costume and standing on his green goblin scooty-fly, it is acceptable to tell your friend his father was the green goblin, despite said father's dying request.

Dude! Attempts at vengeance on your best friend for murder of your father are NOT an excuse for massive property damage! I hope you pay for the repairs OH AND ALSO did no one get hurt by that massive shower of bricks onto a busy street??

"I'm still here! And now I have a lightsaber!"

oh no what if your new superpowers don't cover falling from heights? (I'm sure they do, I know he dies at the end of the movie.)

I wonder, again, if Peter took him out of the goblin costume first. like. awkward.

Wait, what? I thought when that guy jumped/fell out a window he died.

There's marshland in New York? With a terribly ill-secured particle physics laboratory?

OH MY GOODNESS YOU GUYS, YOU'RE TERRIBLE! you can't even check how much mass is in the reactor? How many birds with superpowers does New York have now?

Also awkward: imagine if those cops had gotten there slightly differently and fallen into the spinny thing toooo...

Go. See. Him. and hope maybe he doesn't remember you're spiderman if he doesn't remember you saved his liiiffffe (oh, good.)

Hey, Peter, you maybe want to. idk. Tell MJ. Some relevant facts, about her friends and his father and.

yikes that's some horrifying sand movement. like. yeeesh no.

Oh... your hand cannot pick up your daughter's locket. :( —yes! go hand, reformed hand! Woohoo! :D

Hey, nice green-ing, sand. Good job. Stripy and everything.

Yeah dude no. Don't start talking about spidey now. The other stuff was kinda okay but not, well.

Okay so when there's a large metal beam swinging about nearby your window... maybe... not? with the walking towards it?

Man, what is wrong with this crane?

you did not pick a good guy to insult peter parker to, whatsyaname. eddy. Ed. idk.

“YOU TELL MY WIFE thank you.” heh. Slight, teeny, tiny, character development, I love.

He didn't see you there, I didn't see you with a camera. Where'd you get the camera from, Pete?

Ed. Shut up. He's paying you $50 for a front page shot, he does not value anything about you.

Like, that could be a conflict for Peter, ‘i could stage that and get a steady job’ buut I already know the plot of this movie and can kinda guess how Edward gets that shot.

That is an excellent Stan Lee cameo.

...how much... exactly... has harry lost of his memory... if he doesn't know he has money...

SUPER EVIL REFLEXES!!

...oh, Mary Jane.

...oh no don't you be jealous.

This'd be a really awkward parade thing if he decided to not in faaact show up oh no. Oh, no. Oh, man.

Wow, that sure is a conveniently placed "Sand & Stone" truck. Where'd you get that shovel?

Wow, bullets work surprisingly well considering he's made. of sand.

[obligatory note of happiness about the MJ&Harry bit. and. honesty.]

dude put yer mask back on

ehhhh look the thing about the humble never-asks-to-be-thanked thing is that it doesn't work when. this.

Oh my goodness he asks her? He suggests it?? Peter, no!

"No, Spider Man, no!" I relate to this kid.

like, i've seen gifs ofit, that shekissed him but i did not realise he aSKS HER TO

Yeah, same, Mary Jane!

haha but maybe this time mary jane won't be kidnapped

The sand is now driving a truck. Poorly.

Yeeeesh no, stop, no, ~sheriff~? You’re not.

tbh what if you just. Let him take the money. So much property damage going on here. So very much.

WHAT IF YOU DIDN'T KISS SOMEONE. WHILE PREPARING TO PROPOSE TO SOMEONE ELSE. WHAT. IF.

This guy... is gonna end up bringing you that ring at the worst possible moment during your inevitable argument. Isn't he. Isn't he, Peter.

You could also try telling him you got fired, MJ. He knows that feeling! Kind of.

...not that you should say that, Peter. 'cause it's kind of only kinda.

how have you not noticed how terribly your spider man/actress analogies go over. every single time.

Like in a literary sense it's kinda cool, there are parallels between their experiences, kinda... BUT NOT RIGHT nooow

shhuuuttt uppp (this is all like 5 seconds, i just keep. pausing.)

Hey, what could make Mary Jane feel worse right now? ENTER GWEN STACY.

ENTER GWEN STACY TALKING ABOUT HOW SHE KISSED SPIDERMAN

“Who kisses Spiderman?? :D” "Me. Most days. When I'm not mad at him for beiNG TERRIBLE."

I. I'm not sure. like. what the point of that question is. There is no good answer.

No. He did not, MJ. He had idea how it would make you feel, because BOY I DUNNO.

um. usher guy. no. SHE JUST LEFT, WHY WOULD YOU SEND THE CHAMpagne in anyway, whyy

Beep!

Oh, hey! I was right! That other guy did die, probably ...aand it wasn't your fault. technically.

We chased down the wrong guy?

Pfff.

Yeah so I think so far he really hasn't killed anyone. Not counting Norman or Ock on technicalities.

Does he feel guilty? About you or about... okay, don't say "I don't need you" to Mary Jane Watson. That's a bad idea.

The evil ooze has been hanging out in your bedroom for ?? weeks and it's only now that it attacks you? infects. thing.

"Hey, this was a lot quicker than last time I made a new costume."

Spiderman is just, like, an accepted traffic hazard by now, right?

Oh, I'm so glad he's being suspicious of the black goop.

...you're not a biologist, but you can recognise a symbiote on a molecular level in minutes when it's AN ALIEN.

dude please realise you look super evil now. even to —haha like you shouldn't smash people's cameras but also haha

"Little did Spiderman know, I have TWO cameras!"

OK I'll admit the black is legitimately good for hiding on dark ceilings

TRAIN ASSISTED WEB KICK!

oh gosh the body horror from this sand thing—hope that pipe wasn't important--ooh, water works.

...also hope this large tank of pressurised water isn't important and won't flood annnything else.

EVIL HAIR-PULLING-DOWN

...that's... kinda a valid point? but. I mean sure, he should fix the door, probably, just not being polite

Hey, Peter, you made a good decision! Nice! AND STAY OFF.

Aunt May isn't having any of this "murder can be good" stuff.

revenge == the symbiote ??

Waitress/Singer is a job? ...also maybe you should tell your boyfriend about thi—Harry paints? Cool!

(Does Harry know that MJ's dating Peter?)

Yell at people and they offer you oranges?

Hee Ursula! :D

He also cooks! And they dance!

M. J. Do not. Noooooo whyy

oh no. noo. different no. :((( no. Please, Harry. Keep your eyes off 'the ball' and ahhh—hey, there's that scene that wasn't in the VHS version.

Harry?? This is like 20% of the reason you wear a mask, dude!

whiiiplaaash oh my goodness ahh poor Mary Jane.

:((( see this is the kind of quality anguish you can get when you don't just discriminately kidnap, other supervillains take note

pete. pete. pe ter par ker. "I'm breaking up with you" is not. in fact. a good segue to "Let's get married"

Took them three movies but they finally made acting plot relevant. It's not! that hard!

AND THEN. YOU GO BACK TO PETER. AND PRETEND TO BE HIS AMNESIAC BEST FRIEND oh my goodness and then you use her omitive lie about the shoW AND THEN WE GO FULL SM1

“but. but she broke up with *you*, because she was in love with *me*. !!”

what. Why are. you winking?

Bright green coffee sign!

nooo. emotional anguish---->TERRIBLE LIFE CHOICES

Right, Harry, overall—because I mean high marks for ingenuity and not-kidnapping, but—you're really lacking on the follow through here, like for keeping up the act. And wow that is a lot alcohol in front of you.

Harry please notice the ominous black spidey suit. Please. Soon.

harry im not sure you've noticed but you have blades. on. ur arm.

Takes symbiote!Pete to point out the obvious: that Norman.didn't.deserve you.

Kinda funny how after all that the picture in question is not, in fact, of Peter actually doing anything wrong.

OH MY GOODNESS, IT'S PHOTOSHOPPED? IT'S not even actually symby-spidey?

Yeah, no, Ed. I can forgive a lot of things. But reposts with the watermarks edited out? Not that.

hahahah

Symby-Pete likes Ursula's food? . . .ah

*hair flick*

water doesn't kill him forever. :o

OH MAN PETER NO.

symbiote-Pete spends money recklessly.

Oh man, Gwen is so nice.

...alien meteor ooze teaches you to play jazz piano? ...and dance?

blonde hair and the black headband and their clothes and his hair and her earrings... it's a Look.

GWEN STACY IS SO NICE! ("That was all for her? I'm so sorry.")

NO.

get. out.

geddoouutt

"Who are you?" "Well, Mary Jane, I reckon I'm the exact feeling of a church spire silhouetted against the storm clouds, as lightning crashes in the background."

okay so eddy, brocky, rock boy. don't pray to God to kill people. Don't... don't do that.

How. Exactly. Do you recognise the face of a guy you barely know, four floors up, while he's tearing an alien ooze suit off his skin.

oh no his hair's still black

Continuing adventures of That Awful Door.

I hope Aunt May knows he's Spider man, because otherwise there is just waaay too much backstory to explain here.

I think she also wants him to keep the ring so she doesn't have to wear it.

“Spiderman... didn't have those teeth last time... right?”

Maybe not? with the watching her through her window? Also considering last time your saw her in person you hit her maybe not do that first part in person, perhaps.

"On Broad-way."

...you also locked the normal one away? Or, no, that was earlier this night. You just were using the evil one, and stowed that away. ok. gotcha.

Harry! Harry, you could do. a good. ...oh no. peter don't come also what happened to his face??

:(((

OH MAN. BERNARD! i don't think this is gonna work. but. thank you. for. saying that. [it worked!:D]

what happened to your face do you still have superpowers if you're not healing.

It's the real spiderman! He stopped in front of an american flag for a sec!

this reporter overuses the word 'seemed'

Brick!

you're stiiilll fallling

Listen MJ most of the webbing is really strong, you can actually move along it and even if you fall through one level you've got a decent chance of catching the next.

this reporter is so alarmist. and that one.

Goblin bomb!

"I'm not here for you~"

Burn it & smash it! :D

That kid is awesome! ("Film's extra.")

or. you could. shoot web. and not. jump. And maybe get her down somehow? Ground level would be... safer... lotta floors, elevators proabably not working...

why did that work?

ohh. noise.

oh... kay...

[tragic backstories make everything better]

i f o r g i v e y o u .. ..

i like to think he becomes also a superhero. subtler. smaller. never quite noticed, but. bit by bit.

why in the world is gwen at harry's funeral

(mj you do in fact have a job. and. a song to finish singing. um. but anyway)

"Girl at the final battle" yes. Her. Excellent.

The credit songs this time are so... gentle...

(Balance of probabilities Harry died intestate but maybe he drew up a will at some point when he liked Peter and didn’t revoke it and then they can go help Marko’s daughter, perhaps? Maybe.)

#spiderman #sarah531

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