Synopsis
A documentary following Wong Kar-wai and his cast and crew through the production of his 2000 film IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE.
2001 Directed by Wong Kar-wai
A documentary following Wong Kar-wai and his cast and crew through the production of his 2000 film IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE.
went absolutely FERAL watching that dance scene! not a single thing on planet earth even comes close to being as cool as that.
wkw don’t be shy release every single second of in the mood for love that was ever shot
Watched it here 👇
Fyi this is THE MAKING OF the movie, not the twitter account of Mr. Chow or Mrs. Chan
The documentary is filled with an EXCESSIVE amount of deleted scenes with absolutely NO correlation to the melancholic theatrical-cut we know and love.
Just imagine how many versions you can get from 15 months of shooting this movie.
Watching this will make you enlightened about the theme of Maturity in the film;
Which is how we got the final cut of the film in the first place.
“Fifty years later, audiences might still be watching it, and say 'during the 90s or the millenium, someone made this great film, remember?'”
Maggie so eloquently expressing the most obvious truth about her early retirement that hit me after watching In the Mood for Love again and another classic, Center Stage.
She knew what kind of meaningful works she was getting into with Wong or other directors, she did them, she captivated, and now she’s all done.
“I think these achievements can last an eternity. Money can’t buy that.”
QUEEN.
It's insane to witness how Kar-wai basically shot two different films while shooting In the Mood for Love, SO many deleted scenes with a completely different energy and mood that looks absolutely nothing like the feature film we've watched. We see how much Kar-wai keeps changing his works throughtout the whole process, and it's amazing!
I'd previously seen the glorious unused footage of Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung dancing on countless cinephile-oriented Instagram pages (I even have a gif of it saved on my phone because, hey, why not spice up text messages with the two most beautiful people on the planet) and already knew about the production's beginnings as an uninhibited (and quite goofy) romcom, so no surprises here in Wong's otherwise standard making-of doc that could have been directed by any anonymous fly on the wall. That hot pot sure looks good, though.
Really should have altered the title in some way to clarify that this was a making-of feature, though I guess it was justifiable considering how much footage got reused. Still gotta love all the behind-the-scenes material and world tour promo at the end. Also Maggie Cheung, can't forget about her.
I think the fragments and the interviews aren't complementing each other all too well most of the time, but who says no to more Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung? (If you are the one to say no, I don't want to have anything to do with you, obviously.) Nevertheless, I always find it interesting to hear about how Wong Kar-wai and his actors work. Also that dancing scene is gold and them cooking together was fun too. Can't Wong Kar-wai just make a totally different version of all that lost footage and choose that lighter tone they were going for at first?