Milez Das (Rohit Shivdas)’s review published on Letterboxd:
There are some movies that can leave you breathless. Some Speechless and Some just make you fall in Love.
This movie makes sure you get all three.
The film takes place in Hong Kong, 1962. Chow, a journalist, rents a room in an apartment of a building on the same day as Mrs.Chan, a secretary from a shipping company. They become next-door neighbours. Each has a spouse who works and often leaves them alone on overtime shifts.
Most of the time we see them alone sitting in their room wondering. Even though the landlady always try to include them but they are used to their loneliness. Mrs.Chan and Chow who always go to a noodle stand to eat is shown with an elegant music. Mrs.Chan who is an elegant lady, who always dresses properly with such elegance.
They both meet have some conversation but soon realize the affair their spouses are having. They try to replicate how it could have happened. We see how they rehearse the scenes about how their spouses should have meet.
As their relationship grows it affects them as their neighbours begin to notice. Chow takes a job to write serials in paper about Martial-art where Mrs.Chan helps him to write. Chow starts to leave in a hotel room so no one can notice them. But as the time passes they develop deep feeling for each other. Chow decides to leave for Singapore.
A year after Mrs.Chan visits Singapore to meet Chow but she only hangs out in his apartment alone. She even gives a blank call to Chow.
After three years Mrs.Chan rents the place where she and Chow used to leave as the landlady migrates to America. Chow also visits his lanlord but he is also migrated as he asks the man who is living there now about the neighbour were the man tells him a lady and his son are leaving there. And the lady is Mrs.Chan but Chow goes without knocking.
He visits Combodia and puts a secret in a whole of temple and puts mud on it. I really wanted him to knock on the door.
Wong Kar-wai is just an inspiration to me. How he shows the mood and texture his his work. How the characters float. The rain, their conversation, their loneliness. And the music and the slow motion use of it is just beautiful to watch.
I was really In The Mood For Love.