2046

I finally got around to watching 2046, the third film in Wong Kar-wai’s loosely connected trilogy, following Days of Being Wild (1990) and In the Mood for Love (2000). Those two, along with Chungking Express (1994), are among my favorite films. I think the only reason I waited so long to watch 2046 was that I didn’t want to be disappointed.

I wasn’t disappointed. It’s quite good, often in the same ways that made the first two films exceptional. It’s “about how a man faces his future due to a certain past,” as Wong put it, and it unfolds in segments. The main focus for most of the film is on Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai), several years after his affair with Su Li-zhen in Hong Kong (In the Mood for Love). In 2046, the playboy Chow moves into room 2047 (since 2046 isn’t available due to renovations) at the Oriental Hotel, where he writes articles and fiction. He drinks a lot, to forget or to remember, and goes through a number of women.

He becomes involved with three of them at different times: Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi), a cabaret girl who lives for a while in room 2046; Wang Jing-wen (Faye Wong), who's in love with a Japanese man and is the daughter of the hotel’s owner (who despises the Japanese because of the war); and the “Black Spider”—a second Su Li-zhen (Gong Li), a gambler who wins money for Chow.

Chow also meets Lulu (Carina Lau) from Days of Being Wild.

There are steamy scenes, along with Wong’s signature use of color, mise-en-scène, pacing, framing, and camera angles. Zhang Ziyi stands out in particular, delivering a performance that captures a wide range of emotional nuance with ease.

The film also tells the story of a character Chow creates for one of his novels (also titled 2046). He's Japanese, named Tak (played by Takuya Kimura), and is the only person to have ever escaped “2046,” a futuristic place where nothing ever changes and there is no sadness or loss, and where many travel in search of lost love. Tak, something of Chow’s alter ego, is on a seemingly endless train journey toward 2046. The train is staffed by gynoids, and Tak attempts intimacy with one (played by Faye Wong), only to find the feeling isn’t returned.

In short, the film is great, though it doesn’t quite reach the same sublime level as the first two entries in the trilogy. I may have made the mistake of watching them in the wrong order (II, I, then III), and months apart. I'll watch them again.