In the Mood for Love

Hong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo Wan (Tony Leung Chiu Wai) and Su Li Zhen (Maggie Cheung Man Yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite--until a discovery about their spouses creates an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar Wai's In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching sound-track and exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping Bing, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past two decades of cinema, and is a milestone in Wong's redoubtable career.