2046 By Wong Kar-wai May 2026

Where In the Mood for Love was about what was almost said, 2046 is about what’s said too late, or to the wrong person. Chow claims he’s moved on. He hasn’t. He pays other women to pretend, he writes stories where robots cry, he laughs at love while composing elegies to it.

Christopher Doyle’s cinematography (along with Kwan Pun Leung and Yiu-Fai Lai) is lush, claustrophobic, and drenched in jewel tones—emerald greens, deep crimsons, electric blues. Rain on taxi windows. Cigarette smoke curling like a second thought. Slow-motion embraces that last one second too long. Every frame feels like a sigh. 2046 by wong kar-wai

Zhang Ziyi’s Bai Ling steals the film. She plays a woman who gives herself entirely to Chow, knowing he won’t give back. The Christmas Eve scene—where she waits, dresses up, then silently destroys the room—is as raw as anything Wong has ever filmed. Where In the Mood for Love was about

That “except one” is the hook—and the heartbreak—of Wong Kar-wai’s aching, gorgeous, and deliberately frustrating masterpiece. He pays other women to pretend, he writes

★★★★½ (or, 10/10 sad train rides)