2046
*** ½ (three and a half stars)
A feast for the eyes.
In Cantonese, Mandarin and Japanese, with English subtitles. Running time: 129 minutes. Rated R (sex). At the Lincoln Plaza and the Sunshine.
‘2046,” master filmmaker Wong Kar-wai’s intoxicating quasi-sequel to “In the Mood for Love,” has the now single and caddish hero, Chow (Tony Leung), romancing and discarding a series of beautiful women.
It’s the 1960s, and the women all occupy room 2046 in the seedy Hong Kong hotel where Chow lives – the same room where his trysts with a married woman took place in the earlier film.
The title also refers to the year 2046, when China’s pledge that Hong Kong will remain “unchanged” when the turnover from Great Britain expires; “2046” is even the title of a pulp sci-fi novel churned out by Chow, a newspaper columnist who squanders his money on gambling, drink and women.
Dream-like excerpts from that futuristic novel, depicting a bleak train to the future staffed by androids, amplify the film’s theme of romantic futility.
Most of the action takes place in the Orient Hotel, where Chow’s conquests are played by a Who’s Who of Chinese beauties, including Gong Li and Carina Lau, plus tantalizingly fleeting appearances by Leung’s “In the Mood for Love” co-star, Maggie Cheung.
Pop singer Faye Wong (who also appears as a big-haired, drug-dispensing android in the futuristic sequences) is the hotel owner’s daughter, who turns to Chow for comfort after her father forbids her to marry a Japanese man.
But Chow’s most torrid, and ultimately tragic, romance is with a gorgeous but naive hooker with a heart of gold – an Oscar-caliber performance by Zhang Ziyi (“House of Flying Daggers”).
Not that the serial womanizer – whom Leung plays as a world-weary cross between Clark Gable and Humphrey Bogart – is capable of truly caring.
Anyone who focuses on Wong Kar-wai’s Chinese puzzle of a plot is missing the point.
As the title of his earlier film suggests, he’s all about creating mood – and Wong Kar-wai’s longtime cinematographer Christopher Doyle has outdone himself with the film’s burnished period interiors, and an almost fetishistic focus on the actresses, who are invariably dressed in tight-fitting dresses.
Underlining the main character’s loneliness is a well-selected soundtrack consisting mostly of period pop songs, including encores of Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song” for several scenes that take place at Yuletide.
“2046” is a bit overlong and not for all tastes, but fans of “In the Mood for Love” will relish this second helping, which is more emotionally substantial than the first.