WKW carries us away with this haunting and melancholic music, its repetitiveness capturing the inner turmoil gnawing at our two protagonists, as if the melody echoes the rhymes of a poem.

Every frame is filled with the highest artistic craftsmanship, elevating even the seemingly mundane act of fetching noodles into a sensual and haunting experience. Through this cinematic transfiguration that magnifies a love unable to assert itself, littering the walls with unspoken words, Wong Kar Wai turns "In The Mood for Love" into a work of unparalleled elegance.

Failing to grasp love by its horns, the filmmaker's work captures the essence of first desires, their stutterings that seize our hearts. Between guilt and the longing to feel loved in the gaze of the other, Chow Mo Wan and Su Li Zhen draw closer, but to what level of intimacy? Do they also deserve the shared happiness of love?

Set in the melancholic yet deeply romanticized world of Hong Kong in the early to mid-1960s, Wong's magnificent "In The Mood for Love" can be classified as a period piece, but only in the technical sense of the term. By detailing the intimate friendship and love between two unhappily married loners, Wong Kar Wai captures timeless moments, as these snapshots, captured like polaroids, could play out in someone's memory many years later.

But to love each other would be to betray their spouses —

Handsome man and a beautiful woman move into adjacent apartments. Theirs
spouses are always out of town on business – perhaps they are having an affair.
It matters not to thes two shy, genteel platonic friends. Maggie Cheung and
Tony Leung star in this exquisitely photographed, slowly paced romantic drama
from writen-director Wong Kar-wai. 97 minutes ; in Mandarin.