Tony Leung

          Faye Wong

          Zhang Ziyi

          Kimura Takuya

          Gong Li

 

 

Possibly the most highly anticipated film from Hong Kong this year is undoubtedly the brand new piece from Wong Kar Wai, one of the world's most acclaimed directors. Five years in the making and starring some of the biggest stars in Asia, 2046 is not merely a film, it is a cultural event of 2004.

 

Loosely a sequel to Wong's previous film, In the Mood for Love, Tony Leung once again plays writer Chow Mo Wan, but he is nothing like the Chow Mo Wan from the previous film. Now Chow has become a womanizer who writes soft pornographic stories to sustain his boozing habits. In the film we see his various relationships with a group of women: Black Spider (Gong Li) in Singapore, whose real name, Su Li Zhen, is the same as slz 1960 (Maggie Cheung), his lover in In The Mood for Love. His friendship with Mimi (Carina Lau reprising a previous WKW role), Wang Jing Wen (Faye Wong), the daughter of the motel owner who is in love with a Japanese man (Kimura Takuya) and his illicit affair with callgirl Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi), a resident in room 2046. Is Chow Mo Wan really a completely different character, existing in a parallel world to In the Mood for Love, or is he really the same character but is now completely destroyed by a failed romance?