In The Mood For Love

By: Adam Bekhet

In The Mood For Love, directed by Wong Kar-Wai is a Korean film that tells a love story that goes against the grain when it comes to traditional love stories.

Made in 2000, In The Mood For Love was made in a favorable time period for South Korean cinema. Starting in the 1990s, Korean cinema saw more success despite the 1997 financial crisis. Steady box office earnings meant Korean cinema could flourish in the 1990s/2000s.

The film takes place in 1962 in Hong Kong. Chow mo-wan is a journalist that had started renting an apartment. He soon finds that a women named Su li-zhen has moved into the neighboring apartment. They quickly begin to find parallels within each others lives. They are both married to spouses that have high workloads. Their spouses work “overtime” often and rarely see each other. Chow and Su both understand that this means they are seeing other people, which draws the two of them together. Due to the bustling nature of their apartment building, they often times stay indoors in their perspective homes. Once again this similarity also brings them together. They begin to learn more about the affair that their spouses are having, and eventually find out that their spouses are cheating on them with each other. Chow eventually hires Su to help him with his job. Tenants eventually become suspicious of the two as they consistently spend more and more time with one and other. To combat this issue Chow gets a private hotel room where they can work in peace. Chow ultimately gets a job in Singapore, which requires him to move away. He asks Su to come with him, which was an offer she was hesitant to accept. Chow waits for Su in his lobby but eventually leaves. She comes down to leave with him, only to find out he has already left. This starts a series of badly timed meetings between the two which sees their romance die.