First Trailer for In the Mood for Love 2001 Expands Wong Kar-wai’s Classic Romance

Following news that Wong Kar-wai’s long-awaited Blossoms Shanghai would finally be getting a North American release this year courtesy of the Criterion Channel, Janus Films has another surprise from the director debuting in theaters this week. Following a Valentine’s Day release in Hong Kong, Wong Kar-wai’s In The Mood For Love 2001, a nine-minute expansion that was only ever screened in a 2001 Cannes masterclass, will be arriving in theaters alongside the 25th anniversary edition of his classic romance. Ahead of the release, beginning this Friday at NYC’s Film at Lincoln Center and IFC Center and July 4 at LA’s Laemmle Royal and Glendale, followed by an expansion, the first footage has now arrived courtesy of a new trailer.

Here’s the synopsis: “Hong Kong, 1962: Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung Man-yuk) move into neighboring apartments on the same day. Their encounters are formal and polite—until a discovery about their spouses creates an intimate bond between them. At once delicately mannered and visually extravagant, Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood for Love is a masterful evocation of romantic longing and fleeting moments. With its aching musical soundtrack and exquisitely abstract cinematography by Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-bin, this film has been a major stylistic influence on the past 25 years of cinema.”

And here’s the synopsis for In The Mood For Love 2001: “Initially conceived as one third of a triptych about food, In the Mood for Love was expanded into a stand-alone feature that won immediate recognition as a modern-day classic. Another third—intended as the “dessert,” as Wong Kar Wai has put it—was, until now, only screened during his masterclass at the 2001 Cannes Film Festival. Now available in wide release for the first time, In the Mood for Love 2001 demonstrates the director’s masterful ability to generate palpable atmosphere and striking characterizations on a miniature canvas—with In the Mood for Love stars Tony Leung Chiu Wai and Maggie Cheung Man Yuk once again providing the sizzling chemistry— evoking the mystery of transient, unexpected connections in the modern city through his inimitable romantic touch.”

See the trailer and poster below.

Watch an exclusive trailer for Wong Kar Wai’s In the Mood For Love, returning to theaters for its 25th anniversary via @janusfilms Read More