| 2046 | |
|---|---|
 Theatrical release poster | |
| Directed by | Wong Kar-wai |
| Screenplay by | Wong Kar-wai |
| Produced by | Wong Kar-wai |
| Starring | |
| Cinematography | |
| Edited by | William Chang |
| Music by | |
Production companies |
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| Distributed by |
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Release dates |
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Running time | 129 minutes |
| Countries |
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| Languages | Cantonese[3] Japanese Mandarin |
| Budget | US$12 million[4] |
| Box office | US$19.5 million[4] |
2046 is a 2004 Chineseperiodscience fictionromantic drama film written, produced and directed byWong Kar-wai. Aninternational co-production between Hong Kong, France, Italy, China and Germany, it is a loosesequel to Wong's filmsDays of Being Wild (1990) andIn the Mood for Love (2000). It follows the aftermath of Chow Mo-wan's unconsummated affair with Su Li-zhen in 1960s Hong Kong.
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There are four main story arcs, listed in approximate order below. In typical Wong fashion, they are presented in non-chronological order. Knowledge ofDays of Being Wild andIn the Mood for Love is assumed, but not necessary to understand2046.
Returning to Hong Kong after years in Singapore, Chow has become a suave ladies' man to cover up his pain from losing Su. Chow meets Lulu, taking her home but accidentally keeps her room key. Upon returning the key, Chow later learns that Lulu was stabbed the night before by a jealous boyfriend.
The landlord's daughter Jing-wen is seeing a Japanese man her father strongly disapproves of. Eventually, Jing-wen breaks up with him. The next tenant is Jing-wen's younger sister Jie-wen who attempts and fails to seduce Chow. Soon after, Chow runs into financial difficulties so he starts writing sci-fi stories where people from his life appear from time to time. Scenes from the stories are interleaved with the plot arcs.
Bai Ling is a nightclub ballroom dancer seeking a long-term relationship. Bai runs into Chow after her boyfriend leaves her before a planned trip to Singapore and they become friends. The relationship quickly turns sexual. Chow wants to keep the relationship purely physical, continuing to see other women; when Bai realizes she has feelings for Chow and asks for exclusivity, Chow refuses and they break up. Bai then returns to prostitution.
After Bai leaves, Jing-wen is released from institutional care and still depressed over her previous relationship. Chow develops feelings for Jing-wen and attempts a relationship but nothing develops as she is still in love with her previous lover.
Jing-wen gets engaged. Depressed over the loss of Jing-wen, Chow runs into Bai Ling and believes she is likely to remain content with her misery. He resolves to get over Su.
Some time later, Bai calls Chow and they go out to dinner. She informs Chow of her plans to leave for Singapore, asking for a reference.
Chow met Su (different from Su Li-Zhen of the previous movie) after arriving in Singapore, financially spent from gambling. Su agrees to help him win money so he can return to Hong Kong and they become lovers. When he asks Su to return to Hong Kong with him, Su challenges him to a final draw that Chow loses, and so she refuses to go with him and also refuses to tell him why.
When Chow returns to Singapore to visit her a second time, he does not find her and hears rumors that Su either returned to Cambodia or was killed.
The night before Bai leaves for Singapore, Chow dines with her again. She insists on paying for dinner and hands him a stack of cash, each $10 bill representing a night they spent together. After dinner, Chow walks her back to her apartment and Bai begs him to spend the night. He cannot, and leaves by taxi.
It took four years to complete the film. During that time, production was closed because of theSARSepidemic in March 2003.[7]
It was picked up bySony Pictures Classics for distribution in the United States, and was released on 5 August 2005.
2046 has its own significance for Hong Kong, as it is 49 years after thehandover of Hong Kong by the British on 1 July 1997. At the time of handover,the Mainland government promisedfifty years of self-regulation for the former British colony.2046 thus references the year before Hong Kong's special, self-regulated status ends.[7]
Onreview aggregatorRotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 87% based on 119 reviews, with an average rating of 7.40/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Director Wong Kar-Wai has created in2046 another visually stunning, atmospheric, and melancholy movie about unrequited love and loneliness."[8] OnMetacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 34 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[9]
One of the most positive reviews came fromManohla Dargis inThe New York Times, who called the film "an unqualified triumph", and praised Zhang Ziyi's performance, saying: "Ms. Zhang's shockingly intense performance burns a hole in the film that gives everything, including all the other relationships, a sense of terrific urgency." Dargis also describes the film:
"Routinely criticized for his weak narratives, Mr. Wong is one of the few filmmakers working in commercial cinema who refuse to be enslaved by traditional storytelling. He isn't the first and certainly not the only one to pry cinema from the grip of classical narrative, to take a pickax to the usual three-act architecture (or at least shake the foundation), while also dispatching with the art-deadening requirements (redemption, closure, ad nauseam) that have turned much of Big Hollywood into a creative dead zone. Like some avant-garde filmmakers and like his contemporary,Hou Hsiao-hsien of Taiwan, among precious few others these days, Mr. Wong makes movies, still a young art, that create meaning through visual images, not just words."[2]
InPremiere, Glenn Kenny gave the film four stars and ranked it as one of the ten best films of 2005:
"Insanely evocative '60s-style landscapes and settings share screen space with claustrophobic futuristic CGI metropolises; everyone smokes and drinks too much; musical themes repeat as characters get stuck in their own self-defeating modes of eternal return. A puzzle, a valentine, a sacred hymn to beauty, particularly that ofZiyi Zhang, almost preternaturally gorgeous and delivering an ineffable performance, and a cynical shrug of the shoulders at the damned impermanence of it all,2046 is a movie to live in."[10]
Said Ty Burr ofThe Boston Globe:
"Is it worth the challenge? Of course it is. Wong stands as the leading heir to the great directors of post-WWII Europe: His work combines the playfulness and disenchantment of Godard, the visual fantasias of Fellini, the chic existentialism of Antonioni, and Bergman's brooding uncertainties. In this film, he drills further into an obsession with memory, time, and longing than may even be good for him, and his world reflects and refracts our own more than may be comfortable for us."[11]
Daniel Eagan ofFilm Journal International:
"it's clear his [Wong Kar-wai] skills and interests have no match in today's cinema. Whatever his motives, Wong has assembled a remarkable team for this film. The cinematography, production design and editing combine for a mood of utter languor and decadence. Leung Chiu-wai continues his string of outstanding roles, while pop singer Wong achieves a gravity missing from her earlier work...it's Zhang who is the real surprise here...her performance puts her on a level with the world's best actresses."[12]
One of the less enthusiastic reviews came fromRoger Ebert who, in theChicago Sun-Times, gave the film a mildly-negative 2½ stars out of a possible four and a "marginal thumbs down" on the television showEbert & Roeper.
"2046 arrived at the last minute at Cannes 2003, after missing its earlier screenings; the final reel reportedly arrived at the airport almost as the first was being shown. It was said to be unfinished, and indeed there were skeletal special effects that now appear in final form, but perhaps it was never really finished in his mind. Perhaps he would have appreciated the luxury thatWoody Allen had withCrimes and Misdemeanors; he looked at the first cut of the film, threw out the first act, called the actors back and reshot, focusing on what turned out to be the central story. Watching2046, I wonder what it could possibly mean to anyone not familiar with Wong's work and style. UnlikeIn the Mood for Love, it is not a self-contained film, although it's certainly a lovely meander."[13]
The official journal of theFilm Society of Lincoln Center,Film Comment's 2005 end-of-the-year film critics' poll, placed the film as the second best film of that year, with 668 points.[14]2046 was called the best film of 2005 by Michael Atkinson (The Village Voice), Daryl Chin (Journal of Performance and Art), Josef Brown (Vue Weekly), Sean Burns (Philadelphia Weekly), Will Sloan (The Martingrove Beacon), and Justine Elias (The Guardian), and was ranked among the top ten best films of the year by Manohla Dargis (The New York Times),Richard Corliss (Time Magazine), Sam Adams (Philadelphia City Paper), Leslie Camhi (The Village Voice), Jason Anderson (eye Weekly), Gary Dretzka (Movie City News), Godfrey Cheshire (The Independent Weekly), Ty Burr (The Boston Globe), Liza Bear (indieWIRE), Edward Crouse (The Village Voice), Jeffrey M. Anderson (The San Francisco Examiner), John DeFore (Austin American Statesman), Brian Brooks (indieWIRE), Chris Barsanti (Filmcritic.com), F.X. Feeney (L.A. Weekly),David Ehrenstein (New Times), J. Hoberman (The Village Voice), Robert Horton (Everett Herald), Bilge Ebiri (Nerve), and Eugene Hernandez (indieWIRE).
2046 opened in North America on 5 August 2005, where it grossed US$113,074 on four screens ($28,268 average).[15] In Wong Kar-wai's home country of Hong Kong,2046 earned a total of US$778,138.[16] It went on to gross a total of $1,444,588 in North America,[4] playing at 61 venues at its widest release.[15] Its total worldwide box office gross is US$19,271,312.[4]
Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the film onDVD on 26 December 2005. Since then, it has yet to be re-released or restored in the United States. A region freeBlu-ray was released by EOS Entertainment on 17 September 2014 in South Korea, as part of a Wong Kar Wai boxset.
The film finally debuted on Blu-ray in the United States on March 23, 2021 in a set compiled by theCriterion Collection entitled "World of Wong Kar-wai" and includes this film alongside 6 of his other films.[17]
In April 2004, the film was nominated for theGolden Palm at the2004 Cannes Film Festival.[18]
In November 2004, it won awards for Best Art Direction and Best Original Film Score at theGolden Horse Film Festival in Taiwan. The same year, it also won theEuropean Film Award for Best Non-European Film, the Best Foreign Language Film award at theSan Sebastián International Film Festival, and was voted Best Foreign Language Film by theNew York Film Critics Circle, while taking second place at theBoston Society of Film Critics andLos Angeles Film Critics Association Awards in the same category.
In March 2005, it was nominated in numerous categories at theHong Kong Film Awards, winning Best Actor (Tony Leung), Best Actress (Zhang Ziyi), Best Cinematography (Christopher Doyle), Best Costume Design and Make-Up, Best Art Direction, and Best Original Film Score (Shigeru Umebayashi).
Original music:[19]
Adopted music:[19]
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