2046 (film)

2046 is a 2004 romantic drama film written, produced and directed by Wong Kar-wai. An international co-production between Hong Kong, France, Italy, China and Germany, it is a loose sequel to Wong's films Days of Being Wild (1990) and In the Mood for Love (2000). It follows the aftermath of Chow Mo-wan's unconsummated affair with Su Li-zhen in 1960s Hong Kong and includes elements of science fiction.

Plot
There are four main story arcs, listed in approximate order below. In typical Wong fashion, they are presented in non-chronological parts. Knowledge of Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love is assumed, but not necessary to understand 2046.

2046 Part I
In the future, Earth is connected via a vast rail network. Aboard the train lonely passengers try to reach a mysterious room called 2046, reputedly as nothing ever changes in the room, there is no loss or sadness. The only person to return from room 2046 is Japanese man Tak.

"All Memories Are Traces of Tears"
Returning to Hong Kong after years in Singapore, Chow has become a suave ladies' man to cover up his pain from losing Su. On Christmas Eve, Chow meets Lulu taking her home but accidentally keeps her room key. As he leaves, he notices that her room number is 2046. Upon returning the key, Chow inquires after the room and the landlord informs him 2046 is not available due to renovations and instead offers room 2047 next door. Chow later learns that Lulu was stabbed in 2046 the night before by a jealous boyfriend.

After finishing renovation of 2046, the landlord asks Chow if he wants to move in, but he's now accustomed to his room and remains in room 2047.

Wang Jing-wen and Wang Jie-wen Part I
The landlord's daughter Jing-wen moves into 2046; she is seeing a Japanese man her father strongly opposes. Eventually, Jing-wen breaks up with him, and is institutionalized after a mental breakdown. 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 a series called 2046 about heartsick individuals trying to find the mysterious room. Nearly all of the characters in his story are based on people Chow has met in life, such as Su, Lulu, and Jing-wen.

Bai Ling Part I
The third 2046 tenant is Bai Ling, a cabaret girl and high-class prostitute seeking a long-term relationship. The next Christmas Eve, 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 prostitutes; when Bai realizes she has feelings for Chow and asks for exclusivity, Chow refuses and they break up. Bai then returns to prostitution and moves out of 2046.

Jing-wen Part II
After Bai leaves, Jing-wen is released from institutional care and returns to room 2046. Still depressed over her previous relationship, Jing-wen helps Chow with his writing; he remarks this is his happiest post-Su. He develops feelings for Jing-wen and attempts a relationship but nothing develops as she is still in love with her previous lover.

One day Jing-wen asks Chow if some things in life never change and he replies by writing a story called 2047 in which a Japanese man falls in love on the trip home from room 2046. While he initially tried to base the story on Jing-wen's ex, he realises that the story is about himself.

2046 Part II
Tak (portrayed by Jing-wen's ex) tries to leave 2046 because he lost his love there. On the trip, he falls in love with one of the train's gynoid assistants (portrayed by Jing-wen), but it never responds to him. Tak realises that it is in love with someone else and leaves the train. Completing the story marks a turning point in Chow's recovery.

Jing-wen Part III
Next Christmas, Jing-wen moves to Japan and gets engaged. Depressed over the loss of Jing-wen, Chow runs into Bai Ling and believes she is likely to remain in the past forever, content with her misery. He resolves to get over Su.

Bai Part II
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 and plane fare. Bai asks where he was last Christmas, when Chow had returned to Singapore to search for Su Li-zhen.

Su Arc
Chow met the second Su after arriving in Singapore, financially spent. The second Su agrees to help him win money so he can return to Hong Kong and they become lovers. Su bets that if Chow beats her in a "high-card" draw, she would reveal her true identity. After winning back his money, he asks the second Su to return to Hong Kong with him, Su then challenges him to a final draw that Chow loses.

Heartbroken, Chow realizes after completing his story 2047 that the second Su did not return with him because he would have tried to relive the past by looking for elements of the first Su in her. When Chow returns to Singapore to visit her a second time, he does not find her, theorizing that the second Su either returned to Cambodia or was killed.

Bai Part III
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 reminds her of a question she asked him once: whether there was anything he would not lend, and Chow realizes there is one thing he will not lend to anyone and leaves in a taxi.

Cast

 * Tony Leung as Chow Mo-wan, a journalist and writer, who is the film's the main character and narrator. Leung reprises his role from Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love.
 * Maggie Cheung as Su Li-zhen, the woman Chow Mo-wan loved most, and had an emotional affair with in 1962. Cheung reprises her role from Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love.
 * Gong Li as a second Su Li-zhen. Presented as a "professional gambler" and nicknamed "Black Spider", she says she's from Phnom Penh. Chow Mo-wan met her in Singapore.
 * Wang Sum as
 * Mr. Wang, the hotel owner. He had taken singing lessons in Harbin, China.
 * The captain of the train to (or from) 2046.
 * Faye Wong as
 * Wang Jing-wen, the first daughter of Mr. Wang, the hotel owner. She was in love with a Japanese man, a relationship that her father opposed strongly.
 * A Gynoid in the train to (or from) 2046.
 * Takuya Kimura as
 * A Japanese man, sent to Hong Kong for a while by his company. He is Wang Jing-wen's boyfriend.
 * Tak, a passenger of the train to (or from) 2046.
 * Dong Jie as Wang Jie-wen. The second daughter of Mr. Wang, the hotel owner.
 * Carina Lau as
 * Mimi/Lulu, a former cabaret dancer and Mo-wan's ex-lover who is still mourning the death of her boyfriend Yuddy. Lau reprises her role from Days of Being Wild.
 * A gynoid in the train to (or from) 2046.
 * Chang Chen as
 * The drummer boyfriend of Mimi/Lulu.
 * A passenger of the train to (or from) 2046.
 * Zhang Ziyi as Bai Ling. A beautiful cabaret girl and prostitute who lived in room 2046 of the Oriental Hotel; a lover of Chow Mo-wan.
 * Siu Ping-lam as Ah Ping, a colleague and friend of Chow Mo-wan. Siu reprises his role from In the Mood for Love.
 * Bird McIntyre as Bird
 * Benz Kong as Brother Hoi
 * Berg Ng as Mo-wan's party friend
 * Akina Hong as a party girl

Production
It took four years to complete the film. During that time, production was closed because of the SARS epidemic in March 2003.

It was picked up by Sony Pictures Classics for distribution in the United States, and was released on 5 August 2005.

Title
2046 is the number of the hotel room in In the Mood for Love in which Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) meet to write their kung fu novel serial. It is the number of a hotel room occupied by Lulu, and later by Bai Ling at the Oriental Hotel, while Mo-Wan's room number is 2047.

Chow writes science fiction stories, in which 2046 is a popular year and place to which people travel through time. The stories are titled 2046 and later 2047 (in collaboration with Wang Jing-wen).

The year 2046 has its own significance for Hong Kong, as it is 49 years after the handover of Hong Kong by the British on 1 July 1997. At the time of handover, the Mainland government promised fifty years of self-regulation for the former British colony. The year 2046 references the moment before Hong Kong's special, self-regulated status ends.

Critical reception
On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, the film has an approval rating of 86% based on 119 reviews, with an average rating of 7.40/10. The website's critical consensus reads, "Director Wong Kar-Wai has created in 2046 another visually stunning, atmospheric, and melancholy movie about unrequited love and loneliness." On Metacritic, the film has a weighted average score of 78 out of 100 based on 34 critic reviews, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

One of the most positive reviews came from Manohla Dargis in The 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.'"

In Premiere, 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 of Ziyi 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.'"

Said Ty Burr of The 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. Love hurts in 2046, but it's the only way anybody knows they're alive.'"

Daniel Eagan of Film 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.'"

One of the less enthusiastic reviews came from Roger Ebert who, in the Chicago Sun-Times, gave the film a mildly-negative 2½ stars out of a possible four and a "marginal thumbs down" on the television show Ebert & 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 that Woody Allen had with Crimes 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. Watching 2046, I wonder what it could possibly mean to anyone not familiar with Wong's work and style. Unlike In the Mood for Love, it is not a self-contained film, although it's certainly a lovely meander.'"

The official journal of the Film 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. 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), Same 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), Eugene Hernandez (indieWIRE)

Box office and distribution
2046 opened in North America on 5 August 2005, where it grossed US$113,074 on four screens ($28,268 average). In Wong Kar-wai's home country of Hong Kong, 2046 earned a total of US$778,138. It went on to gross a total of $1,444,588 in North America, playing at 61 venues at its widest release. Its total worldwide box office gross is US$19,271,312.

Sony Pictures Home Entertainment released the film on DVD on 26 December 2005. Since then, it has yet to be re-released or restored in the United States. A region free Blu-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 the Criterion Collection entitled "World of Wong Kar-wai" and includes this film alongside 6 of his other films.

Accolades
In April 2004, the film was nominated for the Golden Palm at the 2004 Cannes Film Festival.

In November 2004, it won awards for Best Art Direction and Best Original Film Score at the Golden Horse Film Festival in Taiwan. The same year, it also won the European Film Award for Best Non-European Film, the Best Foreign Language Film award at the San Sebastián International Film Festival, and was voted Best Foreign Language Film by the New York Film Critics Circle, while taking second place at the Boston Society of Film Critics and Los Angeles Film Critics Association Awards in the same category.

In March 2005, it was nominated in numerous categories at the Hong 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).

Music
Original music:
 * Shigeru Umebayashi – "2046 Main Theme" (scenes 5, 15 and closing credits), "2046 Main Theme (Rumba Version)" (scene 25), "Interlude I" (scenes 29, 38), "Polonaise" (scenes 37, 43), "Lost", "Long Journey" (Scenes 40–41), "Interlude II" (Scene 30), "2046 Main Theme" (With Percussion, Train Remix)

Adopted music:
 * Peer Raben – "Dark Chariot" (Scenes 7–9, 12–13) from Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Querelle (1982) and "Sisyphos at Work" (Scene 4) from Fassbinder's film The Third Generation (1979)
 * Xavier Cugat – "Siboney" (scenes 6 (instrumental), 17, 19, 24), "Perfidia" (scenes 10, 39)
 * Connie Francis – "Siboney"
 * Dean Martin – "Sway" (scene 18)
 * Georges Delerue – "Julien et Barbara" from François Truffaut's Vivement Dimanche! (1983) (scenes 21–23, 42)
 * Vincenzo Bellini and Felice Romani – "Casta Diva" from Bellini's Norma, performed by Angela Gheorghiu and the London Symphony Orchestra, directed by Evelino Pidò – recorded in 2000 (scenes 11, 14, 28, 36) and Bellini's Il pirata (scenes 16, 26)
 * Zbigniew Preisner – "Decision" from Thou shalt not kill, part 5 of Krzysztof Kieślowski's The Decalogue
 * Secret Garden – "Adagio" with David Agnew (cor anglais) (scenes 3, 27, 31, 34)
 * Nat King Cole and the Nat King Cole Trio – "The Christmas Song" (1946 version with strings) (scenes 20, 35)