I keep hearing about how these three movies form a trilogy but I fail to see the connection between them. Also I have heard that Fallen Angels is somehow connected to Chungking Express and one of his other movies. Can anyone explain to me how these movies are connected?
sharei know in the mood for love is a prequel to 2046- the women he keeps talking about is maggie cheung and the novel he is writing is based on his feelings from the two movies i'm not sure where days of being wild comes into it though.
fallen angels was meant to be the third story in chungking express, but was to long so it became another movie
Laugh, and the world laughs with you...
Weep, and you weep alone.
Watch the last scene of DOBW--does the actor look familier? Also, Maggie Cheung has the same 1st name in both DOBW and ITMFL. And Mimi--the tart with the earrings in DOBW returns for 2046.
shareTony Leung character in days of being wild is actually the same character as In the Mood for love. However, all three movies are very different.
shareActually Maggie Cheung appears in all three movies except that in 2046 she has a different, robotic, name. But the way the scenes are made in 2046 it leads me to believe that the character Slz1960 reminds Chow Mo Wan of Su Li-zhen Chan (and look, SLZ=Su Li-zhen and 1960 is the date in the first movie). There's a clear connection.
And then there's also Tony Leung Chiu Wai appearing in all three :) (Chow Mo Wan in the last two and Smirk in the first).
I personally believe that Su Li-zhen is the character that proves the connection.
I just watched "2046" and I actually thought it does a great job of tying the 3 films together - almost with overkill of explanation.
In fact, Maggie Cheung barely ACTUALLY figures or appears in "2046" - but she is a kind of "spectre" - that affects all other relationships Tony Leung's character enters into.
Tony Leung's character is the same through the three films. We are introduced to him - as a young gambler starting out at the end of DOBW. By "In the Mood for Love" he's a journalist - but we don't see or figure out the gambling connection.
In "2046" the tie-in is explained. He says that after his disasterous love affair with Maggie Cheung in "In the Mood for Love" he went to Cambodia. And thence, he and his editor, Ping, are sent on assignment to Singapore. While IN Singapore - he starts frequenting gambling dens and loses a lot of money. Then he meets Black Spider (Gong Li) - who amazingly has the very same name as Maggie Cheung's character - though she is from Phnom Penh. That triggers Tony Leung's character to tell her he's been to Cambodia - and why - he tells her about the other Ms. Su - the one he loved in HK.
The Singapore Ms. Su a/k/a Black Spider is a professional gambler. She offers to take whatever stake money Tony Leung has left and parlay it back into his original pot - but - she tells him she'll only do this if he promises then to stop gambling. So he agrees. She wins back all the money - and he buys a ticket back to HK - saying good bye to THIS Ms. Su - because she's not really the Ms. Su he longs for.
When he returns from Singapore - he runs across Mimi/Lulu (Carina Lau) who is living in Room 2046 in a "hotel" - which may or may not be the same hotel where he and Maggie Cheung trysted in "In the Mood for Love". Only the sign on the top suggests it might be - the interiors look far shabbier and cheaper than I recall ITMFL. He tells Lulu/Mimi that he knows she once loved a Chinese Filippino who died (Leslie Cheung). Meanwhile, Lulu/Mimi is murdered by a drummer boyfriend from the HK nightclub (where she presumably returned after her trip to the Philippines) - and she reappears in the sci-fi "book" vehicle as one of the android women.
Then Tony Leung hooks up with yet another call girl/nightclub hostess - Bai Ling (Zhang Ziyi) - and she really falls for him - but he is a cad a la Leslie Cheung's character - and can never really love her in return. So he just suggests they become "drinking pals". In the end, through his connections back in Singapore, he hooks Bai Ling up with a nightclub there and she leaves to go there.
Another new lady in all this mix is the hotel landlord's daughter, played by Faye Wong - who is in love with a Japanese guy. In the fictional sci-fi "2047" - it's the Japanese guy who "travels back" from 2046 and seeks love from the android women. Faye Wong/Landlord's daughter becomes one of the androids along with Mimi/Lulu Carina Lau.
The Japanese guy riding on the train looking for love evoked the scenes of Yuddy (Leslie Cheung) and Mimi/Lulu riding on the train in the Philippines when he is bleeding to death from being shot. All this reminded me of being told to "count backwards" from 100 when you are being put to sleep before surgery. As Leslie Cheung's life flows out of him - he is metaphorically counting backward. As the Japanese guy hurtles through time he's counting, too. Sometimes backwards - sometimes forwards.
Meanwhile - in "2046" really the only time we see Maggie Cheung to speak of is in a phantom cab ride which echoes ITMFL and also a cab ride Tony Leung takes with Bai Ling - and a cab ride he does NOT take with Faye Wong/Landlord's daughter. She might have briefly appeared as an android woman - but the 2 main android women on the train seemed clearly to be Faye Wong and Carina Lau.
The thing that Tony Leung's character cannot "lend" - to Bai Ling - or anyone - as he tells her - is his love. He couldn't even do that for the original Ms. Su (Maggie Cheung) - and she's the one he regrets not being able to. So I guess the secret he whispers into a hole in a tree is that he is incapable of loving.
Whether DOBW Ms. Su and ITMFL Ms. Su are the same character is debatable - but they could be. The fact that there is another/different Ms. Su in Singapore just seemed to rip off/play off Gong Li's role in "Zhou Yu's Train" - in my opinion.
Now I wonder could there be a 4th film even though the 1960s are completed? Will Bai Ling and Black Spider hook up in Singapore? What will happen to Tony Leung after "2047"? Will he become a respected writer? And what about Maggie Cheung/Ms. Su's little boy? In ITMFL wasn't her husband the one always going on business to Japan and bringing back souvenirs from there? Could that little boy have grown up to be the Japanese guy that Faye Wong falls for?
And wasn't the unseen father in the Philippines (of Leslie Cheung) maybe Japanese - even though the woman (mother?) he met was Chinese? The reason why he was adopted out was never clear - but one suspected that he was somehow illegitimate - either not the woman's actual child but her husband's child with a mistress - or vice versa - not her husband's child - but her child with some other guy when she was a call girl/hostess. Could there be a connection there?
I think there are a lot of other seemingly "loose" ends that MIGHT be tied up with some of these explanations - and another film could do that.
My God. I don't think I'll ever understand the connections between these fragmented films. I have no idea of how you wrote all that, never mind how you comprehend it all.
sharedamn... that's really insightful. thanks.
christopher doyle rules!
I think it would only be fair to say that is your opinion cos it differs from mine not that mine is the gospel.
Tony Leung's character was very much in love with Ms. Su in "In the Mood for Love" and he wanted her to leave with him and live with him. He certainly was capable of loving in "In the Mood for Love" but in "2046" based on his sad experiences, he ends incapable.
All that counting stuff you talk about is a load of nonsense.
When he returns from Singapore - he runs across Mimi/Lulu (Carina Lau) who is living in Room 2046 in a "hotel" - CORRECT
which may or may not be the same hotel where he and Maggie Cheung trysted in "In the Mood for Love". CERTAINLY ISN'T
Finally, do loose ends need to be tied up?
I was just watching the In The Mood For Love deleted scenes, and there is one titled "the 70s" that sort of works as a flash forward, even beyond the events of 2046. In the scene, a character named Lulu (not 100% sure if it was Carina Lau, but I'm almost positive it was - there are no credits since the scene was deleted) goes to the old apt. as a prospective buyer. Su Lizhen is selling the apartment. Lulu begins to describe her husband and it becomes very clear to Su that the husband in question is Chow. We start to gather that Lulu seems to know what she is doing all along. When she leaves, Su tells someone to lie to Lulu and say the place has been sold if she ever calls again. Later, we see Lulu and Chow in the street arguing. Chow lays into her for bringing him back there when she knows that he used to live there and does not want to live there again. She says she knows he still loves 'that woman' (Su), so she brought him back to see her. There is plenty of arguing. After that, Chow and Su bump into each other in the street and notice one another but do not say anything.
I made the mistake of seeing 2046 before ITMFL, but after reading what is here and watching that scene, it is interesting to put all the pieces together.
The scene was shot and then dumped. So obviously Wong Kar-Wai had some idea of tying the whole big story together. My guess would be that maybe while this was shot, he had not yet planned on making 2046. He could have changed his mind in post and then decided to leave the scene out. He is notorious for constantly altering his films after they've been shot.
Whatever it is, I recommend that anyone who has seen the 3 films and has access to ITMFL criterion DVD to check out that scene and comment. It seems to make everything seem even more tragic.
I think it's only fair to comment on what was in the film. Loads of Kar Wai films have almost an entirely different story or angle shot that doesn't make the final cut and changes the film.
He makes the film up as he goes along and then remakes it again in editing.
I also watched 2046 first and it was a great mistake because I would never have seen any other Wong Kar Wai films. I think some are a bit rubbish but I love this loose trilogy.
"2046" is his best -- and it is gorgeous.
Go back and watch it again, focusing on the performance given by Zhang Ziyi. She'll break your heart, while Tony is breaking hers.
Tony is in love with the landlord's daughter (Faye Wong), who is in love with a Japanese. In his writing, Tony imagines himself in the future as Japanese, in love with the Faye Wong android, which is requited as far as it an be with a machine who pretends to love (as does Tony).
In "In the Mood for Love," the love is unrequited -- Maggie Cheung up and disappears. In "2046" the love is not only unrequited -- landlord's daughter -- but also avoided -- Bai Ling.
Tony is in love with the landlord's daughter (Faye Wong), who is in love with the Japanese. Tony imagines himself in the future as Japanese, who is in love with the Faye Wong android.
"Mimi" is Carina Lau.