Verdict: Visually seductive.

Details: Starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Maggie Cheung and Lai Chen. In Mandarin with subtitles. Rated PG for thematic elements and brief language. One hour, 37 minutes.

See it: Showtimes available Friday.

Rate it: Write your own review

Review: "In the Mood for Love" is so vibrant, so sumptuous, it's as if you're watching an Impressionist watercolor come to life.

The latest film from Hong Kong writer-director Wong Kar-wai looks like it was made in 1962, the year in which it's set--and that's a compliment to the amount of detail put into it.

The film is gorgeous, dripping with texture and sensuality and, well, mood.

Everything is perfect, from the floor tiles and the wallpaper to the lamps and the purses and shoes. And oh, the colors--bleeding, rich shades of crimson and emerald and midnight blue.

It's so visually seductive, you can ignore the fact that the main characters aren't terribly well developed, and that there's minimal chemistry between them because they're both so reserved by nature.

None of that matters, because Wong and cinematographers Christopher Doyle and Mark Li Ping-bin make them and everything else look great.

Maggie Cheung is luminous as Su Li-zhen, a woman whose husband is constantly away on business. She moves into a tiny apartment in the Shanghai community of Hong Kong, next door to the refined Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung), whose wife works late nights at a hotel.

After several innocent brushes past one another in the hallway and cordial conversations at the noodle shop, Chow and Su eventually realize they never see their spouses because the spouses are having an affair with each other.

The shared discovery draws Chow and Su to each other--not for revenge, but out of curiosity. How does an affair begin? they wonder over intimate dinners together.

At one point, Su asks Chow, ``Do you really know your wife?'' That's a good question. Like Liv Ullmann's ``Faithless,'' which also explores adultery, ``In the Mood for Love'' forces us to ask whether it's possible to know anyone, truly.

But unlike ``Faithless,'' Wong's film isn't bleak. It's very much alive and almost hopeful. Su and Chow are resilient; they're survivors. They're getting on with their lives and seeking satisfaction now that they're free of the people who betrayed them.

The original score by Michael Galasso, along with several Nat "King" Cole ballads, contribute perfectly to the film's nostalgic quality.

Cheung is the real star, though, impossibly beautiful and impossible to stop watching. Perfectly coifed at all times, she's almost like a doll in her brightly-colored, form-fitting, high-necked gowns. No one else could wear them with such elegance, and it's worth seeing the film simply to sit in awe of her myriad costume changes.

After showing impeccable attention to detail, it's a shame Wong seems to have slapped the ending together, with forced themes of political and social flux.

Wong has said he thought the film at first was a love story, ``But in the end, I thought, `This film is about a certain period in Hong Kong which I know, but which doesn't exist anymore.'''

No, Mr. Wong. It's a love story. Leave it at that.

— Christy Lemire, Associated Press