---
title: "In the Mood for Love"
year: 2000
kind: "film"
canonical: "https://film.one/film/in-the-mood-for-love"
fi1m_id: "in-the-mood-for-love"
imdb_id: "tt0118694"
tmdb_id: 843
wikidata_id: "Q1056853"
fi1m_score: 91
critics_score: 84
critics_reviews: 14
published: "2026-09-14"
updated: "2026-09-18T08:38:07.440017+00:00"
region: "US"
licence: "© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL."
---

# In the Mood for Love (2000)

Directed by Wong Kar-Wai · 1h 39m · MPA PG · Drama, Romance

## Identity

In the Mood for Love

- **Canonical:** https://film.one/film/in-the-mood-for-love
- **Type:** Film
- **Fi1m ID:** in-the-mood-for-love
- **IMDb ID:** tt0118694
- **TMDB ID:** 843
- **Wikidata ID:** Q1056853
- **Same entity:** https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0118694/, https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/843, https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q1056853

**Fi1m score: 91** · Critics 84 from 14 reviews

*In a sentence:* Two people being so polite that we wanted to ask the entire neighbourhood to leave

> Wong Kar-Wai makes a deeply moving romance from two people struggling to behave properly. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai justify the patience it asks for, even when the repeated slow passages become a little insistent.

## Synopsis

In 1960s Hong Kong, Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung) and Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung Chiu-wai) are married neighbours who discover that their spouses are having an affair. As they spend time together, sympathy becomes an attraction neither can easily acknowledge. Around them, the routines of neighbourly life continue: mah-jongg, tea and conversations in cramped rooms. Their own attachment develops under the pressure of social expectations and their wish to behave properly. Written and directed by Wong Kar-Wai, the film follows two people trying to understand what has happened to their marriages while becoming increasingly concerned with each other.

## Review

We would recommend *In the Mood for Love* to people who usually avoid screen romances. Wong Kar-Wai, who writes and directs, starts with two married neighbours discovering that their spouses are having an affair. In 1960s Hong Kong, Su Li-zhen and Chow Mo-wan draw closer while trying to remain respectable. The film takes their concern about how to behave seriously. It also understands how exhausting that concern can become.

Maggie Cheung plays Su with a composure that makes the slightest change in expression worth watching. Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s Chow is equally careful, and their chemistry depends on how much attention each pays the other while keeping the conversation polite. We ached for them during those courteous exchanges over tea. The actors make us feel the effort of speaking ordinarily when each response matters far too much. Neither performance needs a raised voice to make a scene painful.

Cinematographers Christopher Doyle and Mark Lee Ping-Bing make the cramped interiors matter in almost every composition. Their layered framing keeps us aware of the room around the couple, so privacy feels difficult even when our attention is entirely on their faces. William Chang Suk-Ping’s production design makes those rooms feel inhabited and constricting. The colours are rich, but the people have little room to move. We understand the pressure of neighbours without needing a speech about social convention.

Chang also designs the costumes, and Cheung’s clothes keep drawing our eye back to the effort of looking composed. The attention paid to dress and hair could easily turn Su into something to be admired at a distance. Cheung prevents that by making her movements feel considered, as though she must think about how she appears even when she has something more pressing on her mind. The clothes make good manners seem physically demanding.

Editors William Chang Suk-Ping and Chan Ki-Hop do not build a steady chain of events for us to follow. Scenes seem to survive as selected moments, with the gaps between them making us watch the next encounter more closely. The slowed movement gives a passing look more time to register than ordinary conversation allows. Music credited to Michael Galasso and Shigeru Umebayashi makes the romantic feeling audible while the characters keep their language guarded. The pacing asks us to attend to small changes, and the performances reward that attention.

We do have one reservation: the repetition sometimes insists on a feeling that Cheung and Leung have already made clear. Another lingering passage can briefly make us conscious of the technique when we would rather stay with the people. Anyone wanting a complicated story may find the 99 minutes slow, because the film keeps returning to the same emotional difficulty instead of multiplying incidents. We felt that impatience occasionally, but never enough to want the central performances hurried.

Romantic melodrama often gives its characters a chance to declare themselves at length. Here, a courteous conversation is enough to show what a declaration would cost. There is pleasure in watching actors trusted to make so little speech carry so much feeling, even when it hurts. Give this your undivided attention, and do not choose it for an evening when you need everyone to say what they mean.

*Fi1m score 91, published 14 September 2026.*

## What the critics say

Most critics admire this as a study in controlled longing, and the praise gathers almost entirely in two places: Wong Kar-wai’s direction and the two leads. Reviewers return again and again to the cramped 1960s interiors, the colour, the slowed rhythm and the sense that the whole film is being remembered rather than watched. Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung are singled out for conveying everything without saying much, and Cheung in particular draws repeated attention for the way the sadness sits in her movement and posture.

The reservations come from the same restraint. Variety, reviewing from the festival, admires the visuals and performances but finds the melodrama too slight to leave a lasting mark, and The New Yorker calls it accomplished but peculiar, a film that refuses the emotional payoff it spends its length preparing. The spread is narrow: one mixed notice, none negative, and the later reviews are, if anything, firmer in their admiration than the first.

## Straight answers

**Is In the Mood for Love worth watching?**

*In the Mood for Love* is worth watching for anyone prepared to give a quiet romance their undivided attention, and we scored it 91. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-wai make polite conversation over tea painful to watch, which is the point. Viewers who want incident may find the 99 minutes slow, since the film returns to the same difficulty rather than adding events.

**How long is In the Mood for Love, and what is it rated?**

*In the Mood for Love* runs 1h 39m and is rated PG by the MPA in the US. It is a drama and romance film.

**Where can I watch In the Mood for Love in the US?**

*In the Mood for Love* is streaming on HBO Max and Amazon Prime Video in the US, and it is also available to rent from Amazon Prime Video from $2.99. Availability is checked daily; the links above go straight to each service.

**How does In the Mood for Love compare to Brief Encounter?**

*In the Mood for Love* and [*Brief Encounter*](https://film.one/film/brief-encounter) are both romances in which ordinary good manners make forbidden affection harder to bear, and we would urge a stranger to see either. Wong Kar-Wai's film is the slower and more visual of the two, working through composition, costume and repeated passages rather than dialogue. David Lean's is the more direct and the easier evening.

**What should I watch after In the Mood for Love?**

After *In the Mood for Love*, try [*Brief Encounter*](https://film.one/film/brief-encounter) (1945, Fi1m 90): Another romance in which ordinary courtesy makes forbidden affection harder to bear. Then [*Late Spring*](https://film.one/film/late-spring) (1949, Fi1m 92): Family duty and private feeling, observed through small changes in behaviour; and [*The Age of Innocence*](https://film.one/film/the-age-of-innocence) (1993, Fi1m 86): Elaborate clothes and social rules make even a glance feel dangerous.

### Reviews we read (14)

- **Empire**, David Parkinson (90/100, inferred): The critic praises Wong Kar-Wai for shifting to more traditional storytelling in this tale of hesitant romance between neighbours in 1960s Hong Kong whose spouses are having an affair. Performances and photography are singled out as masterful and beautiful, making it an astounding achievement and sublime cinema. [Read](https://www.empireonline.com/movies/reviews/mood-love-review/)
- **Film Comment**, Kent Jones (90/100, inferred): The critic praises Wong Kar-wai's return to a more contemplative style in this story of repressed longing between two neighbors in 1960s Hong Kong, highlighting the film's visual and rhythmic elegance. Maggie Cheung's performance is singled out as heroic and radiant, capturing the sadness of self-censorship and propriety. [Read](https://www.filmcomment.com/article/of-love-and-the-city-wong-kar-wais-in-the-mood-for-love/)
- **Little White Lies**, Mick Gaw (90/100, inferred): Twenty-five years after its première, the film continues to be one of the most viewed and discussed in the contemporary cinematic landscape, with its cult status undeniable. Wong's magnum opus realizes an interpersonal connection that transcends the framework of modern distractions, mining for the raw essence of a feeling through restraint and nostalgia. [Read](https://lwlies.com/in-praise-of/in-the-mood-for-love)
- **Los Angeles Times**, Kenneth Turan (90/100, inferred): The critic hails the film as a swooningly cinematic exploration of romantic longing that luxuriates in atmosphere, color, texture, and suppressed emotion, crediting Wong's visual assurance and the leads' chemistry for its hypnotic effect. [Read](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2001-feb-02-ca-20316-story.html)
- **Slant Magazine**, Ed Gonzalez (90/100, inferred): The critic calls the film a ravishing evocation of an unconsummated romance tested by emotion and culture. They single out Wong’s impeccable use of interior space and mise-en-scène that displaces desire into the visuals and soundtrack. [Read](https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/in-the-mood-for-love/)
- **The AV Club**, Scott Tobias (90/100, inferred): The critic praises the film’s ravishing beauty and its collection of vivid, slowed-down moments that feel like memory. They single out the natural chemistry of Leung and Cheung and the intensification of romantic longing amid social constraints. [Read](https://www.avclub.com/in-the-mood-for-love-1798192280)
- **The Guardian** (90/100, inferred): The critic praises Wong Kar-wai’s exquisitely nuanced account of two married neighbours discovering their spouses’ affair and embarking on their own ambiguous, unconsummated relationship marked by tension and restraint. It singles out the tactile, richly textured world created by the cinematography and production design, along with the lead performances that convey emotional depth without overt drama. [Read](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2000/oct/27/1)
- **The New York Times**, Joan Dupont (90/100, inferred): The film is a piece of pure, languorous nostalgia set in 1960s Hong Kong, with few words and slight plot, focusing on two lonely neighbors who meet for mah-jongg parties and tea and sympathy. The director creates a sense of stifled drama in cramped spaces, with the rhythm in Maggie Cheung's body movements and exquisite costumes, evoking lost worlds as much as failed loves. [Read](https://www.nytimes.com/2000/11/10/style/IHT-movie-guide-in-the-mood-for-love.html)
- **Time Out**, TR (90/100, inferred): Wong's paean to the agony and ecstasy of buttoned-up emotions is a kind-of sequel to Days of Being Wild, shaped and scored as a valse triste. Every charged frame pulses with the central contradiction between repression and emotional abandon; the formalism and sensuality are inextricable, with career-best performances from both leads. [Read](https://www.timeout.com/movies/in-the-mood-for-love)
- **Evening Standard** (85/100, inferred): The critic calls it a genuinely wonderful movie that is old-fashioned yet contemporary, subtly erotic and effortlessly cool. Wong's masterful composition, use of colour, sound and actors' expressions are highlighted as creating one of the most affecting and poignant films of the year. [Read](https://www.standard.co.uk/culture/film/in-the-mood-for-love-7433546.html)
- **The New Yorker**, David Denby (75/100, inferred): The critic finds the film accomplished but peculiar, praising Wong's mastery of mood, rhythm, and sensual anticipation through restrained visuals and performances, while noting it frustrates viewers by refusing emotional payoff. [Read](https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2001/02/05/society-dictates)
- **Sight and Sound**, Amy Taubin (70/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's vivid recreation of 1960s Hong Kong as a memory piece rather than a straightforward narrative, highlighting its elliptical structure and fetishistic quality that evokes absence and longing. She singles out the subtle performances by Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung, along with the eroticised movement and layered framing that capture the characters' internal conflicts and the art of acting itself. [Read](http://old.bfi.org.uk/sightandsound/review/401)
- **Variety**, David Rooney (50/100, inferred): Wong Kar-wai's film is an exquisitely fashioned melodrama about love and regret that dazzles with romantic melancholy and ravishing visuals but lacks dramatic complexity for lasting emotional resonance. It establishes a dreamy mood through fluid editing and hypnotic sequences but fails to conjure the depth of classic melodramas it aspires to, despite gorgeous production design and strong performances from Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung. [Read](https://variety.com/2000/film/reviews/in-the-mood-for-love-3-1200462892/)
- **Eye for Film**, Angus Wolfe Murray (85/100, inferred): The critic praises the film's subtle, slow, and internalized beauty as an exercise in minimalist restraint. It highlights the leads' painfully polite interactions and the visual emphasis on details like clothing and hair in exploring unconsummated passion. [Read](https://www.eyeforfilm.co.uk/review/in-the-mood-for-love-film-review-by-angus-wolfe-murray)

## Details

- **Director:** Wong Kar-Wai
- **Director:** Wong Kar-Wai
- **Screenplay:** Wong Kar-Wai
- **Story:** Liu Yichang
- **Cinematography:** Christopher Doyle, Mark Lee Ping-Bing
- **Editor:** William Chang Suk-Ping, Chan Ki-Hop
- **Music:** Michael Galasso, Shigeru Umebayashi
- **Production design:** William Chang Suk-Ping
- **Costume design:** William Chang Suk-Ping
- **Producer:** Wong Kar-Wai
- **Cast:** Maggie Cheung as Su Li-zhen; Tony Leung as Chow Mo-wan; Siu Ping-Lam as Ah Ping; Rebecca Pan as Mrs. Suen; Kelly Lai Chen as Mr. Ho; Joe Cheung Tung-Cho as Man Living in Mr. Koo's Apartment; Chan Man-Lei as Mr. Koo; Koo Kam-Wah as Mrs. Koo
- **Runtime:** 1h 39m
- **Certificate (MPA):** PG
- **Release (the US):** 2 February 2001
- **Genres:** Drama, Romance
- **Budget:** $3 million
- **Box office:** $16 million
- **Trailer:** https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8GuedsQnWQ

## Where to watch in the US

- HBO Max: streaming
- Amazon Prime Video: add-on, uhd
- Amazon Prime Video: rent $2.99, sd
- Amazon Prime Video: buy $12.99, sd

*Checked 2026-09-14.*

Also available in: AR, AT, BE, BR, CH, CL, CO, DE, DK, FI, FR, GB, HK, IN, IT, JP, KR, MX, NL, NO, PA, SE, US. Add `?region=XX` to this URL for another country.

## Awards

- Australian Film Institute Award for Best Foreign Film 2001: Australian Film Institute Award for Best Foreign Film (nominated)
- BAFTA Film Awards 2001: Best Film Not in the English Language (nominated)
- Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film 2001: Broadcast Film Critics Association Award for Best Foreign Language Film (nominated)
- César Award for Best Foreign Film 2001: César Award for Best Foreign Film (won)
- German Film Award for Best No-German Film 2001: German Film Award for Best No-German Film (won)
- Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor 2001: Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actor (won)
- Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress 2001: Hong Kong Film Award for Best Actress (won)
- Hong Kong Film Award for Best Cinematography 2001: Hong Kong Film Award for Best Cinematography (nominated)
- Hong Kong Film Award for Best Director 2001: Hong Kong Film Award for Best Director (nominated)
- Hong Kong Film Award for Best Film 2001: Hong Kong Film Award for Best Film (nominated)
- Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer 2001: Hong Kong Film Award for Best New Performer (nominated)
- Hong Kong Film Award for Best Screenplay 2001: Hong Kong Film Award for Best Screenplay (nominated)
- Hong Kong Film Award for Best Supporting Actress 2001: Hong Kong Film Award for Best Supporting Actress (nominated)
- Independent Spirit Awards 2001: Best Foreign Film (nominated)
- International Submission to the Academy Awards 2001: International Submission to the Academy Awards (nominated)
- National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography 2001: National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Cinematography (won)
- National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film 2001: National Society of Film Critics Award for Best Foreign Language Film (won)
- Cannes Film Festival 2000: Best Actor (won)
- European Film Award for Best Non-European Film 2000: European Film Award for Best Non-European Film (won)

## If you liked this

- *Brief Encounter* (1945), Fi1m 90: Another romance in which ordinary courtesy makes forbidden affection harder to bear. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/brief-encounter.md)
- *Late Spring* (1949), Fi1m 92: Family duty and private feeling, observed through small changes in behaviour. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/late-spring.md)
- *The Age of Innocence* (1993), Fi1m 86: Elaborate clothes and social rules make even a glance feel dangerous. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-age-of-innocence.md)
- *A Summer's Tale* (1996): For more romantic hesitation, with daylight, conversation and a lighter touch.
- *The Lunchbox* (2013), Fi1m 75: An indirect courtship that gives ordinary routines an unexpected emotional importance. — [Fi1m page](https://film.one/film/the-lunchbox.md)

---
© Fi1m Ltd. Written by AI under a human editor; checked against sources before publication. Quote with attribution and a link to the canonical URL. Canonical: https://film.one/film/in-the-mood-for-love