2046

Why ''2046'' is a must-see

What It's About In this follow-up to Wong Kar-Wai's In the Mood for Love (2001), Tony Leung reprises his role as Chow, a '60s-era journalist who pays off his gambling debts by freelancing pulpy sci-fi stories. Bitter over a lost love (Maggie Cheung), he caddishly abandons a who's who of Asian sirens, including Ziyi Zhang (pictured, with Leung) and Gong Li.

Why We Like It Luxuriously shot by Aussie cinematographer Christopher Doyle (Hero), Wong's eighth feature is a sensory mind-bend; viewers are deluged with rich colors, pulsating music, frequent dips into slo-mo action, and drastic cuts between Chow's '60s base and the futuristic paradise in his head.

Breakout Performance As the deceptively naive call girl whom Chow seduces and discards, Zhang (House of Flying Daggers) demonstrates a new maturity that raises her beyond mere martial artist. Even she admits that Wong's ''very special and challenging'' improvisational methods upped her acting game.

Insider Info Viewers fluent in Chinese will notice that each of the main characters speaks a different dialect — yet somehow everyone is still able to understand one another perfectly. 2046 also marks the seventh — and possibly final — collaboration between Wong and Doyle, who has expressed frustration with the film's five-year shoot. Additionally, 2046 marks the year when the Chinese government's pledge to let Hong Kong remain unchanged after the 1997 hand-over comes to an end.

You Might Like It If You Liked... Any of Wong's previous films, including Love and Chungking Express