Wong Kar-wai's In the Mood For Love is kind of like the Harrison Ford/Kristin Scott Thomas debacle Random Hearts, except there isn't a plane crash and it's not nearly as sucky. The film is about two married neighbors who forge a relationship and then learn their respective spouses have been having an affair. In the Mood, which snagged the Technical Grand Prize and Best Actor trophies at Cannes, as well as the prestigious Five Award from the European equivalent of the Oscars, is intricately paced and was largely improvised by Wong (Happy Together) and his actors on the set.

The film is set in 1962, where fate brings two strangers together in a cramped Hong Kong apartment building. Chow Mo-Wan (Tony Leung, Happy Together) is a newspaper editor who dreams of writing pulpy martial arts serials, and Su Li-zhen (Maggie Cheung, Chinese Box) is the assistant to an executive of a large shipping company. The two characters meet when they rent rooms from families who just happen to live next door to each other.

Su's husband frequently travels to Japan for business, accompanied by Chow's wife, who tells her husband she's working late, or spending time with her sick mother. But neither Chow nor Su have a clue their partners are being disloyal - that is, until they begin to develop their own relationship. It begins with a glance as they cross paths both in the tiny hallway leading to their apartments and on a dark stairway leading to a noodle cart where the characters get lunch. It isn't until their romance blossoms that Chow and Su learn of the irony of the relationship shared by their spouses.

Their resolution to the situation is simultaneously anguished and exquisite. The fact that these two characters are so likeable, coupled with Wong's decision to never show them sharing a physical moment (he shot a sex scene, but wisely left it on the cutting room floor) makes the outcome of In the Mood as heartbreaking as anything you'll see on the screen this year. Wong keeps thing subtly erotic by occasionally having Chow and Su's hands brush together as they pass, trying to avoid raising suspicion from their nosy, gossiping landlords, who have epic Mahjong tournaments that last for days at a time.

Chow and Su's adulterous spouses are barely in the film, and when they are, Wong opts to keep these characters hidden from viewers through careful location of his camera. In fact, the writer/director gives In the Mood more of a voyeuristic, fly-on-the-wall feel than any reality-based television programming. Like Steven Soderbergh, Wong often blocks off part of his shots with a door jam or some other inanimate object, which, in addition to placing his camera at just the right angle in a hallway or doorway, gives the film a cramped, cluttered look that ads to the claustrophobic feeling that the two main characters must also share. Actingwise, Leung and Cheung have never been better.

In the Mood is one of the most beautiful films I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. Wong's previous pictures have all been gorgeous in their own way, but never as elegant as here. His city is so dark and so moody (hence the title), you'll think the sun has never risen in Hong Kong. Wong's right-hand men - cinematographer Christopher Doyle (Liberty Heights) and editor and costume/production designer William Chang, do an unbelievably incredible job at making the film seem like the most colorful, romantic dream you've ever had. If the shots of Cheung gracefully swishing her lavish silk dresses through various surroundings don't hypnotize you, then the repetitive use of a Spanish version of a Nat King Cole song (and other period pop songs from the West) will be sure to do the trick.

1:38 –

for thematic elements and brief language