In many respects, 2046 is a sequel to Wong Kar Wai’s acclaimed masterpiece, In The Mood For Love. Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung) returns to Hong Kong some time after the events of the first film. Despite a skill with women, he’s frightened of love and still nurses the scars of that earlier, failed romance. Holed up in a small room, he writes newspaper columns and a trashy, science fiction serial, 2046. In his future world, endless train journeys take people and androids to reclaim lost memories. The stories are inspired by Chow’s own haunted memory and his inability to secure the hearts of those who try to love him.

2046 is a  hazy, hypnotic film that blends boundaries of time and character in such a compelling way that the film’s meandering style is quite forgivable. The performances, like Christopher Doyle’s eloquent cinematography, are simply mesmerizing. Leung is devastatingly cool and a spellbinding counterpoint to the heat of Ziyi Zhang (House of Flying Daggers), a gold digger who tears Chow’s world apart. Even when the film’s repetitive structure begins to unravel somewhat, there is an eloquence in the visual and aural style that is striking in its elegant simplicity.

While the story makes less sense than it might - 2046 is prone to confusion and not as fully realised as In The Mood For Love -  it is a deeply sensual and satisfying experience. This is the kind of film to which one simply surrenders. The kind of film that, if you let the journey chart its own course, you’ll be happy you did.

// COLIN FRASER