Taking this opportunity, Wong Kar-wai talked about the opportunity to shoot In the Mood for Love: he promoted Spring in Paris and had dinner with Maggie Cheung. Since they haven't cooperated since Time Has Changed, Maggie Cheung suggested that "we should cooperate in another film" and made it clear that he wanted to cooperate with Tony Leung Chiu Wai. Wong Kar-wai, who was reading Taste Physiology at that time, immediately thought of taking food as the theme: "Why don't we shoot a series of short stories, and you two play the leading roles in all these stories. Therefore, the film was temporarily named Three Stories of Gourmets, and In the Mood for Love was originally the second film. Therefore, from the dinner with Maggie Cheung, food has become one of the most important elements and symbols in the film.
The story of this film is not complicated. The hero and heroine played by Tony Leung Chiu Wai are neighbors of Maggie Cheung, and the man's wife has an affair with the woman's husband. They were in great pain when they found out that their partner had betrayed them. They want to know the reason and process of extramarital affairs, so they play each other's partners and imagine how this relationship happened. Gradually, they can't tell the difference between "playing" and "being real".
Wong Kar-wai is more concerned about how the scandal happened than the scandal itself. It all started with the rice cooker. Maggie Cheung's husband often travels to Japan and brings back a newly invented rice cooker, so Tony Leung Chiu Wai asks him to bring one to his wife next time, because she is tired of housework-she wants to work, and the rice cooker can free her from the housework in the kitchen. When Maggie Cheung's husband brought the rice cooker back to Tony Leung Chiu Wai's wife, their love affair began to sprout, which led to the extramarital affairs of the hero and heroine. "I personally think that the rice cooker is the most important invention to liberate Asian women, and they no longer need to spend a lot of energy on cooking. Together with instant noodles, rice cookers have completely changed the lifestyle of Asians. " Wong Kar-wai said.
Ironically, the same rice cooker has brought more restrictions to Maggie Cheung. In the past, she went downstairs to buy wonton noodles with a thermos every night and passed Tony Leung Chiu Wai in the narrow stairwell. "In the Mood for Love, people used to go out to eat noodles. Just like a family outing, because their living space is very narrow. Buying noodles is more like an excuse. They just want some air. The deliberate arrangement of "buying noodles" and "noodle stalls" is not only an outdoor space for them to solve loneliness, but also an emotional space for them to "meet". The rice cooker, a convenient cooking tool, somewhat blocked her reason for going out to buy noodles. Later, after Mrs. Sun, a neighbor in Shanghai, taught her that it was inappropriate to go out often, she once again devoted herself to eating and playing mahjong with her neighbors. Faced with the gossip of her neighbors, she finally lost her excuse to go out for air.
In the 1960 s, the atmosphere in Hong Kong was conservative, and the concept of neighborhood was different from today. They are not only people who live across the street, but also enjoy the private space of the toilet with you. Mrs Sun, played by Pan Dihua, is a typical Shanghainese. They know everything, but they say nothing. They will only wake you up at certain times and tell you that they know everything. This is the environment faced by Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu Wai, and it is also Wong Kar-wai's childhood. Wong Kar-wai 1958 was born in Shanghai and moved to Hong Kong with his parents at the age of 5. In the Mood for Love is a review of the 1960s. What we are pursuing is a kind of charm, which is about a certain emotion in the 1960s. The role of Pan Dihua reminds me of my mother-those mahjong scenes and dinner scenes are all my childhood. 」
In order to restore the atmosphere of that year, Wong Kar-wai also specially designed a cookbook. "Because Shanghainese are very particular about food-some dishes can only be eaten in certain seasons, this cookbook is a memory of the dishes cooked by my mother when I was a child, because the dishes themselves strive for accuracy. After the design is finished, we have to find a local Shanghai woman to cook. Even so, he said that food is not for the audience, nor for the actors, but it can help the actors create some more real emotions.
Living in a small and cramped space and wandering in a close-knit community, people always need a place to talk about private affairs. Wong Kar-wai chose Goldfinch Restaurant as their date place. This restaurant uses Chinese food ingredients to make western-style dishes, and its customers are mainly from China, not real western restaurants. Without Cantonese cuisine and Shanghai food culture, it is not a Chinese and Western restaurant in the strict sense. The fuzziness and duality of its attributes are like the relationship between two people-both the victim of extramarital affairs and the lover role of the other party, and food becomes the intermediary to test the taste of the other party and imagine the personality charm of the opponent.
In In the Mood for Love, food always appears in different occasions and times, from the grilled crucian carp of Mrs. Sun, a neighbor of Shanghai, to the "hoof flower soup" and "seasonal wonton" that were invited to eat together later, all representing the Shanghai community that just moved to Hong Kong from the mainland in the 1960s. Maggie Cheung went downstairs to buy Wonton Noodles, sesame sauce and glutinous rice chicken, which are all daily foods in Hongkong. Tianxianglou (Hangzhou Restaurant) and Jinfeng Restaurant (Western Restaurant) mentioned on her boss's birthday also reflected the differences and integration of various lifestyles in that era.
As the subtitle near the end of the film wrote: "That era has passed, and everything belonging to that era does not exist. Wong Kar-wai used the details of food and daily life to construct the lost feelings of Hongkong in 1960s. This memory does not belong to pure Shanghainese or Hong Kong people, but to immigrant groups living in two or more identities. Food is a nostalgic character connected with the perception of time, and it is also the intermediary of the character's feelings. " The real time behind everything is nostalgia. Different kinds of food not only mark time, but also mark the time memory of different times and seasons. 」