In the Mood for Love

For the album by Jo Stafford, see In the Mood for Love (album).

In the Mood for Love
Hong Kong theatrical release poster
Chinese name
Traditional Chinese花樣年華
Simplified Chinese花样年华
Literal meaningFlowery Years
Transcriptions
Standard Mandarin
Hanyu Pinyinhuāyàng niánhuá
Wu
Shanghainese
Romanization		ho1 hhian3 nyi3 hho3
Yue: Cantonese
Jyutpingfaa1joeng6 nin4waa4
Directed byWong Kar-wai
Written byWong Kar-wai
Produced byWong Kar-wai
Starring
Cinematography
Edited byWilliam Chang
Music byMichael Galasso
Production
companies
  • Jet Tone Production
  • Paradis Films
Distributed by
  • Block 2 Pictures (Hong Kong)
  • Océan Films (France)
Release dates
  • 20 May 2000 (2000-05-20) (Cannes)
  • 29 September 2000 (2000-09-29) (Hong Kong)
  • 8 November 2000 (2000-11-08) (France)
Running time
98 minutes
Countries
  • Hong Kong
  • France[1]
Languages
Budget$3,000,000[4]
Box office$12,854,953(Original Release)[5] $14,204,632(Original Release+Re-release)[5]

In the Mood for Love (Chinese: 花樣年華; Chinese: Prime; lit. 'Flower-like period', 'the best years of one's youth') is a 2000 romantic drama film written, directed and produced by Wong Kar-wai. A co-production between Hong Kong and France, it portrays a man (Tony Leung) and a woman (Maggie Cheung) in 1962 whose spouses have an affair together and who slowly develop feelings for each other. It forms the second part of an informal trilogy, alongside Days of Being Wild and 2046.

The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival on 20 May 2000,[6] to critical acclaim and a nomination for the Palme d'Or; Leung won Best Actor (the first Hong Kong actor to win the award). It was selected as the Hong Kong entry for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 73rd Academy Awards, but it was not nominated.[7] It is often listed as one of the greatest films of all time and one of the major works of Asian cinema.[8][9]

  1. ^ "In the Mood for Love (2000)". British Film Institute. Archived from the original on 11 February 2016. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  2. ^ "In the Mood for Love". British Board of Film Classification. Retrieved 9 August 2021.
  3. ^ "In the Mood for Love [Faa yeung nin wa]". BYU International Cinema. Retrieved 29 June 2023.
  4. ^ "In the Mood for Love". 29 September 2000.
  5. ^ a b Cite error: The named reference bom was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  6. ^ "Images – In the Mood for Love". imagesjournal.com. Retrieved 13 March 2016.
  7. ^ Whipp, Glenn; Chang, Justin (21 March 2021). "Oscars 2001 rewind: What won ... and what should have won". Los Angeles Times. Retrieved 15 September 2024.
  8. ^ "How In the Mood for Love became a modern masterpiece – 20 years on". South China Morning Post. 18 May 2020. Retrieved 19 April 2022.
  9. ^ "In the Mood for Love (2000)". BFI. Retrieved 1 December 2022.