Posted in: Movies | Tagged: Criterion Collection, Feature Film, in the mood for love, Maggie Cheung, tony leung, wong kar-wai

In the Mood for Love: Wong Kar Wai Classic Gets Longer Cut

In the Mood for Love, Wong Kar-Wai's classic vibe movie is getting a new 4K remastered cut with 9 more minutes of footage on Valentine's Day

Wong Kar-Wai's classic arthouse love story of unrequited desire, In the Mood for Love, is getting a 4K restored longer cut premiering in China, including on IMAX. The new cut will include nine minutes of additional footage never seen before. The film is essentially a two-hander between Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung as married neighbours who are drawn together after they discover their spouses were unfaithful. Wong Kar-Wai movies are not about plot. They're all vibe.

In the Mood for Love – "The Longest Cut Ever" According to the New Posters

In celebration of the film's 25th anniversary, the new 4K remastered cut of In the Mood for Love will premiere in China on Valentine's Day. To anyone who follows Wong Kar-Wai as a filmmaker and his process, it would come as no surprise that he shot a lot more footage than ended up in the released version of the film. He was known for shooting enough footage to make up an entirely different separate movie out of the unused footage, sometimes including entire story arcs starring A-list Hong Kong actors who get completely excised from the final released cut. While it's unclear if it will be the same recent (and controversially green-tinged new version that fans hated) restoration that Janus Films released, this new edition will feature 9 minutes and 9 seconds of never-before-seen footage, according to local Hong Kong media reports. It's not yet confirmed what the new footage will entail, but reports speculate it may include the sex scene between Tony Leung and Maggie Cheung that was deleted but revealed in promotional stills. That might be unlikely since China generally prohibits sex scenes in their films and TV shows, but the deleted scenes on the Blu-Ray and DVDs have shown that they shot a steamy make-out scene that was ultimatey cut from the released version to keep the romantic tension and sense of unrequited feelings between the two.

It's not the first time additional footage from the film has surfaced. In 2021, 92 seconds of never-before-seen footage titled In the Mood for Love – Day One, which featured unseen shots from the film's first day of production, was auctioned as an NFT for around $550K. The previous version of the film is currently on streaming and physical media, with the Criterion edition including both the director-approved (what was he thinking?!) green-tinged version and the original, better-looking version.

So far, there's no news whether the new version of In the Mood for Love will premiere in the West – it probably will – or if Wong Kar-Wai's acclaimed 25-episode TV series Blossoms Shanghai will get a Western release.

Enjoyed this? Please share on social media!

Stay up-to-date and support the site by following Bleeding Cool on Google News today!