Favorite Characters: Chow Mo-wan (2046)

As promised, here’s another Tony Leung Chiu-wai write-up for his reprised role as Chow Mo-wan, carried over from In the Mood for Love to 2046.  My A Little TLC(w) addition to my 2046 review is as follows:  “Recommend?  In General – Definitely.  It’s gorgeous and evocative under any circumstances, but it’s best seen after having watched Days of Being Wild and In the Mood for Love, so I’d recommend looking at those first.  Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Again, yes, especially after the other two.  This is a performance that really opens up as you think about the differences between Chow Mo-wan here and in In the Mood for Love, and there’s a lot to unearth.”  (A few spoilers for In the Mood for Love and 2046.)

On that note, let’s dive right in, shall we?  After the events of In the Mood for Love, Chow Mo-wan went to Singapore, working there for about four years as he tended to his dinged-up heart.  2046 starts with his return to Hong Kong in 1966 and follows several years of his life there, showing us, seemingly, “the new Chow Mo-wan.”   And that guy is a piece of work, an aimless playboy drinking, gambling, and drifting through life while keeping his collection of girlfriends at arms length.  It’s enough to make you shout, “What happened to my beautiful, sweet Mr. Chow?”

But like I said, this role would be interesting if done-before under normal circumstances, but as a reflection of the changes in Chow Mo-wan between In the Mood for Love and 2046, it’s pretty fascinating.  In my write-up of Mr. Chow, I talked about how self-denying he is, how he’s a decent way into In the Mood for Love before he realizes he hasn’t been living for himself in the slightest.  That movie shows him tentatively beginning to pursue his joys in an empowering way, but in 2046, he’s clearly gone all the way down the rabbit hole.  Chow Mo-wan is all about instant gratification, chasing whatever feels good with no thought as to how it might poorly reflect on him (a huge departure from Mr. Chow) or how it might hurt others.

This is shown most clearly in his cavalier treatment of women, especially Bai Ling, and it’s also an answer to what happened to him in In the Mood for Love.  There, Mr. Chow let himself be very, very exposed in the name of love, and he got burned badly for it.  Here, Chow Mo-wan has clearly and resolutely decided that that’s never going to happen to him, and so he makes a point to pursue pleasure instead of love.  Even as he falls into a nice, caring routine with Bai Ling, he pulls himself back when he feels her getting close.  Not because he doesn’t care about her and doesn’t want her to “cling,” although that’s basically the line he gives her.  Rather, it’s because he does care about her and desperately wants to stay out of the danger zone, holding back for fear of catching feelings.  Even as he’s dismissive and jerkish to Bai Ling and you feel bad for her, you find yourself feeling bad for him as well, because it’s obvious how much damage he’s been through to guard against love even at the expense of his own desires.

But no matter what he’s been through and how he’s changed, there’s still some of Mr. Chow in Chow Mo-wan, and we see that more and more as the film progresses.  He gets these small moments of gentleness and compassion, hints of something real shining through the shallowness and easy thrills.  It helps that the movie covers a span of several years because, in a way, it’s showing Mr. Chow finding his way back to himself.  By the time he befriends Wang Jing-wen, they hit some of the same beats that he hit with Su Li-zhen in In the Mood for Love, and you applaud him for not bailing when he realizes he’s getting in deep.  He’s never going to quite be who he was then, and his heart will always be in some level of danger, but you have faith that he’ll at least be all right.

Since I saw 2046 completely backwards, before In the Mood for Love, my first reaction to Leung’s performance here (one of my earlier exposures to his work) was that it was very well-done and showed enough talent that I wanted to see more of him, but it wasn’t revelatory.  “Shallow playboy who hides his broken heart” isn’t exactly a road-less-traveled archetype, and I’d seen plenty of this type of character before, though it was certainly a capably-performed example.  But if you see it in the right order, it becomes so much more.  Rewatching the film now after a fairly recent rewatch of In the Mood for Love, I’m struck anew by just how well Leung finds the tiny threads of connection between the wildly-different characterizations of the two films.  Chow Mo-wan seems at first worlds away from Mr. Chow, but then I start seeing those little hints, those brief moments that remind me that he’s still the same man, and that’s incredible.  Especially given how much more likable Mr. Chow is, it would be easy to want to hate Chow Mo-wan for “ruining” the wonderful character I had in Mr. Chow, but I can’t do that.  I see those glimpses of the one inside the other, and it makes Chow Mo-wan so sympathetic when I realized how hurt he had to be to do this to himself.  Really powerful, effective work by Leung – all the props to that man.

Favorite Characters: Mr. Chow (In the Mood for Love)

First up, here’s the A Little TLC(w) addendum for Inthe Mood for Love:  “Recommend?  In General and Tony Leung Chiu-wai – Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”  Nothing but boundless love for that film.    Second, even though this is technically the same Chow Mo-wan character from 2046, I’m going to use “Mr. Chow” because the characterization is so different between the two films that I’m sure I’ll do a separate write-up the next time I rewatch 2046.  (Mr. Chow-related spoilers.)

It’s interesting, because I used to think “still and soulful” was just kind of Tony Leung Chiu-wai’s thing.  In most of the first films I saw him in, his character fit that description.  I used both those words not too long ago in talking about the Blind Swordsman in Ashesof Time, and it could similarly apply to his roles in Hero, Red Cliff, Chungking Express, and other movies I’ve seen him in over the years.  Now that I’m exploring his filmography more deliberately, I can see that that’s only one of the tools in his arsenal, and he’s definitely played his share of characters that are nothing like Mr. Chow.  But even though I’ve started to see more of his range, this is still the sort of role I most closely associate with him, and they always resonate so strongly for me.

On paper, there’s not much to Mr. Chow at first.  He’s pretty much the definition of “mild-mannered,” a dutiful employee and loving if overworked husband, a man who doesn’t quite initially realize he’s leading a life of quiet desperation.  It’s Mrs. Chan who points out to him that all his interests and hobbies are things he “used to” do or enjoy; somewhere along the way, after his marriage, the things he liked just sort of drifted away from him and he was too caught up by the current to notice.  He’s fastidiously polite, he plays the pragmatist to his irresponsible friend, and he makes quiet excuses when people make comments that run the risk of alluding to his wife’s fidelity.

It’s not until after his wife runs off with Mrs. Chan’s husband that he starts to make more than idle considerations about what he wants.  He’s the one who invites Mrs. Chan out to delicately broach his suspicions about their spouses’ affair, which is maybe his first foray into this:  acknowledging his desire to know, and not to be alone in that knowledge.  Here, he and Mrs. Chan are both tentative and, again, so, so polite.  It takes ages for either of them to come to the point, but once they do, I think it opens something up for Mr. Chow.  While Mrs. Chan has been gently doing her own thing in the absence of her husband – finding quiet ways to occupy her time and the space society tells her he’s supposed to be filling – Mr. Chow hasn’t been doing much of anything, and with that conversation, things begin to change. 

Whether it’s deeply personal (roleplaying with Mrs. Chan as they try to figure out how the affair began,) of less consequence (deciding to finally try his hand at writing a martial arts serial,) or implied to be improper (befriending Mrs. Chan even though they’re both still married and people will talk, don’t you know?), Mr. Chow dips his toes further and further into the idea of living for himself.  Though he starts out gingerly, it doesn’t take him long to get swept up in it, to the point that he rents a separate room in a different building for he and Mrs. Chan to write in when they both start to worry about what the neighbors will think of their friendship.  When it gets to these extremes, Mrs. Chan is ready to cut their losses and stop writing together, (not because she’s indifferent, not at all – it’s just how she reacts to things,) but Mr. Chow digs in.  After goodness knows how long, he’s found something that makes him happy, and he’s not about to let it go so easily.

He’s kind of a deceptively-intriguing character, and Leung brings him to life gorgeously.  What a great portrayal of a man slowly dawning on the realization that he’s been sleeping through his life, discovering what is to be awake, growing protective of the new sensations it’s brought him, and ultimately following it to the end of a path that he pretty much knows will lead to heartbreak, possibly wondering if he wouldn’t have been better off staying asleep and yet not willing to close his eyes again.  Just beautiful work, extremely subtle but wonderfully effective.  Leung, along with Maggie Cheung, delivers a master class in acting in this movie, and these performances are a major part of the reason why I’ve seen it probably half a dozen times but can still rewatch it with absolutely rapt attention.