In late 1960s Hong Kong a dissolute writer has a series of affairs while working on a futuristic sci-fi novel. Tony Leung leads Wong Kar-Wai's enigmatic but atmospheric

successor to In The Mood For Love
It took Wong Kar-Wai almost five years, comprehensive re-edits, lots of waiting and a whole heap of emotional turmoil to complete 2046.

Described by its director as a "b-side" to 2000's In The Mood For Love, 'remix' might be more accurate: here are all the elements that made its predecessor so beguiling - lavish

cinematography, tender romance, storytelling that's both intimate and impressionistic - but amplified, extended, revisited and re-evaluated. The result? A beautifully shot,

languorously paced, achingly romantic film that unfolds in several directions at once, not always evenly, yet which exerts a fascinating, slow-burning allure.

Set in late 1960s Hong Kong, the film catches up with Chow Mo Wan (Leung), last seen brooding over his never-quite-requited affair with Maggie Cheung's Su-Li-Zhen in In The Mood

For Love. Then he was a buttoned-up married man, sad but stoic in the face of erotic repression. Now he's a lonely, boozy, womanising pulp writer, holed up in room 2047 of a

cheap hotel and working on a sci-fi novel called '2046'. "He thought he wrote about the future," runs Chow's narration. "But it was really the past. In his novel, a mysterious

train left for 2046 every once in a while. Everyone who went there had the same intention: to recapture their lost memories."

Over the film's sprawling, non-linear course, Chow - with varying levels of commitment - becomes involved with successive female neighbours in room 2046, each of whom goes some

way satisfying a different need. His affair with dancer and prostitute Bai Ling (Zhang) starts out carnal but ends up cruel. In the film's most overtly comic scenes, brainy Wang

Jing Wen (Wong) helps him complete a rambling martial arts novel. Mysteriously one-gloved gambler Su