"You feel from the first moments that this movie will make no mistakes. I remember those claustrophobic rented rooms and the host family always laughing and cooking and playing mah-jongg. Compositions are boxed in on the left and right, which ups the energy of each scene, igniting these characters because they’re given so little space. Wong Kar-wai designs this past world meticulously, then casts it with messy realness and makes it turn . . . Messy realness saves his two leads. Maggie Cheung Man-yuk and Tony Leung Chiu-wai float on air. They are as gorgeously put together as any two humans out there, and here give a clinic on the power of performance restraint. Cinematographer Chris Doyle adores Cheung: captured by his slow motion, her beauty is written into the record books. This is a love story that crawls. Every breath taken by these two characters is counted. You’ve got to get into the masochistic pleasure of dying for something to happen that may not. What does happen? Torrential downpours soaking 1960s Hong Kong, Nat King Cole haunting the background of an incredible score, and a parade of the most gorgeous dresses ever zipped up the back of an actress."