There may be no more sensual director in the world than Hong Kong’s Wong Kar-Wai, and In the Mood for Love (Hong Kong, 2000) is one of his richest and most melancholy works, a shadow dance of would-be lovers sketched in suggestions and intimations. Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung Chiu-Wai star as next door neighbors […]
In the enigmatic, hypnotic Last Life in the Universe (2004) from Thailand, Asano Tadanobu is a meek Japanese librarian in Bangkok who has fastidiously transformed his apartment into an oasis of calm and order. He plans to complete the transformation with his suicide, but fate (or merely conflicted self-preservation) keeps him alive when he kills […]
