2046

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

Filmed to perfection by the great Christopher Doyle and others.

The New York Times Manohla Dargis

Like Hitchcock, Mr. Wong is at once a voyeur and fetishist par excellence.

Premiere Glenn Kenny

I'm glad that 2046 is different from "Mood" even while being strangely of a piece with it. Like "Mood," it’s a movie of utter wonder and ravishment. But the key here is different.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

The new film lives up to expectations and, indeed, pushes past them into virtually unmapped territory.

San Francisco Chronicle G. Allen Johnson

A rare, sumptuous movie treat.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Sean Axmaker

The result is rich, lush -- simply exquisite.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

A riot of sight and sound that, however baffling, has an irresistible, elemental pull.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

One of those undeniably beautiful things. The film is, in fact, an encyclopedia of beauty -- the beauty of desire, the beauty of nostalgia, the beauty of music and clothing and smoke and pain, and, chiefly, the beauty of women.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

There are many places a visitor may go astray in 2046 -- places where the filmmaker appears to be a bit at loose ends too. Still, Wong's invitation -- ''Let's get lost'' -- is irresistible.

Village Voice Michael Atkinson

Mood is everything, trumped up by a score so rich with pop songs, bossa nova drama, and symphonic mournfulness it's almost a movie on its own. 2046 may be a Chinese box of style geysers and earnest meta-irony, but that should not suggest there aren't bleeding humans at the center of it.

Los Angeles Times Carina Chocano

Wong brilliantly blends musical styles and eras to create an intoxicating mood.

Dallas Observer Jean Oppenheimer

It's the best thing Wong has done in years--perhaps ever.

Salon.com Andrew O'Hehir

You may feel lost or bewildered at times in 2046 (and I certainly did), and you may feel that Chow is suffering from self-inflicted wounds. But every new adventure with every new girl vibrates with possibility, and the filmmaking is so stunning that you may not care that this is less a movie with a plot and characters than a hermetically sealed universe of romantic regret.

Chicago Tribune Michael Wilmington

iIt's a film for art- and foreign-movie devotees. But it's also a movie for audiences who simply want to get turned on.

New York Post Lou Lumenick

2046 is a bit overlong and not for all tastes, but fans of "In the Mood for Love" will relish this second helping, which is more emotionally substantial than the first.

Newsweek David Ansen

In this gorgeously melancholic fresco of love affairs, Tony Leung Chiu Wai plays a womanizing pulp-fiction writer in '60s Hong Kong.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

An intoxicatingly beautiful, maddeningly elliptical and utterly enthralling meditation on the fleeting pleasures and haunting aftermath of doomed romance.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Keith Phipps

Just as memorable and emotionally intense as any of Wong's films. It's a mood as much as a movie.

LA Weekly Scott Foundas

The result is a film chilly and externalized in all the ways that Mood was bottled up and woozily dreamlike.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Only a master director could make such a beautifully flawed film.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

This long, gorgeous, occasionally maddening movie is the work of a hopeless romantic who knows there is no pain as bittersweet -- or as haunting -- as the pain of a broken heart.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Nat King Cole croons a Christmas chestnut, an opera wafts into the ether, Latin jazz sways. It's all terribly atmospheric, and if you're in the mood for atmosphere, 2046 delivers.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Wong uses his brief evocations of the future mainly as a way of poetically lamenting the past.

Time Richard Corliss

Even if a Chinese movie doesn't sound like your idea of summer fun, give 2046 a chance. Its pearly artistry and gorgeous faces should put you quickly, deeply, in the mood for love.

Baltimore Sun Chris Kaltenbach

The film is the work of a visual genius who may have overextended his storytelling ability, but with fascinating results.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

Since it is by Wong Kar Wai, 2046 is visually stunning. He uses three cinematographers but one style, that tries to evoke mood more than meaning. The movie as a whole, unfortunately, never seems sure of itself. It's like a sketchbook. These are images, tones, dialogue and characters that Wong is sure of, and he practices them, but he does not seem very sure why he is making the movie, or where it should end.

New York Daily News Jack Mathews

Like Wong's past films, 2046 is lovely to behold, elegantly moody and rich in atmospherics. And the women caught in Chow's web are extraordinary beauties.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

This, too, is a mood piece, sometimes surreal and dominated by Chow's lovelorn sadness. But it's hard to find an emotional or narrative handle to hang on to, since the filmmaker keeps reaching for dramatic energy that keeps eluding him.

The New Yorker Anthony Lane

As for the title, well, it made me think of Thomas Carlyle's wife, who read Browning's long poem "Sordello," enjoyed it, but still couldn't work out whether Sordello was a man, a city, or a book. So it is with 2046. A place? A date? A hotel room? A bar tab? You tell me.

Film Threat Jeremy Mathews

The fascinating visuals and performances by Leung and the assortment of actresses like Gong, Zhang Ziyi and Maggie Cheung ensure that the film is still worth watching.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

The story is multiplex and unclear.

Washington Post Stephen Hunter

It takes what could be called the Chinese equivalent of chutzpah to make a movie with three of the world's most beautiful and talented women -- Gong Li, Maggie Cheung and Zhang Ziyi -- and to be more interested in the male character.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

Even the art house crowd will find the film off-putting not only because of its vagueness but because of its thoroughly unlikable characters.

Variety Derek Elley

The overall effect simply underlines the central weakness of the pic: that the neo-kitschy futuristic scenes don't add much to the real-life '60s relationships.