What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
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.
In this gorgeously melancholic fresco of love affairs, Tony Leung Chiu Wai plays a womanizing pulp-fiction writer in '60s Hong Kong.
Christian Science Monitor by David Sterritt
Filmed to perfection by the great Christopher Doyle and others.
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.
Just as memorable and emotionally intense as any of Wong's films. It's a mood as much as a movie.
The Hollywood Reporter by 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.
Entertainment Weekly by 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 by 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.
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.
The result is a film chilly and externalized in all the ways that Mood was bottled up and woozily dreamlike.