The Unification of Love Trinity in 2046

  As a unrealistic destination in Hong Kong director Wong Kai-wei’s mysterious film 2046, it provides a journey which ordinary people could realize their unpractical and fantastic imagination in 2046, and it deals with the complicated tetragonal relationship among a dissolute journalist Chow Mo-wan (Tony Leung), and four enigmatic women. In the film 2046, Chow Mo-wan acts as a playboy trying to play love game so that he could forget the unendurable burden with his ex-lover Su Li-zhen. (Maggie Cheung) On an unexpected occasion in Singapore, Chow encounters the mysterious woman Su Li-zhen, (Gong Li) a professional gambler whose nick name is black spider, who has the same name as his previous lover that reminds him of a unfolded secret past. However, to most of us, love is not merchandise or goods which can be exchanged. Owing to the loss of past memory with Su, Chow begins to search another love substitutes which are projected on four women in 2046, and eventually, to a science fiction 2047. Nevertheless, there can be divided into three categories discussing about Chow’s love viewpoint, that is, complex relationship, the unification of love, and Tak as a chow’s substitute. To begin, then, with the first part of this essay, it describes the old Su Li-zhen’s shadow reflecting on spider Su; in the second part, it deals with the physical love between Bai Ling (Zi-yi Zhang) and Chow; in the third part, it exemplifies the spiritual love between Wong Jing-wen and Chow, finally, in the last part, Tak acts as Chow’s love substitute realizing Chow’s not escaping from the trap of love.

Su Li-zhen, a gambler, appears to Chow’s life as a memory recalling him from the past love to transfer affection on new Su. Wong Kai-wei deliberately uses the same name Su Li-zhen trying to awaken Chow’s lost memory. Through Wong’s approach, we audiences clearly understand that spider Su is just another love substitute to exemplify that Chow is incapable of escaping from the past. Thus, he devotes himself to the science fiction 2047 so as to get away from the unrealistic world (2047) to a practical, brutal one. Chow Says, ”A few years ago I fall in love with another man’s wife. Her name was also Su Li-zhen. It was because of her that I moved to Singapore. I never dreamed I’d meet another Su Li-zhen. I told her a lot about the other Su Li-zhen.” For Chow and spider Su, they have the same unrevealing secret not to be mentioned to the others. For this reason, Chow intends to be a person who never reveals his true color to anyone. To spider Su, she has the same unrevealing past as Chow. Chow says, ”It struck me that her past was like the hand she is always kept gloved. A mystery with no solution.”

Hardly can we separate love from sex; however, in Wong Kai-wei’s viewpoint, Bai ling, a social party beauty, stands as a unilateral physical desire to Chow who never easily falls in love with other women. In the sexual game between Bai Ling and Chow, he makes it simplify to declare the physical pleasure which is not based on extra affection on Bai Ling. Yet such kind of relationship cannot last forever because love is combined both lust and affection. Bai says,

          I’m serious. I don’t mind you having other women. But I won’t be treated the same as them. I don’t care if you love or not. I’ll love you anyway. Since we got together, I haven’t brought other men back. I hope you’d think the same way. Will you promise that? No. I see. Then we’re through. I’ll never bother you. And I don’t ever want you in my room again. Here’s $10. Tonight I’m paying. Thank you. If you’re ever in the mood feel free to come over. I’ll charge you the same.

Deeply inside Chow’s heart, he is afraid of losing another serious relationship again so that he plays the dangerous love game among those women. For ten dollars buying several one-night-stand sexual entanglement games with Bai Ling is much easier than to deal with a sophisticated love. In this lusty game, Chow represents a irresponsible man who divides love into lust and emotion which simplify the love game in 2046.    

On the contrary, Wong Jin-wen , a witty novelist, provides a spiritual love to Chow, which becomes a strong contrast to Bai Ling’s. (physical desire) Chow and Wong, in the period of writing, work together to weave the same marvelous dream in the science fiction 2047 where they could realize their dream-like love- Chow to Su, Wong to Tak; moreover, Wong offers Chow a great memory that could make up Chow’s wounded love in the past. As I mentioned before, love is a unification of emotion and sex, but from Wong he only got partial spiritual love that is incomplete to Chow so that it cannot last long. Chow says, ”I asked her to ghost it for me. She was just a girl, but she could write as realistic as the best of us. We got along very well. That was my happiest summer ever. But it didn’t last.”

In the science fiction 2047, Tak, a Japanese traveler on the journey to the destination 2046, symbolizes Chow’s inner sense to complete the flaw with four women. When Chow feels that he, actually, can do nothing for the lost memory, he, then, starts to devote himself to 2047, intending to make up for past. However, being another shadow of Chow, Tak is the only one who escapes from 2046, which means that Chow, in some way, also run away from the sorrowful mood with Su in 2047.Tak says,

          In the year 2046 every railway network spreads the globe a mysterious train leaves for 2046. Every once in a while every passenger who goes to 2046 has the same intention .They want to recapture lost memories because nothing ever changes in 2046. Nobody really knows if that’s true because nobody’s ever come back. Except me

To sum up, the three women and Tak act as different meanings to Chow, who always intends to recapture Su’s shadow which projects on those women. The first woman spider Su represents the love shadow overlapped on her; the second woman Bai Ling stands as a physical desire which is Chow’s partial love; the third woman Wong Jen-wen is another lost part of Chow’s love representing a spiritual love; finally through the unification among Su, Bai Ling, Wong Jen-wen, and Tak, which combine a complete love to Chow, demonstrating Chow’s love trinity unification (Shadow, physical love, spiritual love) Thus, Chow finally escapes from a unrealistic world to a destination where he can really search for the shadow of lost memory.