Secrets
Early on in the film's development, when the specifics of the narrative had still not been fleshed out, there were two things Wong Kar-wai knew would play a big role: the sharing of noodles and the sharing of secrets. After fifteen months of painstaking shooting, Wong delivered on that promise. The plot of the film is built on a foundation of secrecy. There is the primary secret: that Chow and Su's spouses are having an affair—a secret which their spouses do a fairly poor job of keeping, despite the fact that Su and Chow seem to be the only people in their packed apartments to know about the affair. But then there is the secondary secret, Chow and Su's relationship, which is so enigmatic and resistant to definition that even Chow and Su have moments where they have to wonder why it's a secret in the first place. In the Mood for Love traffics in secrets, but it also takes care to investigate what conditions necessitate secrecy. Through such interrogation, Wong comments on the broad cultural values of the period.
Domesticity
The film spends the majority of its time in the domestic realm, in either the Koos', the Suens', or Chow's second apartment. Maggie Cheung's character, Su, is especially trapped in the domestic realm, with her comings and goings scrutinized by the other women with whom she lives. A traditional idea of gendered domestic roles is advanced by Mrs. Suen, who takes care of her domestic realm—with the help of a domestic servant—doesn't work outside the house, and spends most of her time communing with neighbors, playing mahjong, and hosting guests. The fact that Su works full-time already deviates from Mrs. Suen's concept of what is "proper," and Su's husband's general absence from the home, and how little time he and Su spend together, really don't sit well with Mrs. Suen. Su's arrangement with her husband indicates a growing transience in the domestic unit, which makes Mrs. Suen uncomfortable and prompts her to lecture Su about being out so late and seeing her husband so seldom. After the lecture, Suen is pleased that Su stays home, dines with the group, and begins to "take her place" in the home.
Time and History
In the Mood for Love is highly concerned with when its narrative takes place, on the eve of China's Cultural Revolution, and the ways in which politics organize people across a region and shape and form communities. The old-fashioned method of positioning the narrative with title cards—i.e. "Hong Kong, 1962," "Singapore, 1963," etc.— harkens back to the days of silent film, which is fitting for a film that is so intent on accurately portraying a bygone era. At every turn, Wong is dropping subtle cues to advance this theme of time and history, and even nostalgia—for example, as Su and Chow sit somberly in their respective apartments after rehearsing Chow's eventual departure from Singapore, Zhou Xuan's rendition of "Age of Bloom" plays on the radio, a longing ode to China which imagines a bygone, pre-colonial tranquility. The film ends with a haunting epigraph that sums up Wong's efforts to portray the loss over time of relationships and communities, even countries and kingdoms (i.e. Cambodia): "He remembers those vanished years. As though looking through a dusty windowpane, the past is something he could see but not touch. And everything he sees is blurred and indistinct" (1:33:27).
Distance and Displacement
The community in which Su and Chow enter into when they move in with Mrs. Suen and Mr. Koo, respectively, is a migrant community of Shanghainese people who moved to Hong Kong after the establishment of the People's Republic of China, so most of the characters in the film have been touched by distance and displacement. The political upheaval—in tandem with the dissolution of "family values" and the traditional concepts of the "nuclear family" and what it means to have a healthy, successful marriage—led to a general sense of transience. Chow and Su's spouses are perfect examples of young professionals who travel a lot for work, mostly to conduct business in Japan, a country whose imperialist agenda tore through China and caused a great deal of suffering there. The ability to compartmentalize the pain caused by Japanese policies and consumer culture—the Suens' and Koos' fascination with and desire for the Japanese goods that Su's husband brings home—indicates the arrival of globalization, and its transformative effects on local culture. By the end of the film, the Koos' have left Hong Kong, Mrs. Suen goes to live in the United States with her daughter, Chow lives in Singapore, and, as the man who took over Mr. Koo's apartment indicates, everyone is leaving.
Food
Food is an essential theme in In the Mood for Love. Wong demonstrates how communities gather around food, but also how food becomes a viable excuse for Su to distance herself from the suffocating claustrophobia and surveillance of a community she didn't ask to be a part of. The noodle stalls are a quintessential feature of the Shanghainese Hong Kong communities of Wong Kar-wai's childhood; they are a source of comfort and a beacon of familiarity to the transient and displaced young professionals. They are also the first thing that Chow and Su have in common; their first topic of conversation is how they always see each other at the noodle stalls. Wong also demonstrates how food is used as a means of comfort, care, and also as a means of control. When Su hears that Chow is sick and is craving sesame syrup, she prepares some for him, which raises Mrs. Suen's suspicions, since Su is not typically one to cook. Mrs. Suen is also constantly trying to convince Su to eat with the rest of the group so that she doesn't have to go to the noodle stall by herself. Mrs. Suen thinks that Su spending so much time alone, eating alone, and eating "fast food" from the stalls is improper, and that the proper place to eat is around the table with one's domestic unit.
Marriage
At the center of In the Mood for Love is a discussion of the institution of marriage and, primarily, how it restricts the autonomy of those involved. A pivotal conversation between Chow and Su, one in which they finally embrace their position as friends and confidants, is when Chow and Su discuss what their lives might be like had they not gotten married to their respective spouses. Su simply guesses that she would probably be happier, but Chow tells Su about his dreams of writing martial arts serials, which initiates a partnership between them. Su and Chow's professional and platonic partnership is one of equals and serves as a foil to their marriages, in which each of their spouses (especially Su's) seems to have the upper hand.
Desire
In a film that revolves around two scorned spouses, desire is an obvious and ever-present theme. The reason Chow and Su start role-playing each other's spouses is to get some sense of comprehension as to how their extramarital affair began, and in the course of their investigation, they too are ensnared by desire. The difference between them and their spouses is that they don't give in to the desire, but rather deny themselves the satisfaction of exploring a romantic relationship, even after they develop feelings that go beyond lust and constitute real emotional dependence upon one another. In addition to their spouses, who are totems of indulged desire, there is Ping, who doesn't even feel the need to keep his indulgence a secret, but shamelessly discusses his vices with Chow.
