The final scene of In the Mood for Love takes place in the hauntingly beautiful ruins of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, where Chow Mo-wan (played by Tony Leung) confronts his lingering feelings for Su Li-zhen (played by Maggie Cheung) through a solitary, symbolic gesture. This scene contrasts with the tightly framed, intimate interiors that dominate much of the film, setting Chow alone against the vast expanse of the temple.
Chow, dealing with the unresolved emotions from his relationship with Su, whispers his secret into a hollow in the stone, following a Cambodian tradition of whispering into a hole and sealing it with mud. In this scene, Angkor Wat serves as a metaphor for memory and longing—a place both awe-inspiring and decayed, echoing Chow’s memories of Su and the relationship that can never be.
Wong Kar-wai’s use of Angkor Wat adds a profound layer of symbolism. The temple’s timeless, deteriorating beauty reflects the transient, bittersweet nature of Chow and Su’s connection. Its emptiness amplifies Chow’s isolation and the distance between him and Su, who never appears in the scene. The silence of the temple mirrors the quietness of their love—unspoken, unfulfilled, but somehow eternal in his memory. The scene captures the essence of unrequited love and regret, with Angkor Wat standing as an emblem of Chow’s nostalgia and the weight of memories that cannot be left behind.
Why Angkor?
“First, the story of Ms. Chang and Mr. Chow was supposed to be narrated from 1962 until 1972, with the beginning and the end in a Hong Kong profoundly changed during the whole decade,” recalled director Wong Kar-wai. "Then we realized it was going on for too long, and we decided to end the movie in 1966. We were shooting in Bangkok, we looked for places in Thailand, then the idea of Angkor Wat came up. I’ve always wanted to see Angkor, so I said ‘let’s go!’”
“We wanted an ending ‘with a distance,’ the two characters distanced from their usual surroundings,” he added. “And the newsreel about De Gaulle arriving in Cambodia... more than the historical event itself, I liked the idea of showing another kind of waiting, the people of Cambodia waiting for something on the streets.”
These rare behind the scenes photos of Maggie Cheung and Tony Leung were taken by Man Lim Chung, art director for the movie.
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