The DVD extras comprise interviews, trailers and a music video. Of these, the opening interview with Wong Kar Wai, during which he explains his motivations for the film, its relationship to In The Mood For Love, the history of the shoot and evolution of the characters is by far the most interesting. At the same time, without being too critical, it also isn't the most exciting.
Following this is a long, minimally informative talk with Zhang Ziyi, who seems to be dressed up as the star of the show. Given her unquestionable beauty and glamour, I can understand the appeal, but the mundane questions, which form the first half, regarding her clothes and make up during filming, could have been easily replaced (and likely bettered) had they interviewed Tony Leung, the real star. Nonetheless, the latter part of Ziyi's interview, during which she compares working with Wong Kar Wai, Ang Lee and Yimou Zhang and explains her own style of creating the character of Bai Ling, is a fairly worthwhile watch. Unfortunately, this is followed by behind the scenes footage that photographs Ziyi on set which, while demonstrating again how sultry she is both in and out of character, fails to provide anything of intellectual substance.
The remainder of the extras range from a fantastic music video, which is, in a sense, a very long trailer, accompanied by soft, soulful operatic music, yet perfectly in tune with the charm of the film itself, to the 2003 promo, which is genuinely awful, with a cheesy, over-dramatic American voiceover completely out of sync with the style and identity of all else on the DVD. This is made to look even worse when we see the final instalment of the extras menu - the Hong Kong trailer, which is identical to its Westernised version in every sense other than its quality. Quite why the film seems to lose all of its style when an American accent replaces the original is not completely clear, which perhaps underlines why this romantic film, compared to literally thousands of Hollywood attempts, stands head and shoulders above them all.
The quality of both sound and print throughout is excellent.
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