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Originally Posted by John Cole
Remember the first time she's stuck in his room while the neighbors play mah jong. She puts her shoes on before she goes back into her room, and the slippers are left under the bed. And they're pink slippers if I recall. I doubt he has pink slippers.
Okay, I've gone back and watched the scenes in question.
Regarding the slippers: you're right, she's wearing them at the beginning of the scene where she's trapped in his room. She then changes into her heels, leaving them behind. However, when she goes back to her room, the old lady asks her what's wrong with her leg and Su says her new shoes are bothering her. Then she closes her door and quickly takes the shoes off and massages her feet, as they obviously hurt. ...Why? Is it possible she went over to Chow's with her slippers on and borrowed a pair of his wife's shoes to go back to her room without arousing suspicion? This doesn't make sense to me, though, because Chow's wife had already left him at this point - although, she could have left some clothes behind, I guess.
Later in Singapore, she visits his room and has on slippers. However, the end of that scene is a CU of her feet - in heels - as she bends down and lingers over the slippers, as if she's going to take them - but we do not see her actually do so.
The previous scene has Chow looking all over his room for something that is missing - presumably, the slippers. So by taking them with her and leaving the cigarette butt with the lipstick mark, do you think Su is intentionally telling Chow she has been there?
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There's one scene in the cab in which she leans her head against him and says something like "I don't want to go home alone tonight." I'm not sure if she's playacting there because Wong leaves most of this ambiguous. When did they have sex? I don't know exactly, but I'm going to assume in my reading that they take the playacting as far as their spouses do.
This is the mystery!
She says that line, and then he takes her hand - which she lets him do. Remember, previously he had tried to take her hand in the cab and she pulled away - either because he went too far in their play-acting or he wasn't play acting any more.
Next scene - the two of them on opposite sides of the same wall, day dreaming, while the radio plays what is apparently a birthday message from Su's husband to her.
Next scene - We see a phone ring but no one answers. Then a shot of the clock where Su works while we hear Chow ask,
"if there was an extra ticket, would you go with me?"
Next scene - Chow is in the hotel room he locks up and turns all of the lights out before leaving - ostensibly leaving for good.
And when he is in the hallway, his image is frozen even while the camera is moving! Why? I know we saw the same shot previously with her - but what meaning can be behind it?
Next scene - we see Su rushing down some stairs. Next, we see her sitting in the hotel room, alone, obviously having missed Chow. She cries. And we hear her in VO:
"It's me. If there was an extra ticket, would you go with me?"
Okay. I have noticed that there was often VO over a shot of the clock in Su's office. However, it was never clear that these VO's were actually conversations or just in the minds of our protagonists.
Why the ambiguity? When Chow says "will you go with me" - are we to believe he actually said that to her and that he waited for her as long as she could but she arrived too late? And then her VO repeating the same line - just a moment of regret, as she remembers his question?
Or did he never say that to her at all??
I certainly see how - if they had made love that last night and the little boy is his son, that it would make everything even more poignant.
But it still doesn't answer the question - why didn't she wait for him in Singapore (when she took the slippers)?
I'm a little obsessed.