Brief Encounter influenced 花樣年華 (In the Mood for Love)

The same film made again in another language: two married people who fall in love, meet in public places, and never act on it, with the restraint carrying the whole weight. What carries across is the method rather than the plot. Both keep the lovers in transit spaces, a railway refreshment room and a noodle stall stairwell. Both use one piece of music as an involuntary signal that the feeling has returned. Both refuse a scene in which anyone says plainly what is happening. Filed MEDIUM: Wong's stated sources are Liu Yichang's novella Intersection and his own childhood Hong Kong, and this is a kinship widely drawn rather than a debt he has claimed.