The movie begins with text. It’s a parable, of sorts, but Wong provides no context. Has he taken this mood-setting parable from another story?

It goes like this (well, at least in the English subtitles:) “It is a restless moment. She has kept her head lowered to give him a chance to come closer. But he could not, for lack of courage. She turns and walks away”

So, Wong is telling us in the credits sequence that we are about to experience a story of longing. “In the Mood for Love” is an evocative title, but a somewhat ironic one. It harkens to the 1935 song “I’m in the Mood for Love,” written by Jimmy McHugh and Dororthy Fields, originally performed by Frances Langford in the movie “Every Night at Eight.”

For a song from the 1930s, it drips with sexual passion. Just look at it’s final verse:

If there's a cloud above

And it must rain, we'll let it

But for tonight, forget it

I'm in the mood for love

There’s no hint of a lack of courage in these lyrics and the fact that they were written by a woman and, at least in the original recording, sung by a woman give it a special charge.

So the title “In the Mood for Love,” may evoke the famous song, but it has an entirely different story in mind, a story that might be more accurately titled “Melancholic Longing.”

But let’s put that longing aside, because it doesn’t emerge immediately in the film. Wong first has to set the stage. We begin in Hong Kong, 1962. It is a city bursting at the seams from Chinese migration. The housing shortage is acute and sets up our story.

Two married couples are looking for new places to live. They both happen upon the same apartment building — both seeking out subdivided rooms within apartments. The density is a situation in the film but also a character.

There’s a forced level of polite ritual in Hong Kong of this era, group meals offered and politely turned down, frequent apologies for noise and all too many personal details open to everyone.

All of the people in such close proximity to one another creates erotic sparks, but it’s hard to believe that anything subterranean can happen with such a lack of privacy. If one knows, all know.

Wong heightens this sense of eroticism by presenting us with the best dressed collection of people in human history. On top of everything else, “In the Mood for Love” is a nonstop fashion show, and just about everyone looks gorgeous throughout.

The landlady who gets to meet both of the couples — taking one in as tenants while steering the other to an available room next door — also becomes an unofficial protocol arbiter. She lets the conversation with Mrs. Chan, played by Maggie Cheung, spread like a spider web, but when Tony Leung begins to show a bit of the same linguistic tact, she shuts him down as being “too polite.” This dynamic will continue throughout the film — where Mrs. Chan is treated tactfully while Leung’s Mr. Chow is presented more blunt truths.

Mrs. Chan and Mr. Chow are given a standard Hollywood “meet cute” scenario as they come together for the first time — they happen to move into their respective cramped quarters on the same day and some of their personal effects are mixed up. We learn that Mr. Chan likes manga, which Mr. Chow finds interesting (we later learn that he likes to write in that genre.) But no sparks fly in the opening scene.

Instead we just see the movie’s pattern emerge, first in routine and innocence — people crossing each other on stairwells, glances as they brush past one another. We do not see the faces of the spouses and never will throughout the film.

But it’s the style most of all that captures us. We are introduced to “Yumeji’s Theme,” the hauntingly beautiful violin instrumental that plays throughout the film during transition segments. This music comes from another film, called “Yumeji,” an openly-sexual Japanese movie from 1991. So, this movie borrows a bit of sensuality that it will keep tightly under wraps.

“In the Mood for Love” eventually gives us longing and desire, but it has to find betrayal and heartbreak first.