Summary
Ping, fresh out of the hospital, runs into the office while Chow is working demanding that Chow lend him thirty dollars. Ping explains that he was given a tip on a horse race, told it was a "sure thing," but he lost all of the money he bet. With two dollars left to his name, he went to a brothel before the horse race, thinking sex would bring him luck. He's a regular of one of the women there, and she slept with him on credit, holding his ID as collateral. When his horse lost, he couldn't pay her back, so she's been waving his ID around the neighborhood looking for him, and he needs money to pay her and save face. Chow, though he disapproves of Ping's behavior, lends him twenty dollars, and afterwards they go to grab a bite to eat. While they eat, Ping tells Chow he saw Mrs. Chow walking down the street with a man. Chow downplays it, says they are probably just friends. Ping says he just thought he should know.
At Mr. Ho's office, where Su works as a secretary, Su is on the phone with Miss Yu. She's telling Miss Yu that Mr. Ho is not available to talk, that they are very busy at the office and he will call her later. Mr. Ho comes in and asks if Su got him a present to give his wife. It is her birthday, and he's been asked to hurry home so they can cut the cake. Su got Mrs. Ho a scarf and gives Mr. Ho his change; Ho tells her to use the change for bus fare as thanks for getting the gift. He invites Su to dine with him and his family, but Su tells him she already has plans to see a film. He tells her to take the morning off, since the next day will be a quiet one.
Su knocks on the Koos' door because she hears voices coming from the apartment. Mrs. Chow answers the door. Su asks if the Koos are home, and Mrs. Chow says they aren't. Su asks if she is alone and Mrs. Chow claims to be. Mrs. Chow claims to be home early because she was feeling ill. Su offers some medicines, but Mrs. Chow assures her that she'll just sleep it off. Su takes her leave, but her lip trembles after Mrs. Chow closes the door, because she knows she heard her husband's voice in the apartment. The camera follows Mrs. Chow into the apartment, where she disappears into the bedroom and says, offscreen, "It was your wife." The perspective shifts to Su, later, alone in the shower, weeping.
At the office, Su gives her boss, Mr. Ho, a present from his mistress. He is slightly scandalized, briefly thinking that she came to the office, but Su tells him she had it sent over. She also related that Miss Yu said she would dine alone since she expected he would be dining with his wife. Meanwhile, his wife would meet him at the restaurant and didn't need to be picked up. Su tells Mr. Ho to phone Miss Yu when he has a chance. Then, she goes and gets him a cup of coffee. She looks exhausted; having realized she is being cheated on, she finds it extra taxing to facilitate another man's affair. When she returns, she compliments Mr. Ho's tie, a gift from Miss Yu. Mr. Ho says he thinks it looks quite a lot like the one he was wearing before. Su tells him, "You notice things if you pay attention" (24:02). As Mr. Ho leaves, Su notes that he changed back into his original tie for dinner with his wife. She asks why, and he says the new one was "too showy."
Another interlude follows. The waltz motif plays as Chow and Su pass each other, Su on the way to the night market, Chow leaving. It starts to rain, driving Chow back into the covered alley. They run into each other as they both arrive back home. They ask about each other's spouses. Chow starts by saying he hasn't seen Chan around, and Su tells him he's been away on business. Chow says he always sees her at the noodle stall, and Su smiles and says she doesn't like cooking for herself. She then asks about Mrs. Chow. Chow says that her mother's been sick, so she's been staying with her. Su goes back inside, where she's lovingly scolded by Mrs. Suen and company for going to the noodle stall and getting caught in the rain instead of eating with them. Someone offscreen says, after Su leaves, "She dresses up like that to go out for noodles?" (27:10)
Chow calls the Suen apartment to invite Su out for a meal. They sit in a red booth at a diner. He asks her about one of her handbags, where she got it; he'd like to buy one for his wife. Su tells him he is very good to his wife. Chow laughs and assures her that his wife is actually quite fussy, and he just wants to make sure he gets her something elegant for her birthday. He asks Su if she could pick him up a handbag like hers to give to his wife. She tells him his wife probably wouldn't want the exact one, since they are neighbors. Chow agrees, saying, "A woman would mind." He asks if it comes in other colors. Su says she'd have to ask her husband, since he bought it for her on a business trip. She then asks Chow about his tie, because it is quite unique. He says his wife also got it abroad; like the handbag, it is not for sale in Hong Kong. Su says that her husband has one just like it. He told her it was a gift from his boss, so he wears it every day. Chow says he knows. He also knows that his wife has a handbag just like Su's. In this moment, they both confirm to each other that they know their spouses are carrying on an affair under their noses. They leave the restaurant together, floating hypotheses about how the affair began, as Aquellos Ojos Verdes plays, sung by Nat King Cole.
Su wonders who made the first move, and Chow suggests that since it's already happened, it doesn't really matter who made the first move. This upsets Su. She says, "Do you really know your wife?" (33:04) and storms off.
We cut to another night, presumably shortly after this revelation; Su and Chow are back in their booth at the restaurant. The same Nat King Cole song plays; it is about the pain of being left by a lover. Su and Chow are roleplaying each other spouses, taking instruction from one another on how to act. Su asks Chow to order for her because she doesn't know what his wife likes. They each eat meals that each other's spouse would eat. Chow dabs some spicy mustard on Su's plate, because his wife likes her food spicy. Su dips a piece of meat in the mustard and winces as she chews. She doesn't like the spice. Nonetheless, she continues to dip the meat in the mustard. The camera swipes back and around, and they are at the same booth, but in different clothes. They are roleplaying again. Su asks Chow why he called her at the office. He said he had nothing to do and wanted to hear the sound of her voice. She says he has her husband "down pat"—"He's a real sweet-talker" (35:29).
Analysis
At this point in the film, Su and Chow's spouses' affairs are known to them, but both are alone in their knowledge. It takes careful probing from Chow to finally confirm it once and for all. Both Chow and Su clearly want a simple, monogamous domestic existence. They both take pleasure in being another person's person. Unfortunately, their spouses are not as strongly held by this desire, and they stray. Ping, a friend and colleague of Chow, represents a strain of looser morals. Ping bursts into the office talking about sex and gambling and needing a loan from Chow just to save what shreds of his reputation remain salvageable as a prostitute angrily bandies his ID about the neighborhood, demanding to be paid after sleeping with him on credit. Earlier in the film, Ping expresses a desire for Su to Chow. He intentionally left his hat at her office so he had an excuse to go back and talk to her again. Chow brings up that she's married, as if her marital status were a steadfast obstacle to affairs—the irony of course being that his own wife is having an affair with Su's husband. The irony deepens when Ping tells Chow that if Mrs. Chow wasn't so attractive, she'd be worried that Su was their neighbor. The idea of having an affair doesn't occur to either Chow or Su until they face the fact that their spouses are sleeping together.
Su has the added misfortune of having to abet Mr. Ho, her boss, in his affair with Miss Yu. As Mr. Ho's secretary, Su relays messages between Mr. Ho and his wife and Mr. Ho and his mistress, Miss Yu, with equal frequency. Su is the primary conductor of communication for Mr. Ho's personal affairs, and in helping him manage his social calendar, she also helps him keep his affair concealed from his wife. On Mrs. Ho's birthday, Su relays Miss Yu's messages to Mr. Ho. He'll not be able to talk or meet. When Su tells Miss Yu that Mr. Ho will call her back later, she uses precisely the same language that she used earlier in the film to get Mrs. Ho off the phone when he was about to meet Miss Yu for dinner. The usage of the exact same excuse, that things are very busy at the office, emphasizes the notion that Mr. Ho, and cheaters in general, are living double lives, presenting facsimiles of themselves that are equally false to everyone they're deceiving.
Su confirms that her husband is having an affair with Mrs. Chow when she hears his voice coming from the Koos' apartment. She knocks on the door, and Mrs. Chow answers. She claims to be home alone and feeling ill, and Su knows that she's lying. Su doesn't confront her, though—one might recall Mrs. Suen's claim, "You're too polite"—and instead goes home and weeps in the shower. Mrs. Chow, upon reentering her bedroom, callously tells Chan, with cold casualness, "It was your wife."
Then, after she has confirmed the affair, Su has to give Mr. Ho his birthday gift sent over by Miss Yu, a tie, which he immediately changes into. He claims it looks very much like the tie he was wearing, but after Su says, "You notice things if you pay attention," he changes back into his old tie, claiming the new one is "too showy." Since Ho is about to meet his wife for dinner, the suggestion is that she too would notice the new tie and wonder where he got it, since no doubt Mr. Ho doesn't shop for his own ties. Her role as accomplice in Mr. Ho's unfaithfulness is even more painful after she's confirmed her own husband's affair, and Wong demonstrates Su's exhaustion in a quiet scene as she waits alone for the coffee to brew in the office, leaning against the wall, massaging her forehead.
As a musical motif, the waltz that plays in the interludes is an especially effective choice. Waltzes are highly measured dances in three-quarter time, and the choice reflects the orchestration and choreography of deceit required to carry on an affair, and, equally, to be aware of an affair and still act as if nothing is wrong. The waltz captures the figurative "dance" being done by the Chows and the Chans as they avoid confrontation and remain in the realm of politeness for which Mrs. Suen scolds them. The waltz plays as Chow and Su pass each other by the noodle stall. They both get caught in the rain, caught by surprise without shelter, and ascend the stairs to their respective apartments together, rain soaked. Mrs. Suen scolds Su for once again rejecting her invitation and getting caught in the rain; Suen's friend makes a suggestive remark about Su's outfit, unable to believe that Su would dress so nicely just to get a thermos of noodles. The irony of this statement is that Su is not the one stepping out on her marriage and acting in a way that warrants suspicion. She is, after all, the one being cheated on. The lack of scrutiny Chow faces contributes to a theme that develops as the movie goes on, which is that despite the fact that Su and Chow are in mirrored situations, Su's situation is still more socially challenging because she is a woman. Chow moves through the world with far less scrutiny as a man.
A turning point occurs when Chow asks Su to dine with him. Under the pretense of trying to get a gift for his wife's birthday, he asks about her handbag. Both Chow and Su know that Mrs. Chow has the same handbag. The fact that it is a bag only sold abroad confirms that Mr. Chan must have purchased it for Mrs. Chow. The reverse is true of Chow's tie—his wife bought it for him on a business trip, and now Mr. Chan has one just like it. This scene calls back to the moment in Mr. Ho's office, when Su says, "You notice things if you pay attention." This callback also reinforces the moral dichotomy of cheater/cheated-on; Chow and Su both "pay attention" to the small details of their shared lives with their spouses. Clearly, their spouses don't possess the foresight or attention to detail that would prevent them from exchanging such obvious gifts.
At this point, the movie finally veers into its novel, uncharted territory. Instead of confronting them, Su and Chow in their infinite politeness start roleplaying each other's spouses. At the restaurant, they order what each other's spouses would order. A particularly poignant moment is when Su continues to eat the spicy dish Chow's wife would order, despite the clear pain it causes her. The pain of eating the dish is parallel to the pain of confronting her husband's infidelity. Eating the food, roleplaying with Chow, these are diversions or at best refractions of the necessary confrontation required to gain some kind of closure or resolution. Chow and Su continue to meet and playact each other's spouses in a spirit of exploration and experimentation, ultimately delaying any real action.
