Wong Kar-Wai's visually seductive movie 2046 began screening in the United States from Aug. 5.

With only four theaters running this movie, the first weekend’s box office takings were US$113,000, ranking 36th in the country; the one-theater box-office volume was US$28,200, just US$700 less than art house movie Broken Flowers, which brought in an average of US$28,900 in each theater.

North American audience reaction seems to be generally positive, boding well for the movie’s next few weeks’ running time in the market. At rottentomatoes.com, a U.S. Web site for critics and moviegoers, 2046 got 41 red tomatoes (support) and four rotten ones (against).

The New York Times praised Wong for insisting on shooting art house movies, rather than commercial ones, and compared him with Taiwan's Hou Hsiao-hsien and France's Jean-Luc Godard.

Both Zhang Ziyi and Tony Leung were honored by American media for their performances. Variety said: "Zhang Ziyi proves she's a star of major range and luminosity ... while Hong Kong leading man Tony Leung carries the pic with the charm of a young Clark Gable."

However, negative criticism has also surfaced, with The Hollywood Reporter newspaper having commented on the movie’s narrative limitations, saying, "The stilted dialogue and a mostly stagnant story line gum up the works."

And although it conceded Wong's photography was typically dazzlingly, Slant magazine was not won over: "Like In the Mood for Love, 2046 is gorgeous through and through, intoxicating even, but not necessarily in a good way."

In recent years, Chinese-language movies have done well at the box-office in the United States. This year's successes included Kung Fu Hustle with US$41,800 in box office in April. Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon brought in US$41,400.

2046 first premiered at last year's Cannes Film Festival. The China screening generated box office revenue of 25 million yuan (US$3.08 million).

(Shenzhen Daily August 11, 2005)