He Qiwu, who has been recently broken up with, desperately holds on to the hope that this separation is a joke, as it occurs in the month of April. Believing that his ex will get back with him by May 1, he commemorates this desire by buying canned pineapples that expire on that date. As he inches towards this deadline and finds it difficult to find pineapple cans with this specific date of expiration, He Qiwu spirals out of control due to his inability to hold on to the person he loves. While she has moved on, declaring the death of their relationship, He Qiwu is haunted by a hope that leads him to believe that he can preserve this bond forever.
“The password is: Love you for 10,000 years,” he says, adamant to hold on to the notion that love perseveres beyond death and stands the test of time. As He Qiwu wanders the neon-drenched streets of Hong-kong, the absence of his lover looms heavy — for He Qiwu, she is present everywhere he goes. Craving connection and physical proximity, Qiwu stumbles into the ethereal, dreamlike Bottoms Up Club, where he is immediately fascinated by a nameless woman in a blonde wig (Brigitte Lin).
The latter is a recurring trope in Wong Kar-wai’s films, often meant to symbolize the extremes of emotional maturity — while the woman in a blonde wig is painfully childlike in his uber-stylistic “Fallen Angels,” here, she’s a dangerous part of the criminal underworld, mature and well-versed in the extremities of a harsh world. He Qiwu’s boyish simplicity and lovelorn nature are at loggerheads with her guarded, effortless charm, and their supposed meet-cute feels like the collision of disparate, alien worlds.
When these lonely characters share a room, nothing happens. However, there’s something comforting about being alone together.