The movie ends with Chow in Cambodia, he whispers something to an hole in the column of a temple, what does he say?
In a previous scene there's a reference to this ending sequence, Chow tells a story about to confide secrets to a tree in the woods or something like that, I can't remember the exact words, anyway I think Chow tells the column in Cambodia he had had sex with Mrs Chan.
Naw, I think a big theme in the movie was that they wanted to be together but they couldn't. I think he admits his desire to be with her, but I don't think they ever took the relationship to the level you are talking about. Then again, it is open to interpretation:)
shareIt's a cathartic exercise. He's just getting the whole affair off his chest and moving on.
shareThe child is not my son...
shareYou are partly right. He tells the whole story-"secret".
I was also puzzled about a few things but some reviews helped me.
There was a point in the movie, when they were together in a taxi after rehearsing their separation (which was very painfull) that she said "I do not want to go home tonight". This translates to: Let's spend the night together.
The son was his as you can understand but the stupid morality of that time did not allow them to be together, even in Singapore (that she visited him but did not meet him)
I hope that I was helpful
I sit and wonder sometimes why was all the 'secret'thing neccesary? I mean, if you're having this kind of a love failure, you may be wanting to actually speak to/confess to a friend or someone human, that can understand you - and I think this way you may be feeling better afterwards, than 'confessing' to a tree, keeping the secret in you - with only the symbolism that the tree has. I dunno, I just thought about it randomly, from a more psychological point of view, I guess... I think it would have been better for him to speak with another person about his problem, more helpful, and sometimes I don't get why all the 'secret to a tree' thing is used as a motive, insisted upon.
Cheating on your spouse, or even the slightest suspicion of it, is considered shameful. This is why Mrs. Chan's neighbors question her about spending the night out and why Mrs. Chan subsequently tells Mr. Chow that they shouldn't see each other so often. In addition, they're both being cheated on by their spouses and know how bad it feels, and Mrs. Chan appears to disapprove of her boss's affair. They want to keep their feelings for each other a secret, not just from others but from themselves. Chow whispering the secret into the hole is him getting it off his chest and trying to move on. If you really think he should have just told someone, you missed the whole point of the movie.
shareI'm pretty confident that he is supposed to be whispering the whole story. Everything that we see is what he whispers. Hence the emphasis on the walls of Angkor Wat framing the screen again and again. We also see the out-of-focus monk at the end, meant to represent the viewer, the keeper of his secret.
As for telling a friend instead, of course that's better when you have a friend who'll understand, but Chow only has his pald friend (Ping, is it?), whom he does try to tell, but Ping only responds, "If it were me, I'd just go get laid."
there's no place you can be that isn't where you're meant to be.
I love this interpretation.
shareAs I was watching it, I thought he just whispered that he loved Mrs. Chan and always would. She was married, and would stay married, so it would have to remain a secret forever. She's the only other person who ever knew.
I think the child was by her husband. Despite his infidelity and absence, she still loved him and was completely committed to him, hence her inability to consummate her relationship with Mr. Chow, though she had strong feelings for him too.
You came to that conclusion because the director edited out the scenes when they went to the hotel together to have sex, and they did have sex, until the director decided it was more poignant to take those scenes out and leave it to the imagination of the viewer as to what happened.
I think the boy is the product of that brief love affair, until Maggie's character goes back to her husband.
If they never had relations why would Tony's character fly all the way to that temple to do his "confession". He WOULD have just gone somewhere and confessed to a tree. But no, it had to be a Buddhist temple because he was so profoundly affected by the loss of this woman that he had to make his confession, and his goodbyes, in a holy place.
Update: since watching more of the deleted scenes on the new Blu-ray I see that Tony's character runs into Maggie's character at the holy place by chance several years later and they have a short conversation and part. So it was after that encounter that he goes and confesses his feelings into the temple's wall.
"I did not have sex with that woman."
I don't love her.. She kicked me in the face!!