Making sense of it (spoilers) . . .

Having watched this perhaps a half dozen times, and thought about it, it seems possible to connect one thread with another . . .

When Chow is writing with the Faye Wong character, he mentions, as narrator, several things, one being that he would now and then make an excuse to stop by her workplace and offer her a ride home. In showing a scene of him doing that, she declines his offer.

All the while, Wong's character is in love with a Japanese man.

At another point, he says that period -- writing with the Faye Wong character -- was "the happiest summer of my life".

Subsequently, Chow imagines himself as a Japanese man, in the future, and in that sequence is in love with the android played by Faye Wong. And Chow, as the Japanese narrator, "concludes" that perhaps it wasn't that she didn't like him, but that instead she was in love with someone else.

Which seems to be something of a resolution -- if only attempted -- of Chow's dilemma about whether the woman in "In the Mood for Love" really loved him. Or was it not that she didn't like him, but perhaps was in love with another man . . .

Accidentally missed a point connecting the threads:

1. Faye Wong's character is in love with a Japanese man.

2. Chow doesn't say it, but his making excuses to pick her up at work means he is interested in more of a relationship with her. That she says <b>no</b> says she doesn't want more of a relationship with him -- that emphasizes that she is in love with another man (the Japanese man).

3. Chow does say that she and he writing together was "the happiest summer of my life". If that were true, then it supercedes his relationship with the woman in "In the Mood for Love". But he doesn't say that which appears obvious: that he fell in love with her.

4. He imagines himself as a Japanese man, in the future; and as the Japanese man, he's in love with the android that is Faye Wong . . .

5. As the Japanese man in love with the Faye Wong android he puzzles it out: "Perhaps it wasn't that her mechanism was worn out" (androids are "immortal," except for the wearing out of the mechanical); "perhaps it was that she was in love with another man". . .

6. Well, yes: While Chow and Faye Wong knew each other, and they were writing together, he fell in love with her -- but she was in love with a another man; the Japanese man . . .

(She does say she likes the "2046" story, but that the ending is too sad, and wonders if he can change it to make it happier. He says he'll try, but sits for many hours -- many, many hours -- without writing anything. He doesn't change it; can't change it: it's reality as he experiences it, and he can't see any happier way to experience it.)

Meanwhile, Zhang Ziyi's character is in love with him, but he's in love with someone else . . .