First time around with this brief (56 min) effort from Wong Kar-Wai and Christopher Doyle. It's once again 1960s in Hong Kong (a setting we got to know so well in their earlier work) and Gong Li finds herself in the lead as a working woman who is in demand until she isn't. Chang Chen (who apparently led in Edward Yang's A Brighter Summer Day (1991) which I have yet to get to) is her tailor-in-training. She encourages his belief in her with the titular means and yes, the dresses he makes for her are fabulous. Things are often shot in negative space, yielding such novelties as a bed making very mechanical noises (in contrast to earlier sexy scenes). There's a dash of The Remains of the Day (1989) ruefulness in how he never gets over his first, unrequited love.
Apparently this was originally the first of three movies released as Eros (2004). A. O. Scott expressed what I think is the common opinion that this was the only one that worked. Roger Ebert appreciated it but did not give a rating (?).
