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‘1997’, or ‘2046’, to citizens of Hong Kong, are numbers heavily loaded with historical, political and cultural baggage. They signify a turn of an era, both the end and a beginning. With the end of the British colonialism and the handover to China, the promise of ‘the horses will go on running, the dancing will continue’— and the shadow of the 1989 June 4th Tiananmen Incident, ‘change’ has become a heavy issue. The dawn of a ‘post-colonial’ new era is imbued with anxiety instead of anticipation and celebration, and the promise of absolute ‘changelessness’ is deemed impossible. In light of Wong Kar Wai’s film 2046 (2004), this chapter discusses ways in which people attempt to displace their anxieties and yearn to escape from traumatic pasts—by conceiving a ‘utopian’ space without changes and uncertainties. It is often commented that Wong’s films evoke a heavy sense of nostalgia. The ‘fin de siècle’ sense of decadence of in the process of waiting is prevalent. However, I argue that this film does not dwell in impasse, as in Frederic Jameson’s de-historicized ‘postmodern nostalgia’; it self-reflexively critiques the effects of such ‘nostalgia’. In questioning ‘nostalgia’, Wong criticizes Hong Kong people for their post-1997 malaise and their attempt towards escapist endeavours, by delaying, displacing, borrowing and repeating. His film aptly portrays anxieties shared by local residents: the quest(ion) of cultural identity and the city’s future. In the face of pre-colonizers (the British) and a dominant ‘Motherland’, do Hongkongers look for a ‘way out’? Or, is there a way of which Hongkongers could forge a distinct local identity in the midst of all these tensions?