I've always been tentative about watching this. I don't want it to potentially "ruin" the vision of the film I have in my head.

Nah, it's not that bad. And sorry for the potential spoilers by the way. The Faye/Tony part is just some extra gloss, and the story goes in the same direction. The Takeshi/Brigitte one is fascinatingly different. Really surprised WKW found the time to shoot as much of that 'story that never was' before changing his mind. I thought it was his 5-year gestation period films where he had all the changes of heart, but evidently it's exactly the same even when he is doing a film in two months.

On the Criterion releases, has anyone found that the scene with 663 and the air hostess is missing the recorded air safety audio which Valerie Chow is miming to? There only seems to be the What a difference a day makes music score.