Счастливы вместе (1997) Online

Just when you thought that you knew everything about Hong Kong cinema or about romantic adventures in film, director Kar Wai Wong steps forward and eliminates all boundaries. Transforming your typical picture of a straight couple and violently handing us the relationship of Yiu-fai and Po-wing using untraditional cinematography is only scratching the surface of this picture. If you found yourself shocked by the opening sequence or annoyed by the drastic image of the film, then you definitely are not a film junkie. This movie had everything a cinephile would desire like strong characters, a non-linear story, and the brazen truth about modern society's relationships. This was more than just a gay film, but instead a story about emotions and loves, coupled with all the turmoil that surrounds it. It is ironic that the title of the film is Happy Together, because it completely challenges the true themes. It is about love, but about the difficulties that surround a dying relationship. From the visual opening to the amazing use of several different cinematography techniques, Happy Together may not suit everyone, but to this film junkie it opened a new door in Hong Kong cinema.

This film would not have worked if it weren't for the apparent brilliance of director Kar Wai Wong. While I have been impressed with his other films like In the Mood for Love and his work on the BMW series, The Hire, this film literally blew me out of the water. To begin, the opening sequence. If this very sexual opening doesn't set the tone for the rest of the film, I don't know what will. I was shocked, disturbed, and on-edge the entire time. I didn't see the love between our two characters at all in the beginning, but that was because it was to show the destruction of their relationship. Then, Wong did several things that just impressed me and kept my attention focused on the film. First, he took these two vacationing men from Hong Kong and set them in a foreign city. So, not only was it uneasy to watch this relationship disintegrate in front of our eyes, but to be lost in a unfamiliar city only made it worse. Second, he focused the camera on only one of the characters (Yiu-fai) to enhance that sensation about Po-wing's indiscretions. Through Yiu-fai we felt the human emotions just boil through of having to see a love that only hurt. Finally, he continually changed the cinematography through different scenes. This was impressive because it only added more tension to our characters and themes. Two travelers lost in a foreign country, trying to patch a dying relationship, with a constantly changing cinematic style, was tough to watch … but that was the theme that Wong wanted to capture. This is not your typical romantic picture, but instead it showcases the truth about two men that perhaps were not the greatest fit. Even when he throws in the waterfall element, it only adds to the overall theme. The waterfall, to me, represented the falling relationship. Beauty on the outside, a violent tendency as the water falls … just like our relationship.

Wong successfully created this tension by hiring some of Hong Kong's best actors. They carried themselves with the greatest of comfort and control. I felt as if I knew these characters by the end of the film. I felt as if I had gone through a similar struggle as they did. These two men challenged the idea of "normal" relationships, yet kept their personas simple, human, and intense. You could not help but feel emotion for these two, even if you did not like the story. They kept the tones light when they needed to be, then brought you deep within the rabbit hole when the darkness erupted. The final scenes of this film are fascinating to watch, and I had to see them again. The downfall of Yiu-fai into a role similar to Po-wing was heartbreaking, yet stunning. Here we have two men who I thought were complete opposites from the beginning, yet somehow, to quote Wong, "Turns out that lonely people are all the same."

Finally, I cannot finish without saying that the cinematography was outstanding in this film. The use of black and white in the beginning and slowly bringing in the colors was breathtaking. This film was more than just actors working for a director, but instead a director creating art. Christopher Doyle bulls-eyed the tone of the film and brought forth an intense picture that only complimented Wong's work. It just impresses me to see a film, like Happy Together, where all the elements come together and work in unison. It is a rarity in today's Hollywood, but thankfully we have directors like Kar Wai Wong whom embrace it. From the beginning of the movie until the final scenes, Doyle challenges an brings together some of the most beautiful scenes in cinema, transforming the normal into the extraordinary.

Overall, this was a spectacular film. After I watched it the first time, I had to see it again, but didn't know if I could. Its emotional strength was so overwhelming that I had to stop myself. I couldn't watch these two brilliant actors tear my heart apart again. It was a sad film, it was an angry film, but most importantly it was a film about being lost in love. Those who may have enjoyed Lost in Translation, this would be a great film to match with it. While not structured the same, it does give us that feeling of being apart in a new world, struggling to get home or to discover one's self. Wong is one of the greatest directors in the world, and I cannot wait to open my soul to his work again. Brilliant film-making, determined and unmatched acting, coupled with the best cinematography this world has ever encountered! A must for everyone!

Grade: **** out of *****

"Happy Together" is a depressing film. Yet it's one which I keep coming back to when I feel down and heartbroken.

Lost souls, lonely, longing, and lovelorn, are staples in the Wong Kar-Wai universe. His best works uncannily portray the beauty and misery of being struck by love and its multiple variations and illusions. His fluid, script-free, improvisational style of work is now legendary and applies well to the unpredictable nature of this subject matter while giving his works a raw, open-ended quality. "Happy Together" is quite probably his rawest work to date and, as a result, one of the most difficult to watch (this honor goes to "Ashes of Time"). The rawness makes it seem organic. It feels as if it's an ever-evolving creature which hides and exposes its multiple facets with each different viewing.

Argentina sounds like a great romantic escape for most of us but for our couple, Po-wing (Leslie Cheung) and Yiu-fai (Tony Leung), it's a lonely, bleak, melancholic place on the edge of the world. Travelogue film this isn't. Buenos Aires may have initially held romantic promise for them. "Let's start over," Po-wing asks Yiu-fai yet again, and off they go to South America to work things out. Soon, however, the place becomes a physical representation of their relationship. It's claustrophobic and oppressive, something that could've been so beautiful yet one which they now need to escape from. Wong beautifully portrays spectacular Iguazu Falls with mythical significance throughout the film. Initially nothing more than amusing kitsch, it eventually progresses as the defining geographical manifestation of their amorous aspirations. It achieves such heavy, symbolic power, the last time we see it is one of the most memorable scenes in the film.

If the homosexual angle seems downplayed here, it is to parallel the film's treatment. It's so matter-of-fact it's irrelevant and even embarrassing to make an issue out of it. This is a couple who just happens to be gay. Indeed, there is nothing gay-specific about the film, the couple may well have been straight and it wouldn't make a difference at all.

"Happy Together" is such a vivid examination of a relationship, it's occasionally painful to watch. The emotional authenticity, however, makes it quite absorbing. Wong Kar-Wai often aims for the heart and, with the possible exception of "In the Mood for Love", he's never been closer to his target.

Aw-kommon's notes on "Happy Together" are typical of those who cannot approach a film without aligning it with definite paradigms and secure standards. In this case, the paradigm is "Midnight Cowboy" -- a film that belongs to a totally different genre, was written and shot according to "naturalistic" procedures of Hollywood commercial cinema and, most of all, deals with romance from a quite different perspective. In "Midnight Cowboy" redemption of homoeroticism comes through death, a strategy that was quite revealing of the morals that prevailed at the time the movie was produced. "Happy Together", on the other hand, deals with romance as if it could have been homo-, hetero- or whatever, and even though homoeroticism is such an essential element to the narrative, the protagonists'love affair is a pretext for the emergence of their decentered identities, their search for love and friendship and, most important, it ends on a note of hope of future encounters. All that in a poetic tone, one that demands a continuous esthetic reconstruction, hardly understood (or accepted) by those who are encapsulated in a world of conventional filmmaking.

In this Wong Kar Wai production, loneliness takes on the face of 3 Chinese travellers who, after alienating themselves from the society they came from, end up at the end of the world. Argentina, which is the antithesis of HK, may be the farthest place you can get from HK, but still they cannot entangle themselves from the emotional baggage they have been carrying. Loneliness is a state of mind which follows you no matter where you are, and ensnarls you when you are at your most vulnerable.

While the story may be more famous as a film about gay relationship, it is in fact, not so. The lead characters just happen to be gay, and loneliness, with all the jealousy and melancholy that comes with it, takes centrestage.

In "Happy Together" Director Wong Kar Wai tells us the story of a relationship that does not survive the alienation inside and outside.

The film is set in Argentina where two lovers are stranded because they don't have enough money to return to their native Hong Kong.

The film shows us that Fai and Po-wing are unable to find equality or balance in their relationship. It is a story about the way most relationships are defined by the balance of power.. and how this leads to despair. Fai reflects that their relationship was the happiest when Po-wing was ill and had to be cared for like a child. As Po Wing's health improves Fai draws away from him and refuses his attempts of closeness, illustrated by the constant battles over couch and bed. When Po-Wing is well enough to go out again by himself the balance of the power in relationship shifts. Po-wing slowly but surely slips away into the world of hustling. He never finds his way back to Fai who eventually saves enough money to go home.

Both are emotionally devastated by the loss of their lover. We only see them being happy together in a glimpse, as they dance a slow dance together in their room. It seems the happiness in their relationship that Fai refers to in connection with Po-Wing's illness, is an isolated kind of happiness that he himself enjoys without Po-wing's knowledge. If they are ever indeed Happy Together we see it only in facial expressions, in their tone of voice but these are expressions of love and tenderness that never seem to reach the surface that remain unspoken.

Wong Kar Wai's visual style is absolutely stunning. He conveys the alienation inside the relationship - and the alienation outside - (I am referring to the fact that they are in a different country) through colors and camera-movements. We are constantly looking at the protagonists from a corner high above or through the window of a seedy bar. Every single shot feels claustrophobic and it irritates the viewer. It makes the viewer long for closeness and clarity. It imitates the longing of the characters and their attempts - and failure - at connecting to each other. Their feelings, as does the eye of the lens, float above them in a silent, detached loneliness.

"Happy Together" is one of those films that I do not really enjoy watching. It is actually physically painful to watch because it hurts the eye as much as it hurts the soul. The film makes its style and subject matter into one flesh, a "happy" marriage of form and content.

9/10

Something of an obvious precursor to the subsequent masterpiece In the Mood for Love (2000); Happy Together (1997) is a tragic love story by way of recollection. If you're at all familiar with the work of director Wong Kar-Wai - from his breakthrough film Days of Being Wild (1991), to his more recent masterwork, the unsung 2046 (2004) - then you'll be accustomed to his personal approach to cinema; from that continually drifting sense of quiet melancholy and disconnected ennui - all captured by a roving camera that conspires to alienate characters from one another by intrusive shot composition and naturalist production design - and a beguiling approach to the concept of time continually abstracted in order to create drama from moments of fond reminisce. Once again, the feeling expressed in Happy Together is that of loneliness and despair, as characters drift spectre-like through desolate cities attempting to cling to moments and memories as if gasping for their final breath; and all the while distorted by a frequently hypnotic approach to music, structure, pace and cinematography.

If the film lacks the sophistication of the aforementioned In the Mood for Love, it is only because the process of refinement has replaced the edginess and earthiness of this film, with a studied, technical grandeur and ornate beauty that is really quite transcendent. Nonetheless, the style and tone of Happy Together fits the mood of the film perfectly; capturing the feckless uncertainly of the character's lives - both together and apart - and concurrently suggesting the idea of memory and repetition that plays an important role in the way the narrative ultimately plays out. The first viewing might very well be confusing, with scenes occurring that seem to simultaneously represent both the past and the present, and with information presented in a series of incredibly quick cuts, disconnected voice-over and a continually jarring cross-cutting back and forth between lurid colour and an oddly tinted monochrome, which seems to work on an emotional level, as opposed to any kind of narrative convention.

That said, the grittiness of the film suggests an uncompromising and starkly unconventional beauty in keeping with the film's central relationship; with the violent and volatile shifts in stock capturing the same unpredictable impulses and urges of the central characters as they fight, break-up, reconcile and drift apart against a rolling backdrop of exotic and atmospheric locations. The use of Buenos Aires as the central setting adds texture to the film, and the vibrant way in which the director captures the strange, mysterious and nocturnal atmosphere of the city is evocative to say the least. Here, the rhythm of the film becomes tuned to that of the Argentine tango that swirls through the bar where the characters rediscover one another; with the staccato rhythms of the movement underscored by the sad reflections of the accordion music and the stampeding percussion of feet against floors, combined with continual hints of tortured romanticism - touching without feeling, sensing without sensuality, etc - that are so central to these characters and the odd situation they find themselves in.

The location also ties in with the filmmaker's fondness for the work of author Manuel Puig; whose style of writing has some influence on the tone and languid energy of the film in question, with Wong and his crew - and in particular cinematographer Christopher Doyle - expressing certain unspoken facets of this relationship through framing, movement, colour and rhythm. The fact that the film focuses on a homosexual relationship is ultimately secondary. As is often the case with Wong Kar-Wai, the film is about that urge and desire to belong to something - or someone - and the pursuit of an unrequited love that is powerful enough to drive you to the end of the world. We see these themes repeated again and again, from the inter-linked meta-romance of Days of Being Wild, In the Mood for Love and 2046, to the brilliance of Chungking Express (1994). Through the jarring nature of the relationship between the reckless and subtly abusive Ho Po-Wing and the more sensitive and brooding Lai Yiu-fai, Wong is able to express a series of thoughts and ruminations of the notions of love in a way that is intelligent, but always easy to identify with, regardless of gender or sexuality.

Later in the film, the director expresses slightly more profound feelings through the friendship of Lai Yiu-fai and the young runaway Chang. Here, we see a mutual respect and unspoken love that goes beyond sex and sexuality; creating a pure statement on the notion of love and the desire to belong to someone or something, within a certain time or place. A love so great that the person would be willing to carry your own sadness to the end of the world, to lessen the burdens of life and open the door to a new beginning free of difficulties and strife. There are deeper themes expressed throughout - too many to go into in this review - nonetheless, the film is understated and brimming with emotion; in keeping with the director's more iconic or well-regarded films, such as the ones aforementioned, and continuing a number of important themes and motifs that are both thought-provoking and affecting. The film also benefits from the fine performances of the three lead actors, stunning locations, cinematography, great atmosphere, mood and spirit; and an overall approach to cinema that is poetic, to say the least.

I didn't think so the first time I saw HAPPY TOGETHER, but I really think this film is a masterpiece. Technically it's amazing - the hand-held camera-work is incredible, and the mindbending shifts from saturated colors to monochrome (which I first felt was a stylish stunt) really underscores the loneliness and alienation of the characters brilliantly - the overall effect by the films' end is devastating.

HAPPY TOGETHER was apparently also - at least partially - inspired by the Argentine novelist Manuel Puig, author of 'Kiss Of The Spider Woman' among many other novels, and Puig's fiction tackles similar issues in a similarly fractured style (filled with footnotes, digressions and sudden shifts in perspective), all to incredibly powerful emotional effect.

If HAPPY TOGETHER is something of an homage to Puig, it's a great one. On it's own it's also a devastating portrait of a disintegrating relationship.

Happy Together is a throbbing, raw, and profoundly nostalgic lament from two displaced traveling Chinamen yearning for emotional soundness, for their homeland, and for each other. Wong doesn't front us any of the flickering that can still be struck between lovers who fight all the time. There is no deep poetic interpretation of the story itself, but by leaving so much unsaid, writer-director Wong Kar-Wai doesn't make the misstep of suffocating his characters' relationship with trite soap dialogue. That is not to say, however, that the film even remotely knows the meaning of the phrase "less is more."

You don't watch this film as much as seize on to it. Letting it yank you every which way is a raucous yet intriguing excursion, with fertile visual stylizations that trail you long after seeing the film, all with the impact to communicate directly with the heart. The visuals make the film come alive, and make material the displacement, and thus the unhinging, that the main characters feel from their surroundings and each other. Rather than using dialogue, this highly stylized romance chiefly imparts its themes and moods through its images, and Wong fashions an interior audiovisual composition about the mood swings of a love affair. Wong's use of images for purely emotional photogenic value, feverish camera movements, jukebox soundtrack and his improvisation and experimentation with the actors have an effect reminiscent of Scorsese's Mean Streets. In Wong's emotional roller coaster of a film, the characters seem to have a formidable intuitive certainty that their relationship is star- crossed sooner or later, but they follow passionate impulses regardless, giving the film a dreamy texture that it can't shake as its lovers turn-step to and fro during their free-form Argentine spree.

Wong gradually layers the relationship, just like it would happen in real life, and the doubts and obscurities are constant. He extracts powerful performances from his lead actors. While Leslie Cheung gracefully fluctuates his moments between yearning, resentment, and anger, Tony Leung Chiu-Wai is the calm eye of the storm.

Leung acts from the inside. We intuit his feelings through his natural physical subtleties, chiefly through the sensitive eyes. Even purely physical scenes, like the fights he has with Leslie Cheung's character, don't happen suddenly. Leung winds up for these moments instinctively and then defensively underplays them. And when the tears come, they pour without affectation, making me wonder from what part of Leung's soul he quietly unearths these moments from as Wong rolls the camera.

Viewing this film was like watching the Tango! Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung were absolutely mesmerizing as lovers who exist in a state of conflict, constantly estranged from their homeland, their loved-ones and each other. The ending was heartrending (no surprise), but I found the interaction between the couple to be pure comedy. The situations that each character found himself in were anything but funny, however, the ups and downs in their relationship were so realistic that I couldn't help but laugh at how insane love can be.

Regardless of race, class, gender, culture, sexual orientation and even geography, this movie will serve as a love letter to anyone who has the misfortune of being truly, madly and deeply in love with the one person on earth who drives them nuts. Those of us fitting this description will find many confirmations (but no comfort) in Yiu-Fai and Po-Wing's story. I could totally relate to Yiu-Fai when he stated that Po-Wing's illness was actually the time when they were the happiest together. Moreover, the story paints a vivid portrait of long-term relationships as swaying perilously between states of codependence, complacency and claustrophobia.

If I had to decide on a letter grade, though, I would have to give the movie an "A-" instead of an "A" because I was hoping that Leslie Cheung would not be confined to the typical doomed drama-queen role. Ironically, the story explores individual, national and global identity when, throughout the cinema world, one is hard pressed to find performers who rival Tony Leung's depth and Leslie Cheung's range. Despite his hallmark androgyny, I personally believe that Cheung could play Rambo convincingly! The universal nature of the story was also threatened by its stereotypical depictions of gay life (violent relationships and promiscuity). I think the film's core message could have been conveyed just as effectively without the use of hackneyed scenarios. Fortunately, the amazing soundtrack and the breathtaking cinematography more than made up for any flaws.

Innovative, special and inspired. I runned into the cinema, having no idea of what kind of movie was expecting me. It was a big surprise. The story was really nothing that would interest me in anyway, but this is the proof, that beauty is on the form .

What an amazing film! Full of resources and passion. They say it wasn't all new, or maybe any of it, but it was elegant, and unusual.

I was touched, and amazed. For me it was the revelation of a genius. His following works confirmed this impression. Wong Kar Wai is a great artist.

Thank you very much!

"Happy Together " is essentially a study of a couple falling in and out of love. Their sex - they are a gay couple from Hong Kong - hardly matters: the film could just as well have been about a straight or lesbian couple. The fact that very near the beginning there is as explicit a scene of male anal intercourse as one is likely to encounter in mainstream commercial cinema is far from gratuitously sensational. As the film is meant to start on a passionate high, this is the most convincing way of doing it - so be it. The director has the integrity not to repeat this for the reason that the couple never quite feel the same about each other again - indeed there is a great deal of alienation. Both have arrived in Argentina in search of work. Although the jobs undertaken by one of the pair, Lai, are fairly menial, first as a doorman at a Tango club and then a kitchen worker, he seems more stable than his companion, Ho, who does little but hustle, gets beaten up fairly early on and spends much of his time in an incapacitated state. In the room they share there is a lampshade depicting the Izuazi Falls. The cascade almost becomes a symbol for the relationship they would ideally like to achieve. Early on they hire a car to look for it but lose their way. After their relationship has finally broken Lai finds it, but as he is alone, the landmark seems sadly lacking in excitement. There is a third main character, a straight guy from Taiwan, who works in the kitchen with Lai. With his amiable self-sufficiency he seems to have been introduced to provide a balance to the angst of the main pair, a device that works well as it reinforces our sympathy for them. "Happy Together" looks rough and crude. A hand held camera is used with frenetic nervousness. Sequences of monochrome alternate with scenes that are almost perversely over-coloured. I know it is fashionable to give some films a nightmarish look. Here I found it a distinct stumbling block to be got over for the sake of a work that says so much about loneliness, homesickness and the struggle of people simply to be "happy together".

The first and only instance of actual sex in Happy Together is at the beginning. While many will use black and white to depict a nostalgic longing for a memory, here the harsh physicality of their lovemaking actually becomes so damaging in retrospect. Their bodies are intertwined tightly on the ragged bed - the foolish idea that getting away together might mend their relationship finds them stuck in Argentina, although they have their own ways of earning enough to return to Hong Kong. And then slowly, after a violent row, the colour starts to leak back into the frame, and the inevitability of the vicious cycle beckons them once more.

Twice, the overhead shot of Buenos Aires shows the night-life in time lapse; a flurry of light and movement and time passing. But it seems to be almost the same thing over and over. And for Ho and Lai, this rings true; they cannot help be drawn into each other, they cannot help that a dance turns into a kiss turns into something else, they are struck by a curse to repeatedly run back to one another. And then they sabotage, and makeup; Lai turns furious and yells at Ho's suggestion that he cooks for him even though he is sick, and then we suddenly cut to him at the stove (happiest times of his life indeed). Ho vehemently defends himself against accusations of snooping, then we flashback to the act itself. And again, and again.

Doyle's cinematography adds so much to the film. Look at Chang's introduction, where the camera sways in time with his movements as he shuts his eyes and daydreams and everything in the background is blurred out in shallow focus. He colour codes strongly so that key objects leap out from the yellow tint that saturates the room they share; a red blanket ripe for lust, the lighthouse lamp with a blue glow, spinning ever so slightly in the background of their relationship, and when it finally ends, Lai is either enveloped in darkness or staring at the walls that don't seem to pop so much. And see how the editing subtly evokes a difference between the characters and Ho and Chang and how they interact with Lai; when he confronts him about the missing passport, we get a quick succession of cuts which accentuate and repeat each harsh, hurtful word and every facet of their lies. The same sort of sequence is used again when Lai and Chang say goodbye; the hug is repeated from three different perspectives, as if to fully bask in the moment of physical embrace, and then it cuts to an overhead shot that sort of just hovers nervously in the lull of the moment...and it's such a remarkable difference between the two confrontations. Chang is everything Ho is not: caring, softly spoken, honest, not abusive.

There is an almost perfection to the way that post-breakup Lai handles things. WKW was right; this is not a movie about gay characters, but simply characters that are constantly in mourning and celebration over a never-ending relationship. Something as passionate and lengthy as that does not simply leave you quickly; it sticks with you and every moment after. He begins to wander bathrooms seeking male companionship, until he spots his former lover...and never visits that area again. This rings so true. And there is the repeating motif of the Iguazu waterfalls; sequences comprised completely of footage of the cavernous cliffs and the water endlessly falling into an abyss, that becomes so heartbreakingly dreamlike and out of reach. Are we doomed to have a piece of our past in us for all eternity? For Lai, as he steals that photo of Ho, it seems so.

This is the best movie ever made, beautifully shot and so many memorable scenes. We could feel the character's pain and loneliness in the movie, being stuck in a foreign country in a shitty apartment with a shitty job.

What I liked most about the movie was that Wong didn't make a movie about two gay people, he made a movie about two lovers. Tony being the man in the relationship just wanted to see his lover in the apartment after a long day of work. Leslie being the "female" of the relationship wanted someone to take care of him, but yet also wanted adventure and hated being stuck in an apartment all day as a "housewife".

As for the cinematography, it is right up there with In the mood for love. Tony Leung, a big star in Hong Kong, willing to do the sex scene because he knows the brilliant of Wong Kar Wai. Would any of the Hollywood stars do the same? 10/10

Once again Wong Kar Wai has stepped outside the realm a traditional film making and produced a piece so emotionally powerful and visually stimulating that it ranks among his best work as well as one of the greatest films to come out of the Chinese "New wave" cinema. Themes of alienation, loneliness and searching for something bleed through Wong's films like ink on a white shirt, permanently changing our perception of what great film making truly is.

Centering around two homosexual, Chinese men, the film depicts modern day Argentina. Having the men as homosexuals alright draws a line between acceptance and alienation for homosexuals still struggle for acceptance today. But also having the film take place in Argentina separates these men even further to the point that they, each other, are all they have. Their relationship is really the heart of the story which goes completely opposite of the film's namesake. Not once are they happy together nor are they happy apart. The film acts as a sort of tug-a-war with these lovers constantly battling to win each other back or push each other way. Never once is one's "male" dominance long lasting, leaving these lovers continuing their love hate relationship. Wong has the power to use his sets as not only backdrops but characters themselves. Much of the film takes place in their small cramped room. The leaning walls constantly give off the feeling that their small little world is closing in about them. The room is not glorified nor is it pretty. It is dressed with gritty trash with realism so thick that it transports the viewer into the room as well. The characters look cramped in their environment even outside the room. And even outside the room into the streets of Argentina, there is never a sense of the outside world. Just the small world from work to home, nothing more. The camera is squeezed where ever it can fit and the scene is documented.

The non linear story perfectly captures the life of these two characters who are literally fish out of water. Wong's fixation on alienation and searching come through more in this film than any of his others. The powerful acting propels the story and the emotional content of their relationship gives it a heart. The film is not happy nor is it very entertaining beyond the characters. Nothing much is gained and nothing much is lost yet the aesthetic beauty of the cramped and ugly Argentina background leaves a lasting impression on the viewer. Wong's ability to handle such subject matter with grace and power to evoke such real emotions, demonstrates why he is one of the great filmmakers working today and will surely be remember as one of the great filmmakers of the industry.

This is a tie for my favorite WKW film--In the Mood for Love is the other one. Nothing needs to be added to anyone's critique or review of the movie per se. It is emotionally painful to watch, almost unbearably so. But, when that is coupled with WKW's script-less approach, it means that the film is probably not right for everyone.

But I'd just like to add that the DVD edition has an incredible 1-hour-long "making of" featurette. It also is filmed in WKW style and utterly floored me. Here, you can see other relationships WKW tested out on this freeform screenplay, including a straight relationship between Tony Leung and a female character that didn't make the cut, and also some interviews with one Chinese living in Argentina who decided to stay abroad there. It really is an insider view on how deep WKW digs looking for that "elusive something" that has become his hallmark. I guarantee you will never see a more revealing "making of" anywhere!

Ona personal note, an extended family member of mine died from AIDS while living abroad about one week before I saw this. So obviously, it does hold some personal associations for me. After finishing it, I couldn't watch it again for about 3 years afterwards due to the depth of some of the emotions it brings up. What WKW does say about alienation and relationships in this film rings completely true, probably more so than in any of his other films. On the other hand, because of the very fact that it is not a film "about" homosexuality, his frank, matter-of-fact approach to the relationship helped me to relate to certain aspects of my relative's life and death on very simple, human terms.

When it comes to the cinematic world of Wong Kar Wai I am still a novice. I watched his film Chungking Express for the first time almost three years ago and have watched it with various friends since then three or four times, but for his other films, In the Mood for Love, Days of Being Wild and even 2046 I have yet to watch them. However, after viewing Tony Leung Chiu Wai's excellent performance in Vietnamese director Tran Anh Hung's Cyclo, I wanted to see more of this actor's work. Also, of course, I was familiar with the actor Leslie Cheung and his suicide, but as for his acting I had only viewed Chen Kaige's Farewell My Concubine. So having coming across Happy Together at my local DVD shop, I figured that I would give it a chance, and, as I felt after watching the films of many other directors that I kept on the backburner, I had to ask myself, Why did I wait so long to watch this film? Happy Together tells the story of Lai Yiu Fai and Ho Po Wing's on again and off again relationship. Much more serious and steadier than his lover, Lai Yiu Fai loves Ho Po Wing dearly, and even though the other man cheats on him, Lai Yiu Fai always takes Ho Po Wing back when the latter says "Let's start over." Hoping to rekindle their relationship, Fai and Po Wing travel to Argentina, however, while looking for waterfall called Iguazu, the couple becomes lost and Po Wing breaks off their relationship. Being completely broke, both Yiu Fai and Po Wing stay in Buenos Aires with the former working at a tango bar as a doorman and the latter earning his way through his way through his rich beneficiaries. Knowing that Yiu Fai still has feelings for him, Po Wing often flaunts himself with his multitudes of lovers and even calls Yiu Fai a couple of times to engage in more intimate activities, however, Yiu Fai, with the aid of strong alcohol, tries to keep himself from becoming ensnared by Po Wing once again. Yet when Po Wing comes to Yiu Fai one day with his face and hands bloodied, Yiu Fai finds himself once again in Po Wing's grasp.

One of the things that I like the most about Happy Together is that while the lead couple is homosexual little is made of this. This is not a film that is trying one way or another to make an issue of gay relationships, all it is trying to do is display a relationship between two individuals and how it comes apart. Tony Leung does an extraordinary job of portraying someone who loves deeply and whose displays of affection are displayed quietly. Moments such as when Yiu Fai checks on Po Wing while he is sleeping are truly touching and the scene in which he "talks" into his friend Chang's tape recorder is nearly heartbreaking. Combine these elements with an awesome soundtrack and some truly gorgeous cinematography by Christopher Doyle make Happy Together a truly wonderful film.

Wong Kar-Wai has already established himself as one of the most talented filmmakers working in Hong Kong cinema, and, indeed, the world. In his latest film, Happy Together, he recounts the story of two gay lovers, played brilliantly by Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung. As usual, the storyline in the film is rather sparse, which does nothing to detract from the final product. The beauty of Happy Together lies in Wong Kar-Wai and cinematographer Christopher Doyle's unsurpassed ability to simulate a specific mood through film. In Happy Together, the filmmakers continue their trademark visual style, consisting heavily on strobe, slow-motion, wide-angle lenses, and jump-cuts. For the first time in Wong Kar-Wai's career, he mixes black and white with color film, creating a complex web of flashbacks. The color, especially, seems to almost jump out from the screen. The music, taken from tango album 'The Rough Dancer and the Cyclical Night', by Astor Piazzola, beautifully excentuates the lingering feelings for a lover gone. Happy Together marks another point in Wong Kar-Wai's maturity as a director. Each one of his films surpasses those previous to it.

Are you tired of coming out gay films? Films with a domineering mother (the cause of it all) unrequited love for class mates--endings with drugs and depression if not suicide?

Then watch Everlasting Love. It is what I have always wanted gay movies to be-- something uplifting without all the negative baggage. Yes this film combines fantasy (really good looking male actors--well 2 of them are) with camp (what is more campy than Tango dancing in Buenos Aires?). But so what!!! I am tired of films that have you relive every dead end humiliation of gay life. I want to forget those memories I don't want to endlessly relive them!

Next I want a homosexual James Bond.

Did I forget to mention...this film is a work of visual art detailed in many of the other comments.

This film is one of my favourite and it is the first Wong Kar Wai film I saw. It left an indelible impression on me by its strong and original cinematography, unbelievably humane characters, persuasive and brave acting and a moody soundtrack. Adding a beautiful Buenos Aires as backdrop, all those add up to a truly outstanding movie and to me it is WKW at his best (on par with "2046"). It is a film which truly touches the mind and soul and goes deep into what a relationship takes.

Not much comment on the plot because it is so realistic and resembles a well-captured life documentary of the two gay men venturing abroad. As it is now clear, WKW makes different films simply to manifest his same vision on love again and again: intense but sparse happiness enjoyed by lovers is inevitably accompanied by long term emotional pains and losses, and when the couple separates, the despair and memory haunt them forever. However, 'Happy Together' adds extra dimensions to that familiar theme: firstly, the relationship is homosexual so the day-to-day interaction between the characters is a bit fresher and secondly, the alienation felt by the two guys in Argentina and the desire by Yiu Fai to live a new, and better, life drives the movie forward. The optimism showed at the end of the movie is a rare but welcome breather from his heavier films like "In the Ashes of Time", "In the Mood for Love" and "2046", where the despair is total and insurmountable. Also, as the characters have an end in mind (returning to Hong Kong), the storyline processes slowly but surely so that it adds a bit more fluidity.

I am surprised how little credit has been given to Leslie Cheung's role as Po Wing. Tony Leung's performance as Yiu Fai is excellent but comparing to him, Leslie Cheung is simply better. He is the soul of the film and many scenes would lose its impact if it is done by a less charming and charismatic actor (with the scenes of Po Wing hassling Yiu Fai to cook in the middle of the night, the tango dance in the kitchen, and where Po Wing showing his vulnerability after being beaten by his client). Knowing he is homosexual in real life does not take away any of his achievement of playing Po Wing exactly like it should be. His performance here is arguably as well as he did in "Farewell My Concubine".

It makes me want to see the Iguaçu Fall.

Lai Yiu-fai and his lover Ho Po-wing decide to get away from Hong Kong and head to Argentina. Even as they make the trip their relationship is continuing to fall apart and it is not long before Yiu-fai is on his own and working to get money for his trip back home. But when a beaten up Po-wing turns up at his flat, Yiu-fai takes pity on him and lets him stay, even though it is clear that Po-wing wants to just pick up the relationship like nothing ever changed.

To date "In the Mood For Love" has been my favourite Kar Wai-Wong film because it featured his usual clever direction without taking away from the film, great acting and a story that had great emotional involvement. So I was looking forward to his newest film (2046) and also took the opportunity to look back at some of his earlier films; tonight it was the turn of this film. Opening with the relationship already in decline, it is hard to really get into the two main characters early on and, for this and other reasons, I found them to be a bit distant and, while I could understand what they (Yui-fai in particular) were feeling I couldn't really connect with them on any real level. The story is therefore interesting but not as impacting as it ever should be. The script doesn't help this too much and generally I felt it was all a bit lacking in the substance that I could see it was trying to have.

The direction is, as usual, a mixed bag. On one hand it is award winning and loaded with nice shots and touches that have earned him the reputation he has for being an interesting director. I'm not sure if it is me though, but I can't get as gushing as other reviewers seem to about his films mainly because I find that too often he gets in the way of the film rather than topping it off. Here is not the worst example of this failing but at times the film is more about the direction and framing of scenes than it is about the material – certainly large sections of the film are more interesting in regards Wai-Wong than the characters. Despite not knowing what he was committing himself to, Leung does a good job with all of his material and seems to have a real understanding of his character – almost covering for the fact that the film doesn't help us that much. The late Cheung is good but he is secondary to Leung and his character is difficult to really get into. Chang is good in a smaller role but for me the film belonged to Leung – an actor who is almost always worth watching.

Overall this film is a good example of Wai-Wong's strengths and his weaknesses. His direction is impressive and the film looks great throughout but at the same time it feels like this was the focus rather than the actual story and characters being really well developed. Worth seeing for what it does well but many viewers will feel a bit cold thanks to the lack of emotional involvement and strong character development.

Spoilers herein.

I have found a Wong film that I cannot recommend. I thought it wouldn't happen: I've seen `Fallen Angels,' `In the Mood for Love' and `Chunking Express.' These are works of a visionary mystic. The first two are especially brilliant. `Angels' moves faster than our mind can adjust to the world, shifting among narrators and narrative modes; `Mood' is at the other extreme, minimal, repetitive, moving deeply under our ability to follow a narrative thus provoking an altered state. Both take huge risks in opposite directions. Both are highly intellectual in how they refer to themselves and their making within the story.

`Happy' is placed in between the two in terms of risk, no barrage but no meditation. And along the way, no self-reference except the brief smell of sobs on a tape played at a lighthouse at the end of the world. Its a great image, but not integrated into the Jarmusch-like flow of drifting lives. There's still the visual poetry, but it isn't shaped to have power here, not like his other projects, not like his stuff that is reinventing our imagination. Please go to those other projects if you have not yet.

Ted's Evaluation -- 2 of 4: Has some interesting elements.

This movie should win an award for Most Ironically Titled Film.

The story of this extremely dysfunctional gay couple is a moderately interesting one; it's well told, despite major distractions (see next paragraph); the acting by all concerned is extraordinarily convincing, and if I were judging acting alone I'd vote this one a "ten." But I could only vote a "four" because of the horrendously off-putting visual component.

Why, oh why, do directors, even skilled directors like Mr. Wang Kar-Wai, insist on using all the gimmicky tricks available to them, and decking out their films garishly and awkwardly so that the viewer is distracted from everything but the flashy and quickly tiresome images on the screen? It was bad enough to employ alternation of black-and-white and color, but when we are finally rewarded with color (and for some reason, though I'm a black-and-white-film fan, I felt that this entire movie should have been in color--maybe only as some relief from the drabness of the relationship depicted), the color has to be altered, saturated, the images made grainy and/or overexposed, etc.?

I feel the technical aspect of this film constitutes a severe disservice to the work of two exceptionally fine actors--three, if you count the brief appearance of Chen Chang, who is perfect as the young, bored, but very sweet and good-hearted tourist whom the protagonist may or may not see more of later.

What a missed opportunity. It's a pity that one of the strengths of film--the enormous range of technique it lays at the disposal of creators--is also all too frequently a seductive trap.

This movie could just have easily been about any couple, entwined in a narcissistic relationship. Yiu Fai keeps thinking that lasting happiness with Po Wing might be just a little further on, if he can just hang in there; Po Wing is, as narcissists are, insecure, and oscillates between closeness and abandonment. There are many telling sequences along the way that show how Po Wing is untrustworthy, sometimes something of a hypochondriac, and almost always maddening. Yiu Fai may think he can eventually nurture the relationship along, but it's crushing to continually be rewarded with more rudeness. It's torture to watch, horrible to go through in real life, or to watch your friends go through it - unfortunately, it's all too real. Love and loneliness might take many forms, but each end up feeling as they always will.

Watching Happy Together is an emotional experience. If you've ever gotten your heart trampled on, look at the screen and you will find yourself staring at a mirror. This is your story. And the wonderful thing about this movie is, it's not just a good story. It's a visual wonderland, a super-stellar extravaganza of only two superstars (they're all you need)and, maybe by accident, a compassionate statement on homosexuality.

Problems, hurts, and feelings are universal and unconfined by sexual preferences and demography. If you've ever felt alone, I hope you watch this movie and find yourself in good company.

There are many Internet articles on Happy Together.

We all know that this movie talked about the life of a homosexual couple. Wong Kar Wai even made them a love scene to make it more vivid to the viewers. But that's it. What is really impressive about this film is that the director used the characters as real people. unlike any other movie that dealt with homosexual relationships (e.g. if these walls could talk, the priest) this movie placed the characters in a situation that still makes them human. They encountered the same problems, trials, joys and even petty fights that usually take place in normal couples. Wong Kar Wai opened the eyes of his viewers that characters are not necessarily limited to the context of their sexuality but most importantly their personality. Let the characters take their course in the story. Mabuhay ang Noypi!