1991-2000 Arthouse Drama Hong Kong Kar Wai Wong

Kar Wai Wong – Chun gwong cha sit AKA Happy Together (1997)

adminDecember 26, 2014

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Plot Synopsis

Quote:
Winner of the Best Director prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, Wong Kar-Wai’s Happy Together is a stunning display of filmmaking style and a touching story of love on the brink of dissolution. Hong Kong cinema superstars Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung play a pair of lovers living out the waning days of their relationship as expatriates in Buenos Aires. Lusty tango bars, the salsa music of the La Boca sidewalks and a hypnotic visit to the nearby Iguazu Falls give further dimension to the tensions growing between the two lovers.

Awards
17th Annual Hong Kong Film Awards
• Winner – Best Actor (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai)
• Nomination – Best Picture
• Nomination – Best Director (Wong Kar-Wai)
• Nomination – Best Actor (Leslie Cheung Kwok-Wing)
• Nomination – Best Supporting Actor (Chang Chen)
• Nomination – Best Cinematography (Christopher Doyle)
• Nomination – Best Editing (William Cheung Suk-Ping, Wong Ming-Lam)
• Nomination – Best Art Direction (William Cheung Suk-Ping)
• Nomination – Best Costume Design (William Cheung Suk-Ping)
Golden Horse Awards
• Winner – Best Cinematography (Christopher Doyle)
Cannes Film Festival
• Winner – Best Director (Wong Kar-Wai)

Review
“allmovie” wrote:
by Jonathan Crow

Wong Kar-wai at his most lyrical and mannered, Happy Together is a voluptuously photographed meditation on love and loneliness. Employing the same off-the-cuff direction and dazzling visual style of his landmark Chungking Express (thanks to ace cinematographer Christopher Doyle), Wong gives Happy Together a similarly loose structure, though it is a darker, more melancholy film. Like characters in a Samuel Beckett play, the Hong Kongese gay couple stranded far from their native land and at the end of their rope recognizes the destructive, ultimately doomed nature of their relationship, but they cannot quite bring themselves to break their bonds. Happy Together gained notoriety for its frank portrayal of homosexuality, resulting in its getting banned in Singapore, among other places. Though this long taboo subject was slowly being broached by such art house directors as Tsai Ming-liang and Stanley Kwan, few films dealt with Chinese male sexuality as directly (and as graphically) as Wong did here. Both male leads, Leslie Cheung and the sad-eyed Tony Leung Chiu Wai, give brilliant, fearless performances. Happy Together is an utterly romantic, deeply moving film that continues to haunt the viewer long after the credits have rolled.