Happy Together
Directed by: Wong Kar-Wai - 1 hour, 36 minutes – Hong Kong - 1997 – Color / B&W – Blu-ray - 1.85:1
Starring: Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung, Chang Chen
“Let’s start over.” Ho Po-Wing and Lai Yiu-Fai have been together for awhile, and break up often, and every time Ho Po-Wing eventually returns and says, “Let’s start over.” After their last breakup, they decide to start fresh by leaving Hong Kong to vacation in Argentina, where things can be different between them. The trip is a disaster, and they end up broke, with no return tickets home. Lai Yiu-Fai takes a job in a tango bar to earn money. Ho Po-Wing picks up men and brings them to the tango bar to flaunt them. When he is beaten up after a deal gone bad, he returns bloodied to Lai Yiu-Fai and says, “Let’s start over.” Lai Yiu-Fai nurses him back to health and their broken relationship begins a new cycle.
Wong Kar-Wai has always been closely associated with Hong Kong, and 1997 was the year of “the Handover”, the transfer of sovereignty from the United Kingdom to China. The anxiety and uncertainty before the change seemed to be an influence in Wong’s films up to that point, where characters were often drifting, unconnected to place, time, or the people around them. Wong was often asked how he would address the Handover directly in his films, and grew so tired of being asked that he decided to leave Hong Kong for his next project, and make an Argentine road movie. Like nearly all of Wong’s other films, the production ran into difficulties and the shoot ended up taking far longer than expected. The cast and crew grew more homesick for Hong Kong by the day, and Wong (ever the improviser) began to change the film to reflect that longing, so that Hong Kong is just as present in Argentina as in any of his other films. The end result is a beautiful portrayal of longing, displacement, pathological love, and the moments that make us want to start over.