- Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together is a film whose title almost comes across as a sick joke. Its two main characters, Ho Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung) and Lai Yiu-Fai (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai) are almost never happy at all, let alone when they are together. One rare exception takes place at the film's very start during a steamy love scene between the two men, who are a perpetually on-again, off-again couple. In a sweet and naively romantic gesture, the two traveled from Hong Kong to Buenos Aires to see Iguazu Falls, familiar to them from Po-Wing's motion lamp. Long before they get anywhere near the falls, though, car trouble and the usual stresses of a road trip cause them to break up. Fast-forward a bit, and the two are stranded separately in Buenos Aires trying to scrape up enough money to survive and return home.
- Fai finds a thankless job advertising for a bizarre tango bar, where he takes group photos for tourists when he isn't taking pulls from his bottomless flask. Po-Wing turns to sex work, earning glares of disapproval from Fai. Eventually, Po-Wing gets beaten up for lending Fai an expensive-looking watch, and Fai reluctantly nurses him back to health. Oddly enough, Fai remembers this period as a high point in their relationship, despite the fact that Po-Wing is badly injured and that Fai insists that they sleep in separate beds. As their relationship improves and the tango lessons commence, Fai takes a job as a cook, where he meets a young man named Chang (Chen Chang).
- Forming a starkly upbeat contrast to the often despondent Fai, Chang is certainly the film's most enigmatic character. Whether or not he is actually gay is never completely established, but his behavior toward Fai suggests that he is curious, at the very least. As Fai's relationship with Po-Wing takes its predictable turn for the worse, Fai and Chang slowly become friends. Just when it seems as though their relationship might escalate to the next step, Chang announces that he is traveling to the southern tip of the continent to visit a lighthouse at the end of the world, where he hopes to deposit Fai's sadness. Fai leaves him a memento in the form of a sobbing voice recording just before taking a job rinsing away blood at a slaughterhouse...well, like I said, the film's title is something of a misnomer, don't you think?
- As is often the case in Wong's films, the characters in Happy Together remind me of tumbleweeds, randomly colliding and separating according to the winds of fate. As the characters and their relationships develop, the film's color palette gradually migrates from stark black-and-white to the sickly green of a shabby apartment to the rich colors of waterfalls and lighthouses, finally landing on the bright lights of a Taipei train station. At the same time, the film's plaintive tunes transform into the effervescent title song that everyone was expecting (albeit a cover version). The film is to be commended for its unflinching portrayal of gay relationships that never quite end up with anyone being happy together, although at least it leaves us with a hint of promise for Fai and Chang.
