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taehyungsfatnose

taehyungsfatnose

Happy Together hong kong movie review
Completed
Happy Together
1 people found this review helpful
by taehyungsfatnose
Dec 17, 2023
Completed
Overall 6.0
Story 8.0
Acting/Cast 8.0
Music 5.0
Rewatch Value 6.0
This review may contain spoilers

Gay couple at the center of controversial drama.

Hong Kong-produced drama from 1997. Happy Together is about a Chinese gay couple who have sought love in Buenos Aires. The film is controversial for being Asian: The opening scene shows the two men intimately making love to each other. The plot revolves around Po-Wing and Yiu-Fai's relationship. They seek to find out whether they can live together with each other. Yiu-Fai is more determined and strong who often takes care of the other and wants to move on with the relationship while Po-Wing is the carefree and easy-going one, always ready for new adventures.

In order to get away from the city and find some peace and quiet for a while, they choose to go on a trip to the countryside over a weekend. It doesn't quite go as planned: Instead, they end up wrong and become spiritually further apart. Back in Buenos Aires, Yiu-Fai leaves his partner and takes a job as a doorman at a nightclub. However, he thinks about him and wants him back, until one night he sees him with other men.

This is a strong and well-made drama with convincing acting, which was also awarded for best director at the Cannes festival the year it was released. Buenos Aires nightlife and tango traditions are captured beautifully through the camera. It is a prime example of new film noir: Happy and decadent on the surface, heavy and sad in the depths and as the plot progresses. The feeling is also enhanced by the fact that the film is mostly filmed in black and white.

The closing scene is appropriately accompanied by the 60s band Turtles' smash hit Happy Together. Wong Kar-Wai, who is responsible for directing, is today considered one of Hong Kong's foremost directors.

Leslie Cheung, who plays the easy-going Po-Wing in the film, was one of Hong Kong's more popular and openly gay performers before he took his own life by jumping off a skyscraper.
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