One of the greatest - if not the greatest - Hong Kong-associated directors of all time is Wong Kar-wai. His arthouse classics frequently appear on “best of” lists, with many revered by movie buffs and film scholars alike. Some would say he is one of those rare talents that manages to simultaneously be “indie” and “mainstream” with collective approval - a testament to his artistic and creative brilliance. The Criterion Collection recently released a 7-disc Blu-ray set entitled World of Wong Kar Wai, a move that has certainly sent many cinephiles giddy with joy. He has been a best director at the Cannes Film Festival, a past president of the juries for the international film festivals in Cannes, Berlin, and Beijing, with numerous honors from all over the world ranging from the Stockholm International Film Festival’s Visionary Award to the Grand Lyon Film Festival’s Prix Lumière to the International Film Festival of India’s Lifetime Achievement Award.
While Wong’s movies were never “blockbusters,” and his forays into Hollywood have been quietly brushed under the rug, his oeuvre - especially his films produced between the 90s and early 00s - still stands shoulder-to-shoulder among modern cinema’s most influential auteurs. Wong’s films are known for their vivid visuals (a product of his collaboration with Australian cinematographer Christopher Doyle), nonlinear narratives, multilayered themes, and complex characters who display subtle evocations of love, longing, and loss.
One example is Happy Together, a 1997 romantic drama set (and shot) in Argentina that follows a gay Hong Kong Chinese couple’s turbulent romance. Ho Po-wing (Leslie Cheung) and Lai Yiu-fai (Tony Leung) are lovers who decide to go on a trip to Argentina to rekindle their tumultuous relationship. Initially, they decide to travel to Iguazu Falls, a series of waterfalls and rivers that make up the largest waterfall system in the world. On the way there, however, they get lost and they are forced to hitch-hike back to Buenos Aires. The road trip strains their relationship further and they break up. Stranded and without money to fly home, Fai works at a local tango bar as a doorman, making money by helping the bar serve and attract mainland Chinese tour groups. By contrast, Ho lives promiscuously, flitting from one rich lover to the next, seemingly living a party lifestyle. Ho frequently turns up at Fai’s bar with his latest beau but pretends not to recognise him.
Tired of being teased, Fai gets drunk and shows up to Ho’s flat to confront him. He laments ever knowing him and blames Ho for wasting their money and stranding them in Argentina. Ho responds by kissing Fai and then telling him to leave, which prompts Fai to anger and become violent. After some back and forth - with both Fai and Ho accusing each other of being prostitutes, albeit for different audiences - Fai trashes the room and tells Ho never to find him again, leaving Ho sobbing alone.
Some time later, Ho turns up again to the tango bar, this time to give Fai an expensive watch. Fai sells the watch but Ho appears again soon after, severely beaten, asking Fai to give the watch back. Shocked, Fai does so, but not before beating the man responsible which causes Fai to lose his job at the tango bar. The incident draws them back together however, with Ho asking Fai whether they could start over. Fai lets Ho stay in his small apartment and looks after him while he recuperates. They begin enjoying each other’s company again, cooking, eating, and dancing together in their little apartment.
After a while, Ho gets better and their relationship starts to deteriorate again. To make money, Fai takes a job at a Chinese restaurant where he befriends Chang, a Taiwanese man (Chang Chen). Bored at home, Ho often calls the restaurant to speak with Fai, but as the initial honeymoon phase dies down Fai becomes increasingly annoyed at being disturbed at work. Once, while Fai steps away from the call to address his boss, Chang picks up the phone only to say “Hi.” This incident causes Ho to become jealous, frequently confronting Fai about his new boyfriend. Fai does not confirm nor deny Ho’s suspicions (even though he and Chang are indeed simply friends), bringing up Ho’s promiscuous past as if to suggest Ho had no right to care. Ho starts leaving the apartment and returning late, dressed in the clothes he used to wear when seeing rich men. Fai responds by confiscating Ho’s passport, leading to a final argument which prompts Ho to leave for good.
Heartbroken, Fai continues working at the restaurant, eventually saving enough money for a flight back to Hong Kong. He and Chang - who had also saved enough money to move on - have a heartfelt goodbye, sharing feelings of loss and alienation. The day before Fai departs, he calls his family (unseen throughout the whole movie) attempting to reconcile, only to be rebuffed. After a moment of sadness, Fai reflects on life’s inevitable hardships, seemingly coming to terms with his own loneliness. He visits Iguazu Falls, alone, before leaving Argentina. Ho calls Fai’s landlord, who informs Ho that Fai had already left, but that his room is available for rent. Ho shows up to the empty apartment to find room keys on top of his passport, causing him to break down into tears after realising that Fai has now truly left him.
On the way to Hong Kong, Fai stops in Taipei. At a night market food stall, he sees multiple photos of Chang, discovering from the stall owners that Chang is their son. Fai steals a photo of Chang, commenting that even though they might never see each other again, at least he knows where to find him. The movie ends with Fai in Taipei’s dense cityscape, navigating its populous nightlife, finally “home” yet still alone, with the Turtles' 1967 song playing through the credits.
Happy Together is brilliant not simply because it is beautifully shot, exceptionally casted, or an emotional sledgehammer, but because it subverts conventional storytelling by reinventing what - and how - storytelling is on the screen. Within 10 minutes we are presented with a vivid, intense, almost painful sex scene between Ho and Fai. There is no buildup, no sexual climax, no “coming out of the closet” - only a gritty, unembellished, and deeply human portrayal of sex between two people. It is easy to overlook the subtle significance of this scene. Rather than using sexual tension to further the plot - romantic buildup or climactic catharsis, the standard template for Western romance films - Wong Kar-wai removes sex entirely from the centre stage. There is no “plot” to follow, no “climax” to predict, no “resolution” to anticipate. We are forced to watch the movie on its own terms in the absence of narrative tropes.
There are many possible thematic readings of the movie, and the movie’s creativity and subversiveness have been praised by critics across the board. Global Chinese culture, toxic relationships, plotlessness, and existential alienation are just several of the many themes excavated in the years since its release. Yet what makes Happy Together so fundamental to Hong Kong film is that it exudes a distinctly “Hong Kong” mediation of displacement, disassociation, and disillusionment that is deeply tied to Hong Kong’s history. As high-brow critics like Ackbar Abbas and Rey Chow have mused, Hong Kong’s cultural expressions are often - perhaps always - inextricably linked to its status as a perpetual colony.
Released in May 1997, two months before the July 1 Handover, Happy Together encapsulates Hong Kong identity in its totality; neither British nor Chinese, Western or Asian, and permanently in a state of self-denial. These qualities emerge as soon as the movie begins - the opening scene briefly flashes Ho and Fai’s British National Overseas (BNO) passports, a distinct document created specifically for Hong Kong residents after 1987. Yet the extent of their “Britishness” stops there. Without that scene, the average viewer wouldn’t even know that they were technically British subjects.
Hong Kong cultural identity as invisible, incomprehensible, and unknowable permeates throughout the movie. Ho and Fai are only ever authentically themselves in each other’s presence - unlike the other fleeting Chinese characters in the film, they dress in Western clothes, speak Cantonese (as opposed to Mandarin), are willing to travel a foreign land independently and individually (rather than in tour buses or in large Chinese groups), and appear perpetually lost. At the same time, they are able to adapt to their surroundings with ease - Fai in the tango bar, Ho with his rich foreign lovers, Fai again when working at the Chinese restaurant. Yet this adaptability is portrayed as a byproduct of their loneliness - a recurring motif - expressed in the ways Ho and Fai interact with the world around them.
The film’s backdrop exude a “muffled” or “muted” quality; they could be in Argentina or Chile or South Africa or Russia and it wouldn’t have made any difference. There are barely any characters besides Ho and Fai (with the Taiwanese Chang being a distant third, this fact itself a subject of much analysis) and their interactions with Argentinian culture are deliberately and intentionally overshadowed by their invisibility, loneliness, and alienation (perhaps the best scene that captures this feeling is a brief three-second shot of Fai asleep at the superclasico, dressed head-to-toe in both River Plate and Boca gear). Their multilayered complexity as Hong Kongers is lost to the average viewer, who views both characters in light of their Chineseness, queerness, or a combination of both. In this sense, us viewers are the unnamed characters in the film’s background, unaware of Ho and Fai’s existential depth. Without a deeper understanding of Hong Kong culture, history, and identity, we see them in the same way Fai’s landlord does, or Ho’s lovers, of Fai’s coworkers - as Chinese, gay, or gay Chinese, despite being much, much more.
Ultimately, Happy Together encapsulates the displacement, disassociation, and disillusionment that together define Hong Kong identity in the late 1990s. Be it Argentina or Taiwan, Fai is still alone, even if one is supposedly more “Chinese.” Like Hong Kong, Ho is permanently unstable and uncertain, choosing to drown himself in a constant state of meaningless hedonism. Fai, trying to find himself, comes to the conclusion that stability and contentment might be completely futile - but that’s okay, and recognising this futility may perhaps be the ticket to true freedom. In one scene, Hong Kong is shot entirely upside down - the only scene of Hong Kong in the entire film. For many Hong Kongers in 1997, the world definitely felt upside down.
Ho and Fai were sometimes happy together, other times not. As were Hong Kong and Great Britain. And so too will Hong Kong and China.