Review of Happy Together / 春光乍洩, directed by Wong Kar-wai

There are some directors that you always remember when you watch one of their movies for the first time. For many years as a high schooler, I had seen screenshots and quotes from Wong Kar-wai movies, but never had the chance to watch them.

I was in college, and it was my second semester when we watched Chungking Express in my honors Contemporary Chinese Cinema class. I was in complete and utter awe seeing this movie unfold on the screen in front of me, and a few weeks later we watched Happy Together, which I thought was just as enamoring.

Recently, I was thinking about Happy Together. I think it’s because I saw Farewell My Concubine at the Film Forum in New York City, when they had unveiled the new 4k restoration of the film. Leslie was such a brilliant actor, and his loss still hurts to this day—he was so young.

So I rewatched Happy Together with these thoughts in mind. Here’s my review!

A gay Hong Kong couple in Argentina finds themselves in a destructive and toxic dance throughout their relationship.

There isn’t a ton of plot in this movie, but the attention is all in the details. I say this with several of other Wong Kar-wai’s most famous movies from the nineties: there isn’t a lot of action going on in the movie itself, but there’s loaded subtext in his imagery and dialogue.

This film is about Ho Po-Wing and Lai Yiu-Fai. They’re two gay men from Hong Kong who are coming to visit Argentina for a bit, but their relationship already isn’t the best. They fight and make up a lot, yet can never seem to truly walk away from each other.

During this trip, they break up after they get lost on a trip to Iguazu Falls, some waterfalls that appear throughout the course of the movie. They have a massive fight on the side of the road, which leads them to this situation. But because they have no money really, they’re both stuck.

Yiu-Fai gets a job working at a tango bar, where he is the doorman. Po-Wing finds his way around romantically and sexually while Yiu-Fai does that, effectively pissing Fai off. They get into another argument where Yiu-Fai claims Po-Wing took all of his money and spent it, leaving him in this situation.

Po-Wing then steals from someone and gets beaten because of it, and Yiu-Fai nurses him back to health. He brings his former partner to his rented room, and they try to reconcile. However, knowing what they know, there’s never truly any way to go back to what they were.

Yiu-Fai beats the man who beat Po-Wing, which makes him lose his job at the tango bar. He gets a gig at a Chinese restaurant, where he meets his coworker, Chang, and the two hit it off. Chang is a bit of a wanderer, and goes from place to place.

Po-Wing wants his passport back, and Fai refuses. The two have a major argument, ending their relationship yet again. Chang leaves, going onto his next destination, and Fai decides it’s time for him to go home, as he’s earned enough money. He makes it to the Falls alone, thinking about how he was supposed to go with Po-Wing, then leaves.

Po-Wing heads back to the room sometime later, and realizes Fai left him behind. Fai has a layover in Taiwan, where he meets Chang’s family, who runs a stall at the night market. He steals a picture of Chang, and says he knows where to find him if he ever wants to see him again.

Overall Thoughts

Despite the death of the relationship appearing throughout the course of the film, Wong manages to make a poetic movie yet again. From the solo trip to the Falls or tangoing in a destitute room, there’s a lot to admire of the world he constructed within this movie.

I could see, though, how someone isn’t the biggest fan of this movie. Nothing really happens, and it can be a bit tough to get through if you’re not invested in immersing yourself into the world of the characters. You could easily get bored if you’re not into movies in this way.

But I’m glad to revisit this movie after all of these years. Wong reminds me of why I think movies are so beautiful as an art form, even when all the movie theaters are just playing superhero movies that might not have a ton of depth to them.

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