Chun gwong cha sit (1997)

Director:

Kar Wai Wong

Writer:

Kar Wai Wong (writer)

Release Date:

29 April 1997 (Italy)

Genre:

Drama | Romance

Plot:

Yiu-Fai and Po-Wing arrive in Argentina from Hong Kong and take to the road for a holiday. Something is wrong and their relationship goes adrift...

Plot Keywords:

Tango | Argentina | Cigarette | Gay Asian | Waterfall

Awards:

6 wins & 12 nominations

Cast

Leslie Cheung	...	Ho Po-wing
Tony Leung Chiu Wai	...	Lai Yiu-fai
Chen Chang	...	Chang
rest of cast listed alphabetically:
Gregory Dayton	...	Lover
Shirley Kwan	...	(scenes cut)

Also Known As:

Happy Together (Hong Kong: English title) (USA)
Buenos Aires Affair (International: English title)
Chun guang zha xie (Hong Kong: Mandarin title)
Happy

Runtime:

96 min

Country:

Hong Kong

Language:

Mandarin | Cantonese | Spanish

Color:

Black and White | Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | Canada:G (Quebec) | Canada:PA (Manitoba) | Netherlands:12 | Iceland:12 | Italy:VM18 | New Zealand:R18 | France:U | Philippines:R-18 | Argentina:16 | Australia:M | Chile:18 | Finland:K-16 | Germany:12 | Hong Kong:III | Norway:15 | Portugal:M/16 | Singapore:(Banned) (original rating) | Singapore:R(A) (re-rating on appeal) | South Korea:(Banned) (original rating) | South Korea:18 (re-rating) (cut) | Spain:18 | UK:15

Filming Locations:

Buenos Aires, Federal District, Argentina

Company:

Block 2 Pictures

Trivia:

Tony Leung Chiu Wai agreed to do the film on the basis of a fake script and only learned of the requirement of doing a gay sex scene after arriving in Argentina for filming.

Goofs:

Continuity: Before Fai push starts the old car, the engine has already started while it is standing still.

Quotes:

Ho Po-wing: Lai Yiu-fai... we could start over.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in Adaptation. (2002)

Soundtrack:

Milonga for 3

Cinema of poetry

Aw-kommon's notes on "Happy Together" are typical of those who cannot approach a film without aligning it with definite paradigms and secure standards. In this case, the paradigm is "Midnight Cowboy" -- a film that belongs to a totally different genre, was written and shot according to "naturalistic" procedures of Hollywood commercial cinema and, most of all, deals with romance from a quite different perspective. In "Midnight Cowboy" redemption of homoeroticism comes through death, a strategy that was quite revealing of the morals that prevailed at the time the movie was produced. "Happy Together", on the other hand, deals with romance as if it could have been homo-, hetero- or whatever, and even though homoeroticism is such an essential element to the narrative, the protagonists'love affair is a pretext for the emergence of their decentered identities, their search for love and friendship and, most important, it ends on a note of hope of future encounters. All that in a poetic tone, one that demands a continuous esthetic reconstruction, hardly understood (or accepted) by those who are encapsulated in a world of conventional filmmaking.