Happy Together
by Wong Kar-Wai
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DVD details
Actor: Chang Chen, Chang Cheng, Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung Chiu-WaiDirector: Wong Kar-Wai
Brand: Kino Video
Cinematographer: Christopher Doyle
Editor: William Chang
Editor: Wong Ming-lam
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: Cantonese (Original Language); English (Subtitled)
Format: Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Special Edition, Subtitled, Widescreen
Picture Format: 1.85:1
Running Time: 97 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2004-10-19
Audience Rating: Unrated
Studio: Kino Video
DVD Reviews of Happy Together
DVD Review: Loneliness and Alienation
Summary: 5 Stars
"Happy Together"
Loneliness and Alienation
Amos Lassen
Two young Asians, Yiu-Fai and Po-Wing arrive in Argentina from Hong Kong and start their holiday. However, something happens and their relationship turns sour. Yiu-Fai decides that he should return home and starts working in a tango bar so that he can buy a plane ticket. Suddenly Po-Wing appears and he is bruised and beaten. Even though Yiu-Fai shows empathy, he cannot enter into a romantic relationship with his friend. Po-Wing, unlike his friend, is not ready to settle down. After changing jobs, Yiu-Fai meets a young guy from Taiwan, Chang and his life changes again while Po-Wing is shattered.
Kar Wai Wong directed this little gem of a film about the nature of loneliness. It is a non-linear film that shows the truth about modern relationships. Here is a story about emotion and love and it challenges the title it was given. It is about those difficulties that surround a relationship on the skids. Alienation both within and outside of the relationship is what dooms it. In the beginning we see that the two young men cannot find equality or balance together and this leads them to despair. When Po-Wing had been ill and had to be cared for, their relationship thrived but as his health improved, Fai drew away from him and refused any attempt at intimacy. Now that Wing was well enough to do for himself, the balance of power between them shifted, Po-Wing slowly slips away from the guy he loved and entered the world of street hustling.
Each of the men are devastated by the loss of love. We sense the alienation between them as well as the alienation they feel in society. I am not sure that this is necessarily a gay film--the lead characters just happen to be gay but this is a story that can apply to anyone--loneliness is universal as is the melancholia that comes with it.
The actors are wonderful in their roles and we feel what they feel--making this not an easy film to watch. The film is basically a look at a couple falling in and out of love--their sexual identification does not matter. They guys are lost souls who are lonely and longing and lovelorn. Their escape to Argentina proves to be their undoing but it would have happened anywhere. Argentina physically represents their relationship--claustrophobic and oppressive, something that might have been beautiful yet becomes a symbol of escape.
What really makes this film so absorbing is the emotional authenticity. The director aimed at the heart and he hit his target.
DVD Review: never happy, never together
Summary: 5 Stars
if there's ever been a better work of art - movie, novel, opera, video game - about what it's like to be lonely and in love and out of place all at the same time, i'd like to know about it. If there's ever been a film made in color where the cinematography does a better job of telling the story, i'd like to know about it. beautiful, sad, tawdry, exciting, and very very moving. It almost seems incidental, or obvious, or distracting, to add that it's the best gay film ever made. DVD Review: Bittersweet Love Story Applies to Everyone
Summary: 5 Stars
I am a new fan of director Wong Kar-Wai movies. Happy Together is one of my favorites. When I watched the movie for the first time, I did so with no prior knowledge of the film other than it was a love story between two men. If you're over 30, you have probably lived this story. You may have been Ho Po Wing (Leslie Cheung) or you may have been Lai Yiu Fai (Tony Leung), but you have undoubtedly been involved in a romance much like the one portrayed in this movie.
Happy Together has nothing to do with being gay. It has everything to do with love, loss, regret and emotional growth. I saw myself in both Po Wing's character and Yiu Fai's character. In many ways, I felt my life was being shown in this movie. I have loved men who hurt me and emotionally abused me, but I couldn't say no when asked to "start again." Conversely, I have callously mistreated some very nice guys just because it was so easy to do it. And, just like Po Wing, I cried with regret when I realized what I had thrown away.
You can read a lot of deep meaning into this movie, but ultimately it is a love story which is all too familiar to the majority of us. If it is hard to watch, it is because we see ourselves in the characters onscreen. It shouldn't be because the characters are two men. Love is love.
Leslie Cheung is both hateful and sympathetic. He is mesmermizing onscreen. Tony Leung is, for the most part, very convincing as Po Wing's long-suffering lover, although I did feel Leung was somewhat uncomfortable in some of his scenes. Still, it didn't detract from my overall enjoyment of the film. My favorite scene in the movie is a flashback of Po Wing and Yiu Fai dancing in the kitchen. It isn't erotic. They are simply holding each other and moving to the music. I felt it conveyed their love for each other more than any other moment in the movie.
Although this movie can be enjoyed on many levels, I choose to view it as a love story that each of us has experienced some time in our life. It is bittersweet realism.
DVD Review: Great movie, but it's cut
Summary: 4 Stars
For me personally "Happy Together" is one of the best asian and one of the best lovemovies ever made. Sure, if you don't like or hate gay people, this is not your movie....I am not homosexual, but the way Wong-Kar Wai shows the relationship between these two guys, is very intimate and i think, it has something for gay and not-gay people.
The sad thing is, there is over one minute missing in the US-DVD! I own the HK-DVD and there you can see a really cool black and white scene with the two fantastic tango-dancers and also a scene, where Tony Leung buys something to drink+eat...whatever. It may sound not so special, but i think it's always bad, when there's something cut. That's why i give this DVD "only" 4 stars. By the way, the picture and the sound quality are really good.
DVD Review: Hints of Treasures to Come
Summary: 4 Stars
Two Chinese lovers drift around Buenos Aires, attempting to come to grips with a relationship that is clearly on the skids in this interesting and frustrating film `Cheun gwong tsa sit' (Happy Together) by the very talented Kar Wai Wong. On vacation from Hong Kong, Yiu-Fai (Tony Leung ) and Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung) are presented in an obviously unhappy state, but we are not privy to the cause of their unhappiness. Yes, there is infidelity, there are outside attractions, and all of the `things' that could create this state, but we are left to look at this sad young couple as a metaphor for the struggles in emotions and loves that so often surface in a dying relationship, not only in the gay relationship we are seeing but in straight relationships as well. The universals hold true.
Kar Wai Wong loves the non-linear approach to story telling and in this early film the method of his direction feels a bit too disjointed, too uninvolved in the character development. Not that the actors do not render fine performances: both Leung and Cheung give brave portrayals of lost souls and we cannot help but care for both of them. And the remainder of the cast is on target (Chen Chang and Gregory Dayton).
What holds the little hints of greatness that were to come (this film dates back to 1997) is suggested in the lighting and camera work, both of which provide as major a role in the film as the actors and chaotic storyline. The unity of mood and story is solidly at one in this little film, showing us just how creative the writer director was to become. Grady Harp, August 06
Description of Happy Together
This chronicles the stormy affair of a gay couple living as expatriates in buenos aires. Studio: Kino International Release Date: 10/19/2004 Starring: Tony Leung Leslie Cheung Run time: 98 minutesGeneral DVDs
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