Happy Together (春光乍泄 Chunguang zhaxie)

Director: Wong Kar-Wai

Screenplay: Wong Kar-Wai

Cinematographer: Christopher Doyle

Producer: Li Kit-Ming, Shozo Ichiyama

Art Director: William Chang Suk-ping

Music: Danny Chung

Cast: Tony Leung Chiu-Wai, Leslie Cheung, Chang Chen

Production company: Jet Tone Production, 1997

Description: DVD (released by Image Entertainment in 1999); color and b/w; widescreen; sound; dialogue in Cantonese, Mandarin, Spanish; 98 minutes. Winner of the Best Director prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival and nominated for Best Foreign Film for 1997 Independent Spirit Award.

Synopsis:

Two gay ex-pat Hong Kongers Lai Yiu-Fai (Tony Leung) and Ho Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung) have been in a troubled relationship. They set off for Argentina to start over. Something is wrong and their relationship goes adrift. A disillusioned Yiu-Fai starts working at a tango bar to save up for his trip home. When a beaten and bruised Po-Wing reappears, Yiu-Fai is empathetic but is unable to enter a more intimate relationship. After all, Po-Wing is not ready to settle down. Yiu-Fai now works in a Chinese restaurant and meets the youthful Chang from Taiwan. Yiu-Fai's life takes on a new spin, while Po-Wing's life shatters continually in contrast...

About the director:

Wong Kar-Wai/Wang Jiawei (1958-): Born in Shanghai in 1958, Wong studied graphic design at Hong Kong Polytechnic. Fostering an interest in photography, in particular the work of Robert Frank, Henri Cartier-Bresson, and Richard Avedon, Wong enrolled in a TV drama training program sponsored by Hong Kong Television Broadcasts Ltd shortly after his graduation in 1980. After being recognized for his initial work as a production assistant on a number of serials, he quickly progressed to scriptwriting, most notably for the popular soap opera Don't Look Now. After exiting HKTVB's ranks in 1982, Wong became a noted screenwriter, scripting close to a dozen films over the course of the following five years. While working on Patrick Tam's 1986 feature The Final Victory, Wong conceived his directorial debut, the gangster picture As Tears Go By; released two years later, the film was a sensation on the festival circuit, winning raves for its gritty portrayal of the mean streets of Hong Kong. 1991's Days of Being Wild cemented his reputation as a talent to watch, garnering a number of international awards.

In 1992, Wong mounted Ashes of Time, an ambitious martial arts epic filmed with an all-star cast. During a break in the picture's lengthy editing process, Wong began working on another project dubbed Chungking Express, writing the screenplay in a Holiday Inn coffee shop by day and shooting each night wherever there was enough light. Debuting in 1994, the quirky romantic thriller emerged as the director's international breakthrough when it was selected by rabid fan Quentin Tarantino as the first product of his Rolling Thunder distribution company, becoming the first of Wong's features to receive proper American release. After resurfacing in 1995 with Fallen Angels, two years later Wong premiered Happy Together at the Cannes Film Festival, going home with the jury's Best Director award. Wong followed its success with the well-regarded In the Mood for Love in 2000. (Jason Ankeny, All Movie Guide)

Click here for a complete filmography of Wong Kar-Wai at IMDB.COM.

Click here to access a fans site of Wong Kar-Wai for more information about the director.

About the cinematographer:

Christopher Doyle: A hard-drinking Australian seems an unlikely figure to be one of the most important and influential cinematographers in Asian cinema, but that is exactly what Christopher Doyle is. His richly atmospheric, improvisational style has worked its way into the lexicon of both music videos and mainstream Hollywood fare. Moreover, his photo-collage artwork and his bizarre, often drunken public antics have made him a sort of cult celebrity in much of Asia.

Born in 1952 in Sydney, Doyle fled the banality of the suburbs to spend much of his early life on the road. At various points in his life he was a well digger in India, a Norwegian merchant marine, a cow herder on an Israeli kibbutz, and a doctor of Chinese medicine in Thailand. In the late '70s, Doyle was rechristened Du Kefeng by his professor at the University of Hong Kong, and his life has not been the same since. Soon afterward, he moved to Taiwan and fell in with the Taipei art crowd, including such future members of the cultural elite as Hou Hsiao Hsien and Stan Lai. In 1978, he was one of the founding members of the Lanling Theatre Workshop, the first modern theater company in Taiwan; he also created a landmark television series, Travelling Images. Yet Doyle's first breakthrough occurred in 1981, when Edward Yang asked him to shoot his feature debut That Day on the Beach over the angry protests of the studio's 23 salaried cameramen. Fearful that Taiwan's relatively modest film industry might stunt his career, he again hit the road and got a gig shooting Claire Devers' Noir et Blanc (1986) in France, only to discover that his heart still belonged to Asia. That same year, he returned to Hong Kong and shot Shu Kei's second feature, Soul, a pastiche of John Cassavete's Gloria (1980) starring noted Taiwanese directors Hou Hsiao-Hsien and Ke Yizhong. Though the reviews for the film itself were mixed, people noticed Doyle's unique camera work and he soon found regular work in the Hong Kong film industry.

Doyle's true artistic and commercial breakthrough occurred with his first collaboration with auteur Wong Kar-Wai in Days of Being Wild (1991). Doyle's loose, ambient style seemed to match perfectly with Wong's melancholy, largely improvised script; the two quickly formed a lasting professional relationship that would prove to be extremely beneficial to both of them. Wong films such as Ashes of Time soon became synonymous with Doyle's ethereal look, while Wong's loose and woolly directorial approach allowed Doyle to experiment and perfect his trademark style. Though he worked with such noted Hong Kong directors as Sylvia Chang in Mary From Beijing (1992) and Stanley Kwan in his Red Rose White Rose (1994), he gained international attention with his groundbreaking cinematography in Wong Kar-Wai's Chungking Express (1994). Featuring a lush, saturated color palette and dazzling camera work, Doyle's atmospheric look made the film crackle with a rare vitality. After shooting Chungking Express' quasi-sequel Fallen Angel, Doyle adopted a more restrained look for fifth-generation filmmaker Chen Kaige in Temptress Moon (1996). After teaming up with Wong Kar-Wai again for Happy Together (1997), featuring sumptuous black and white cinematography that seems to swoon with melancholy, Doyle began to get gigs on the other side of the Pacific. His cinematography was one of the few bright spots in Gus Van Sant's Psycho (1998), and he also shot Barry Levinson's return to Baltimore, Liberty Heights (1999). During that same time, he made his directing debut with Away With Words (1999). Co-scripted by film critic Tony Rayns and starring Japanese indie star Tadanobu Asano, the film received divergent reviews when it was screened at Cannes. Some attacked it for being self-indulgent while others hailed it as extraordinary. (Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide)

About the stars:

Tony Leung Chiu-Wai/Liang Chaowei (1962-), born in Hong Kong and grew up in a single-parent family. After passing the training courses at the TVB in 1982, he began his screen career by hosting a children's program at the TVB, then established his stardom by comic style performance in several popular television series. After he became famous, he appreared in many popular films, most notably in John Woo's Bullet in the Head (1990) and Hard-Boiled (1992). His versatile performing talents were better demonstrated in a series of aeteur films made by Stanley Kwan, Hou Hsiou-Hsien, Wong Kar-Wai, Tran An Hung, and Zhang Yimou in films like Love Unto Waste (Stanley Kwan, 1986), City of Sadness (Hou Hsiou-Hsien, 1989), Chungking Express (Wong Kar-Wai, 1994), Ashes of Time (Wong Kar-Wai, 1994), Happy Together (Wong Kar-Wai, 1997), Cyclo (Tran An Hung, 1995), In the Mood for Love (Wong Kar-Wai, 2000), and Hero (Zhang Yimou, 2002), etc. He had won many awards, including the prestigious Best Actor Award at the Cannes Film Festival in 2000 for his performance in Wong's In the Mood for Love. Tony Leung is arguably the most sought film actor in East Asia. In addition to being an outstanding acctor, Leung is also a singer.

Leslie Cheung/Zhang Guorong (1956-2003)

Heartthrob, pop star, and celebrated Hong Kong actor, Leslie Cheung was one of Asia's most popular performers and intriguing personalities. Bearing an odd sensuality that both fueled the films he stared in (particularly Rouge, Viva Erotica, Days of Being Wild, and Happy Together) and the Hong Kong tabloids, Cheung was well-known for both the breadth of his work and his offscreen life. Although featured to great effect in several of John Woo's butch action outings, Cheung was notable for being one of the few Asian stars to play openly gay characters, a choice that gained particular resonance when he came out after playing one of his most famous gay roles in Wong Kar-Wai's Happy Together.

Born in Hong Kong on September 12, 1956, Cheung was the youngest of ten children. Influenced early on by both the film world, as his father was actor William Holden's tailor, and his parents' divorce, Cheung went on to study at England's Leeds University. After returning to Hong Kong, he jump-started his career by winning second prize in the 1976 ATV Asian Music Contest. His status as a pop singer led the way to work on television, film, and the stage. In 1981, Cheung became a bona fide star with the success of his album The Wind Blows On, which established him as Asia's most popular singer.

It was not until 1986 that Cheung's film career really gained momentum, thanks to his casting as a rookie cop opposite Chow Yun-Fat in John Woo's popular gangster film A Better Tomorrow. The film's success enabled Cheung to branch out in his film work, and, in 1988, the same year he starred in the sequel to A Better Tomorrow, he played the opium-smoking playboy lead in Stanley Kwan's Rouge, a romantic ghost story that oscillates between the Hong Kong of the 1930s and that of 1987. Rouge was one of the most widely acclaimed films to come out of Hong Kong during the 1980s and helped to establish Cheung as a romantic leading man as well as an action star.

The actor continued to work in a variety of films with some of the industry's most respected directors throughout the 1990s. In 1990, he starred in Woo's action film Once a Thief, again alongside fellow action star Chow Yun-Fat. Later, he got the chance to expand his acting palette in Wong Kar-Wai's Days of Being Wild (1991) by playing Yuddy, a thoroughly despicable heel who uses and abuses most of the women in his life. In 1993, Cheung starred in another action spectacular as Zhuo Yi-Hang, the sensitive swordsman and star-crossed romantic lead in The Bride With White Hair. That same year, he earned international acclaim and recognition for his performance as an opera star specializing in female roles in Chen Kaige's landmark historical drama Farewell, My Concubine. Cheung lent his character's complicated gender identity an unusual pathos and sensitivity, making the development of his on-stage love to off-stage longing all the more affecting. Three years later, he again worked with Chen, as a dissolute opium addict in Temptress Moon.

In 1994, he paired up with Wong Kar-Wai again as the ambivalent swordslinger hired to kill and protect the same person in the existential action epic Ashes of Time. In 1997, again with Wong, Cheung starred in perhaps the most daring role of his career as the bitchy Ho Po-wing, one of a pair of gay Chinese lovers stranded in Buenos Aires in Happy Together. The film's explicit sex scenes made Happy Together one of the most controversial movies of the year and one of the most acclaimed. Cheung subsequently starred as a sleazy softcore film producer in Viva Erotica.

Continuing to appear in numerous films through the millennial crossover, Cheung continued to gain accolades for his diverse and affecting roles. From his touching performance as a stockbroker who finds new meaning in life upon adopting a young orphan in The Kid (1999), to a haunting and eerily prophetic final role in the thriller Inner Senses (2002), his unique persona continued to earn the respect of longtime fans and reach out to those still unfamilar with Cheung's remarkable charm and captivating screen presence.

When Cheung's death from an apparent suicide was announced in April 1, 2003, the international film community suffered a devastating blow and legions of fans had a difficult time grasping how an actor of such talent could end his life with one fateful leap while still in the prime of his career. Following the news of Cheung's untimely death, fans began mourning the loss of the cinematic icon while simultaniously taking note of the tragic irony of his own fate in parallel to that of his troubled character in Inner Senses. (by Jonathan Crow, All Movie Guide, available at Yahoo! Movies.)

Questions to ponder: These are a few questions suggested for you to think about while reading the assigned articles and watching the film. Please jot down ideas and notes on details or scenes you think are relevant for class discussion. 1. Why do the two protagonists go to Argentina? What is the significance of the representation of the geographic location? How is the personal relationship linked to the geographic location(s)? How does the film problematize national identity on the eve of Hong Kong's hand-over to the Mainland in 1997? 2. How does the film develope its narrative? Is it plot driven? 3. The cinematography and editing of the film are very stylish. Please observe how the filmic language serves its representational purposes. 4. How do you understand the film's intercutting between color and black-and-white shots?

Relevant readings:

Bordwell, David. Planet Hong Kong, Popular Cinema and the Art of Entertainment. London: Harvard University Press, 2000.

Web Sources:

A resouceful webpage of Wong Kar-Wai prepared by Elizabeth Wright for Sense of Cinema.

Joe McElhaney's article about Happy Together, available at Sense of Cinema.

A fan website for the film Happy Together, in English and Korean.

A review of Happy Together by Shelly Kraicer in 1997.

A review by Review by Anthony Leong in 1997.