Happy Together
ブエノスアイレス
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Two men from Hong Kong break up and start over in Buenos Aires, repeatedly.
Ho Po-wing and Lai Yiu-fai are a couple from Hong Kong who keep breaking up and starting over. They come to Argentina together to see the Iguazu Falls, pictured on a lamp Po-wing bought for Fai, but they lose their way, quarrel and split up. Without the money to fly home, Fai stays in Buenos Aires and works as a doorman at a tango bar, where Po-wing turns up with other men. Again and again he asks Fai to start over, and again and again Fai turns him away.
Then Po-wing, beaten up by one of the men in his life, arrives at Fai's small room, and Fai takes him in and nurses him. For a while Fai is quietly happy. But once Po-wing has recovered he goes out while Fai is at work, and Fai, jealous, hides his passport. After hitting the man who hurt Po-wing, Fai loses his job at the bar and goes to work in a Chinese restaurant, where he becomes friends with Chang, a young traveller from Taiwan. After a last argument over the passport, Po-wing leaves.
Chang saves enough to travel south, to a lighthouse at the end of the world, and offers to leave Fai's sorrows there: he hands Fai a tape recorder to speak into. Fai holds it and says nothing; he can only weep. Fai takes a better-paid job in a meat-packing plant, earns his fare home and goes alone to the Iguazu Falls. Po-wing comes back to the empty room, mends the lamp, and breaks down.
On his way home Fai stops in Taipei, where he finds himself at a night-market food stall run by Chang's family. He takes one of the photographs of Chang from the stall. He does not know whether they will ever meet again, but now he knows where to find him.
Starring
Leslie Cheungas Ho Po-wing
Fai's restless, charming lover, who leaves and comes back again and again, always asking to start over.
Ho Po-wing’s story
Po-wing bought the lamp with the waterfall on it and brought Fai to Argentina to see the real one, and when they lose their way and quarrel, it is he who suggests they split up. In Buenos Aires he goes from man to man and turns up at Fai's tango bar with them, asking again and again to start over. Beaten up by one of the men, he arrives at Fai's small room and lets Fai nurse him, but once he has healed he goes out while Fai is at work, and they quarrel over the passport Fai has hidden. After their last argument he leaves. Some time later he comes back to the empty room, mends the lamp he once gave Fai, and breaks down, alone.
Tony Leung Chiu-waias Lai Yiu-fai
Stranded in Buenos Aires without his fare home, working at night and trying not to take Po-wing back.
Lai Yiu-fai’s story
Fai came to Argentina with Po-wing to start over, heading for the Iguazu Falls pictured on a lamp, and when they lose their way and split up he is left in Buenos Aires without his fare home. He works the door of a tango bar and turns Po-wing away each time he asks to begin again. When Po-wing turns up beaten, Fai takes him in and nurses him, and for a while he is quietly happy; once Po-wing is well and going out again, Fai hides his passport. After a last quarrel over it, Po-wing leaves. Handed Chang's tape recorder to speak his sorrow into, Fai can only weep. He earns his fare in a meat-packing plant, sees the falls alone, and on the way home finds Chang's family's stall in a Taipei night market.
Chang Chenas Chang
A young traveller from Taiwan working in a Chinese restaurant, who befriends Fai before heading south to the end of the world.
Why it matters
Happy Together is a love story between two men that never treats their being men as the problem. Its problem is an older one: two people who cannot live together and cannot stay apart, and the difference between starting over and going round in circles. Wong Kar-wai took them to the far side of the world, and the film opened in May 1997, weeks before Hong Kong passed from British to Chinese rule. Its dates and a radio report of Deng Xiaoping's death place it in the last months of the colony, and critics have read its title as a question about whether Hong Kong and China would be happy together. Wong won best director at Cannes that year, his first major award. The film's own answer is private and unsentimental: it ends not with the lovers but with one man alone, knowing at last where a friend can be found.