Hong Kong's famous art-house filmmaker, Kar-wai Wong, began gaining acclaim after his innovative Chungking Express and Fallen Angels, but he hit the big time in 1997, when he took home the Director award at the Cannes Festival for Happy Together (Cheun gwong tsa sit).

Wong has become famous for his dynamic cinematic style and his preference for improvisation, eschewing a written script and working only with a broad concept. Improvising creatively with the camera (and finding ways to put that raw footage together) isn't the easiest way to work. Wong's filmmaking methods require a team that can react instinctively and understand his vision.

You'll see that Wong retains the same cinematographer (Christopher Doyle) and the same editor (William Chang) in all his movies since Ashes of Time, from 1994. Wong remains stylistically consistent: experimenting with film stock, looking for interesting juxtapositions, having characters talk to themselves, and playing on familiar themes of loneliness and unrequited love.

Like other Wong films, don't expect much action, as again he treats the audience to an introverted in-depth examination of characters and their relationships. Chungking Express's Tony Leung returns to play Lai Yiu-fai, a loyal and sensitive man who is generally lonely and unhappy. From Wong's Ashes of Time, Hong Kong actor Leslie Cheung plays Yiu-fai's lover, Ho Po-wing, a promiscuous party animal who's always up for sexual adventure.

Even from the beginning, their relationship seems doomed. Yiu-fai speaks to himself about the many times they have broken up; Po-wing eventually says they can “start over.” Now they plan to “start over” by visiting the Iguaçu Falls in Argentina. Things go badly from the beginning—the two tourists get lost and find themselves stranded on a desolate highway outside of Buenos Aires. Po-wing abandons Yiu-fai for being “boring.”

Out of money, Yiu-fai takes a menial job as a doorman outside a Buenos Aires tango club, where he eventually sees his former lover enter the club with a few “white trash” men cruising for sex. Once again, Yiu-fai demonstrates the pained look of a typical jilted lover, as he watches Po-wing demonstratively kissing one of his newfound friends. Cut later to a pensive and sad Yiu-fai, alone in his rented room, clad in only his underwear and pounding his wall in frustration.

However, he resolves to detach himself from his obsessive love with a man who will never return his loyalty, and Yiu-fai sticks to his guns when Po-wing calls him and wants to “start over” again. The two former lovers engage in an angry shouting match and a non-sexual physical struggle, with Yiu-fai walking out this time. Surprise—this time the promiscuous, wild Po-wing is left behind to cry his eyes out.

It's like Yiu-fai later says: “Turns out that lonely people are all the same.” Though more outgoing and having had far more sexual partners than Yiu-fai, Po-wing desires an intimate relationship to escape his loneliness too, but has no idea how to maintain such a relationship.

For some, Wong's style will seem tedious (where's the action?) but I find his work fascinating. No one does the "unrequited love" theme better. The more recent In the Mood for Love (with Tony Leung) deals with this as well. Not only does unrequited love exist with the two main characters, but this also develops between Yiu-fai and Chang (Chen Chang).

Wong slowly develops Yiu-fai's relationship with Chang, just like it would happen in real life, and the ambiguities are numerous.

Wong also draws supreme acting performances from his lead actors. While Leslie Cheung exhibits authentic roller coaster moments between longing, obsession, and frustration, Tony Leung is cast as the central figure.

Leung acts from the inside; you can read his emotions through subtle body language, and especially through the eyes—it's always the eyes with him. Even scenes that require physicality, like the fights he has with Leslie Cheung's character, don't happen abruptly (Leung builds up to these moments naturally and underplays them). And when the tears come, they emerge naturally, making me wonder from what part of Leung's soul he dredges these moments from as Wong rolls the camera.

Happy Together demonstrates the best that movies have to offer: fine acting and creative visuals that offer insights into character that linger long after seeing the film, all with the power to touch the heart.

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