Product Description

- Remastered From New HD Film Transfers
- Presented For the First Time in 5.1 Surround (Supervised by Wong Kar-Wai)

Winner of the Best Director prize at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival, Wong Kar-Wai s Happy Together is a stunning display of filmmaking style and a touching story of love on the brink of dissolution. Hong Kong cinema superstars Tony Leung and Leslie Cheung play a pair of lovers living out the waning days of their relationship as expatriates in Buenos Aires. Lusty tango bars, the salsa music of the La Boca sidewalks, and a hypnotic visit to the nearby Iguazu Falls give further dimension to the tensions growing between the two lovers. With its stylistic magic (Newsweek), Happy Together cemented the international reputation of Wong, the director of such films as In the Mood for Love and Fallen Angels.

SPECIAL FEATURES:
- (Buenos Aires Zero Degrees - 1999, 59 Min.) A Documentary On the Making of HAPPY TOGETHER
- Wong Kar-Wai at the Museum of the Moving Image (2008, 44 Min.)
- Trailers
- Stills Gallery
- Enhanced for 16x9 TVs

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #62982 in DVD
• Released on: 2009-03-31
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, DVD, NTSC, Original recording remastered, Subtitled, Surround Sound, Widescreen
• Original language: Cantonese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 97 minutes

Review
STYLISTICALLY BRASH, PULSING WITH LIFE... captures the restless, open-to-everything spirit of youth. --Stephen Holden, THE NEW YORK TIMES

Customer Reviews

Loneliness and Alienation
"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.

...I have been in you.
My favorite Won Kar Wai film; along with a great soundtrack.

CLASSIC & untouchable.

"TO BOLDLY GO WHERE OTHERS FEAR TO TREAD"
I owned this film before it was realeased in America, and the copy quality left a great deal to be desired. This new release brings this absolute Masterpiece by Wong Kar Wai (special Kudos to fine performances from Leslie Cheung, Tony Leung, and Cinematographer Christopher Doyle)to full, vibrant, and multi-dimensional life!!! Kar Wai is simply at his best here; from the wide variety of musical selections, to the varied usages of film stock.

Long before "Brokeback Mountain" tittilated American imaginations, this film was breaking major-league ground technically and artistically with the international community, and people in the know. Twelve years after it's initial release, it still boldly goes where most Directors fear to tread . . .