Format: Streaming video from NetFlix on rockin’ flatscreen.
I don’t have a vast amount of experience with the films of Wong Kar Wai. Cheun Gwong Tsa Sit (Happy Together) is the third of his films that I have seen, the others being In the Mood for Love and Chungking Express. Based on this small sample, it would seem that his films are about love, or more aptly about simple human connection, which frequently manifests itself as love, searching for love, or at least as sex. At the same time, it occurs to me that all of these films are not just about connection, but a lack of connection—an unfulfilled desire to make a connection that simply doesn’t happen.
That’s certainly the case with Cheun Gwong Tsa Sit. Fai Yui-fai (Tony Leung Chui Wang) and Ho Po-wing (Leslie Cheung) are a couple who leave Hong Kong and travel to Argentina. This trip seems to be something undertaken as a way to save their relationship, and it’s immediately evident that it didn’t work. Ho is abusive and unfaithful; he frequently brings men to the place Fai works almost to show off his infidelity. It soon becomes apparent that this is a pattern with the two of them. After weeks or months of this behavior, Ho eventually says “Let’s start over,” and Fai always goes along with it.
