Critic Reviews
| 100 |
San Francisco Chronicle
Loose, buoyant and bracingly original.
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| 90 |
Variety
Maverick director Wong Kar-wai manages to pour old wine into new jars with Happy Together, a fizzy chamber yarn about two gay Hong Kongers in Argentina that's as slim as a bamboo flute but is his most linear and mature work for some time.
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| 90 |
Los Angeles Times
The result is a take-no-prisoners movie from one of Hong Kong's most idiosyncratic, shoot-from-the-hip filmmakers that's the very antithesis of sentimental gay love stories. [31 Oct 1997]
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| 89 |
Austin Chronicle
Thanks largely to the raw bravery and intensity of the two leads' performances, Happy Together takes a quantum leap forward in terms of visceral power.
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| 88 |
San Francisco Examiner
Happy Together is Wong's most fully realized work. It is a pleasure to watch an interesting mind feel his way, and the result is something more than just a passing fancy.
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| 80 |
The New York Times
Stylistically brash, pulsing with life.
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| 80 |
Time
[A] sexy, spiky love story.
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| 75 |
TV Guide
Style oozing from virtually every frame.
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| 75 |
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Wong returns once more to what he seems to know best - the visual poetry of the urban Asian night, a world of characters on the move, coming and going, never really getting anywhere. [5 Dec 1997]
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| 70 |
Chicago Reader
Structurally and dramatically this is all over the place, but stylistically it's gripping, and thematically it suggests an oblique response to the end of Hong Kong's colonial rule.
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| 67 |
Entertainment Weekly
The vignettes don't add up to a story, but Wong's nervy brio and subterranean-fantasy style make for an arresting work about an exotic subculture.
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| 60 |
Village Voice
Acerbic, moody, and provocatively slight, it's a movie of apparent non sequiturs and privileged moments. [21 Oct 1997]
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| 50 |
Salon.com
Happy Together feels joylessly fussed over.
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| 50 |
Christian Science Monitor
Wong Kar-Wai, whose energetic and inventive style isn't enough to give the shallow story the substance and resonance it needs.
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| 40 |
Empire
Ian Freer
In the absence of any genuine emotional wallop, it is the directorial pizzazz that pulls you through. Just about.
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| 38 |
Boston Globe
An abundance of style and an almost total lack of substance make Wong Kar-wai's Happy Together a visually arresting but ultimately unrewarding excursion. [31 Oct 1997]
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