Lai and Ho arrive as a couple in love from Hong Kong to Argentina, where their paths separate after a fight. Ho leaves for Buenos Aires, Lai becomes a doorman at a tango bar and tries to pick up the threads of his life again. Yet he continues to be consumed by the dream of being "happy together" again with Ho.

Wong Kar Wai (In the Mood for Love) is the master of melancholic, nostalgia-drenched stories, and nowhere in his body of work does that take center stage more than in Happy Together. The fact that he filmed the movie on the eve of the Hong Kong handover, when the country's LGBTQ+ community suddenly faced an uncertain future, undoubtedly contributes to that wistful atmosphere. With a smoldering color palette, a plot that seems to drift along to the rhythm of tango music, and two intense central performances, Wong Kar Wai was rarely more romantic, more piercing, and more tragic than here.