"WKW:" "I´m a big soccer fan  and Maradona was Argentinian" "So I figured it might be good to do a movie in Argentina" "After the screening..." "I decided to move back to Argentina" "When they see the film, our Argentine friends feel  that´s kind of remote" "but is actually very close to them" "Being here brings back all the memories of the filming" "I tend to linger here if I´m passing by" "We shot here every day  and I miss this place" "This was our office" "My desk was over there" "I was here" "This was the director´s room" "It hasn´t changed much" "Like this" "Tony Leung:" "Go on, make a wish!" "WKW:" "I´ve worked with most of these people since my first film" "We´ve been together for years now" "A film crew is kind of like a circus  on the road together" "With this crew  I know I´ll get the film done no matter what" "Tony:" "What he said made me follow him out of Hong Kong" "What he said made me follow him to Argentina" "Leslie:" "You realize journalists will quote that!" "You are doomed!" "Tony:" "When we were in Argentina  our lives and the movie blurred together" "In the story, Lai leaves Hong Kong for Argentina  and then everything stops and he´s stuck" "Much like Tony Leung showing up for work  and finding that shooting hasn´t even started" "This is very much like that" "Things happened on screen were close to what I was actually doing" "It´s been some time since I was satisfied by a role" "People ask  which role I´m most pleased with" "I always said Days of Being Wild" "They´d say "But you´re only in one shot" And I´d say "Right"" "Ask me the same question now  and I´ll say Happy Together" "The director and crew arrived in mid-August 1996" "On the first day  everyone was waving maps at me ... asking "Where´s this?" "Where´s that?"" "Okay, we´ll shoot here!" "At the start, Jacky Pang liaised with the local crew" "I was the interpreter" "They were casting all the extras" "I kept notes for them and took photos" "I had a great time watching the filming" "But their schedule was totally unpredictable" "Sometimes they´d call in the middle of the night!" "It was like I got caught!" "When you´re with Tony..." "your eyes should follow..." "In this scene..." "Leslie, maybe you shouldn´t hold Tony with both hands" "Have a cigarette in one hand and hold him with the other" "Try one" "That looks great especially the reflection in the mirror!" "The director took a lot of trouble finding locations" "He was full of questions about Argentinians" "What kind of places do they live what work do they do..." "This is a port called La Boca" "It used to be full of sailors" "It gradually became a residential area" "It´s kind of run-down now" "This was the place!" "You want to take a look?" "The phone was there" "Hello" "Leslie:" "Recognise me?" "That´s where Tony took Leslie´s call" "Aili:" "That´s it" "This was their design" "William Chang did it" "The director had his video monitor in here" "And this was the room they lived in" "Lai Yiu-Fai, let´s start over" "Leave me alone!" "You´ve left us broke!" "I want to get back to Hong Kong!" "In my memory, it´s always damp kind of soft" "It has a life of its own..." "It has a life of its own but kind of sick" "It´s like life without sunshine" "Your dad called yesterday" "Wants you to go back" "Come back with me" "We´ll see" "Fuck This TV set is useless" "Get it fixed" "I´ll die if I can´t watch TV" "Every morning as I leave for work I stare at Ho Po-Wing wondering if he´ll still be there when I get back" "I should buy a lock" "What are you looking for?" "Give it back" "I won´t" "Hit me" "Yes, hit me" "Yes, hit me" "Fuck" "Ho Po-Wing" "You come and go as you please" "I´ve never said a word" "But I think this is the last time" "Why should I always be the one left behind?" "Two can play at that game" "Just watch me!" "I didn´t really want to" "We´ll do different tonight" "Tonight, I´ll leave first" "Ho Po-Wing and I won´t meet again, I know" "So I´m leaving him a souvenir of me" "You must be so bored" "You have nothing better to do than pick a fight?" "Give me back my passport!" "Why do you need a passport?" "None of your business!" "It´s been a year since we worked here" "It was in 1996" "It´s changed a lot..." "Before this wasn´t concreted over" "Hello" "Have you eaten yet?" "Bring something back for me" "Oh, it´s you?" "WKW:" "I need to have a clear sense of each character´s history" "What did they feel when they came to Argentina?" "Each character offers an individual storyline" "I remember very well!" "Tony´s character attempted suicide ...and we saved his life" "He was brought to the hospital" "Shooting the scene was quite scary at first" "Tony was wheeled in on a stretcher" "Blood everywhere" "Everyone was very nervous" "All the doctors and nurses were scrambling to save him" "The director´s idea was that I had a hopeless crush on Tony" "A hopeless crush" "I was jealous of his relationship with Leslie" "They like each other, right?" "So the main thing he asked me to express was jealousy" "That was the director´s idea" "Your friend will come to pick you up?" "If you eat spicy food your scars won´t heal properly" "It´s you!" "I have to go" "Bye!" "You made me so happy!" "You have so much to talk about with her?" "You´re visiting?" "I thought doctors visited, not nurses" "Why are you here?" "Where´s Ho Po-Wing?" "He´s not here What do you want?" "Never mind, I just wanted to get something back" "What?" "It doesn´t matter, never mind" "Unbelievable!" "Is he okay?" "Don´t you know that he´s dead?" "Ho Po-Wing!" "Have you forgotten your name?" "You´re Lai Yiu-Fai and I´m Ho Po-Wing!" "You know why I kept your passport?" "I wanted to keep your name forever" "I don´t care if you use my name or not" "But at least you´ll never forget it" "WKW:" "This isn´t the way I want the film to be" "I´m still not sure what I do want" "So I´ll keep looking" "He could have both identities..." "Leslie could be Ho Po-Wing as well" "So he loves his own mirror image, is that it?" "Just like this" "Leslie Cheung in drag as a woman" "If it doesn´t work, we won´t show it to anyone" "The idea was to tell the story of these two people" "But I know we don´t have enough time to do that" "So this is becoming more focused on Tony" "Tony:" "That line "We can start over"  cuts two ways!" "Are we going to start the film all over again?" "WKW:" "The first idea was to start with Tony arriving in Argentina" "The airport cops tell him his father is in trouble" "He´s there to look for his father´s one-time lover" "And it turns out this person was a man" "Then he finds Leslie in Buenos Aires and tries to learn the truth about his dad" "At first, the local production house was fine" "But then they began overcharging" "If someone wanted $5000 for use of a location they´d quote us $7-8000" "They thought the director was rolling in cash and shooting a kung-fu movie" "They didn´t even know what we were shooting" "I kept getting threats" "They wouldn´t let us shoot in some areas" "We´d hear "There´ll be a bomb if you shoot there"" "People would turn up carrying guns" "Or they´d warn us that if the actors went on the street there might be a nasty accident" "So we had to stop" "We had a story about two people..." "But Leslie had to leave for his concerts in Hong Kong" "The story wasn´t finished..." "What to do?" "I know how to do this shot of Tony on his own" "But when we finish for the day I go off alone" "I sit in a coffee-shop, thinking how to solve the problem" "After Leslie Cheung left, shooting halted for quite a time" "The crew had expected a three-week shoot but it dragged on and on" "You could see all of them were longing to get back home" "Sometimes there was no filming for a week or more" "Everyone was bored rigid" "I said I couldn´t stand it, I wanted to go home" "I dreamt of my mother I was scared!" "I really missed everyone back home" "I really missed them" "I didn´t want to be there on my own" "The others felt the same" "Maybe it´s because we were all so far from home" "Perhaps it´s because of the distance" "If we weren´t so far away maybe we wouldn´t feel that way" "Perhaps Wong Kar-Wai did it deliberately" "Maybe he wanted us all to feel as if we were dying!" "WKW:" "Actually the shoot went on much longer than expected" "We were supposed to finish by September" "But we kept on deferring and deferring it..." "Deferring and deferring" "Fuck" "Solutions always present themselves ...at the very last minute" "Maybe they aren´t even real solutions..." "But something always turns up to solve the problem" "The Central Restaurant is kind of a legend" "During the shooting, I fell asleep one night ...and woke to find my face half paralysed" "I went to the Central to find an acupuncturist" "He told me I was apoplectic and began treating me with his needles I recovered in about a fortnight" "Every single night there are mahjong games in the restaurant" "You can meet everyone from Chinese doctors... to the owners of garment factories" "At the time I considered starting our story there" "Argentina is nice lots of girls, really a lot" "I´ve lived in Argentina for nine years" "I married 81/ 2 years ago" "We have four children" "My ideal man will take me out to the movies" "I love watching movies" "WKW:" "I felt very warm towards the people I met there" "Looking at the restaurant´s owner," "I wondered how it would be if I myself had to start over in Buenos Aires What would it be like?" "Young people should be adventurous ...study and work hard" "It was very tough when we arrived in Argentina" "But we didn´t mind" "Young people can put up with that if they have to" "Things will get better and better" "It was the same for my daughter when she arrived here" "But she picked up the language and got the hang of things" "I came up with another storyline, about a young guy" "He comes to Argentina, broke and works in the restaurant" "In the kitchen he meets someone very much like Tony Leung" "And his story starts to emerge" "Where are you heading?" "Dunno..." "As far as I can go" "Aren´t your folks worried about you?" "This was my idea" "They don´t even know where I am" "Will you ever go back?" "Chang Chen plays a kid from somewhere else entirely" "He´s very much like a young Leslie Cheung" "He has a real youthful energy which drives Tony on" "No mahjong game today..." "Don´t feel like it" "Wanna come for a drink?" "You can go!" "I´m okay!" "What?" "Are you throwing up?" "Here, I´ll help you" "This is 6 November 1996, evening" "I´m in a station snack-bar" "As far from Taipei as it´s possible to be" "I just had two hotdogs, they tasted really bad" "And a Coke" "There´s a guy sitting next to me" "I really want to talk to him" "He´s probably the last friend" "I´ll make in this city" "Hello!" "Strange he´s so kind to me!" "Dunno what he´s saying but it doesn´t matter" "It´s like he´s wishing me a good trip" "Oh, this hotdog tastes so bad..." "Twenty minutes out of Buenos Aires I got into a fight" "I was in the mood for it" "Where are you heading?" "Aren´t your folks worried about you?" "Can I talk to you?" "No special reason" "I just want to hear your voice" "I saw you once do you always sing in cars?" "You were singing when I saw you" "I always wanted to know what song it was" "I guess I wasn´t close enough to hear" "I couldn´t hear" "I wondered about your voice" "But didn´t see you again" "So I thought I´d never know" "You know I saw you the day I arrived here" "Can we move forward forever?" "Near ´the end of the world´ the southernmost tip ...I wondered if we´d keep going or turn back" "This ´edge of the world´ is where the kid´s story can end" "Chang Chen:" "I promised Ah Fai that I´d leave his sadness here" "But I can´t make out what he said that night" "Maybe it didn´t record right" "His voice isn´t there" "There´s just a couple of strange sounds" "WKW:" "He want his journey to go on, but it can´t" "So he just stays here" "It´s as if time has stopped here, by the water" "Tony:1 January 1997" "I´m ready to make a new start" "I want to go back to Hong Kong" "But before going home..." "I decide I must see the Iguazu Falls" "You know the giant waterfall?" "We went there twice" "The second time I figured out how to escape" "First, I´d book myself on a flight back to Hong Kong" "When we got back to Buenos Aires on a domestic flight..." "I´d be first off the plane and I´d dash for a taxi" "I´d go straight to the international airport" "I´d leave the others to take care of my luggage" "That was how I planned to escape back to Hong Kong!" "Finally, of course, I didn´t do it" "I had to alter my flight booking more than ten times" "Every time I asked Wong Kar-Wai when I could leave he´d say" ""Maybe another ten days or so"" "WKW:" "The filming dragged on and on" "Everyone was homesick" "We have worked together for long so they all knew the film wasn´t yet finished" "They could see I had problems" "But no-one said anything" "Under such pressure I always wanted to go off for walks" "Sometimes I wonder why I went to such a place to shoot" "Then I started thinking..." "I have the thought" "I really wanted it all to be over" "The sooner we all get home, the happier we´ll be" "One ending we considered was Tony at the waterfall" "Maybe he dies there, maybe not" "Then I realized he should go back to Hong Kong" "Our own experience taught me that" "It would have been hard if they´d all left together" "But they left one by one so that was better" "They all wanted to get home for Christmas and New Year" "I knew that day would come" "A few days after the last one left ...I moved back to Taiwan" "It was like..." "I felt a sense of loss" "And I thought I might feel better ...if I tried to do something else in Taiwan" "When they´d all gone I knew I had to go back" "It´s rare for me to make up my own mind about things" "Usually I ask my parents for advice" "But that time I knew what I had to do" "The assistant director Johnny asked me to do continuity" "I was plunged straight into it" "I´d never thought about working in movies before" "But this experience got me interested" "It was my first time to work with a lot of Chinese" "I like going to places where nobody knows me" "Nobody knows who I am..." "Nobody knows my story or where I´m from" "I like that kind of feeling" "So I really like Chang Chen´s character in the film" "Don´t know why but that´s how I feel" "If I meet another Chinese person abroad I don´t feel close to them" "I don´t need Chinese friends or Chinese shops or anything" "I simply don´t need them" "I guess it´s a way of making myself feel stronger" "I miss these things a bit but I don´t need them" "And I do feel stronger for it" "Tony:" "Are you Chinese?" "Where are you heading?" "Can you sing for me?" "Are you Chinese?" "Where are you heading?" "Give me a coin for the phone?" "I need another one" "Me again!" "It´s my excuse for staying here with you!" "It´s me!" "How are you doing?" "Right, you´re leaving to see the waterfall?" "Hold me!" "Why?" "Nothing, just making them jealous!" "I´ll drop you off" "No need" "Are you okay?" "I´m fine..." "You?" "I´m okay" "WKW:" "Finally she takes a job near the Falls" "And once in a while she wonders if he ever made it there or not" "That´s her story" "Happy Together is like a full stop" "The end of a certain period in life" "We all have our own calendars but the film is a watershed for all of us" "We´ll all remember everything we went through" "As for the people who helped us..." "Aili still works on movies in Argentina" "James and Laurita are in Europe now" "In late January I found myself a job in Taiwan" "It was translation work" "Meanwhile they were still shooting the film" "The newspaper said they were filming in Taipei" "So I went along to see them that night" "Films do come from life" "But they´re not my whole life" "I´m getting better at keeping them separate" "Not like before" "I´d been working in Taiwan for a few months when Happy Together had its premiere" "I was so pleased to see them that day!" "After the screening..." "I decided to move back to Argentina"