-By KEVIN THOMAS

The title of Wong Kar-Wai's wrenching, jagged "Happy Together," taken from the popular song, is decidedly ironic. Shot alternately in high-contrast black and white and rich color, it has a harsh charcoal-sketch look in either mode as it charts the coming apart of a gay love affair.

Photographed by Wong's usual collaborator, the award-winning Christopher Doyle, "Happy Together" is as fragmented in style as the relationship it depicts with relentless emotional honesty. 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. Don't say you weren't warned.

It opens with a helicopter shot of Iguazu Falls, along Argentina's border with Brazil, but Lai Yiu-Fai (Tony Leung Chiu-Wai--so designated to avoid confusion with the other, taller Tony Leung) and Ho Po-Wing (Leslie Cheung) never make it there together. READ MORE

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Screenwriter
Wong Kar-wai

Cinematographer
Chris Doyle