On May 17, 1997, Wong Kar-wai’s Happy Together premiered at the Cannes Film Festival. Released in Hong Kong cinemas right before the handover from Britain to China, the film charts the demise of the relationship of a gay couple who have relocated from Hong Kong to Argentina.

More straightforward than the films that had made his name, Happy Together benefited from some emotional performances from Leslie Cheung Kwok-wing and Tony Leung Chiu-wai, and also featured Christopher Doyle’s handheld camerawork, which was then the most noticeable hallmark of Wong’s visual style.

As the director mentioned in an interview with this writer just before the film’s debut at Cannes in 1997, there are some surprises. The colours slide from black and white into a burnished, saturated look, and one scene is even shot upside-down.