Wong Kar-wai's Argentine Affair: Happy Together as a Translingual and Multimodal Adaptation.

This article examines the transnational and transcultural connections between Wong Kar-wai’s 1997 film *Happy Together* and Argentine culture, focusing on the film’s adaptation of Manuel Puig’s 1973 novel *The Buenos Aires Affair*. It highlights Wong’s translingual approach—engaging Spanish, English, and Chinese—and multimodal adaptation through literary, musical (notably Astor Piazzolla’s tango), and visual elements such as the Iguazú Falls and Tierra del Fuego landscapes. The film’s narrative of two Hong Kong lovers exiled in Argentina reflects South-South migration and geopolitical liminality around Hong Kong’s 1997 handover, positioning Argentina as a cultural and political “mirror” to Hong Kong. This study contributes to Asia–Latin America and transpacific studies by revealing underexplored cultural affinities beyond Western-centric frameworks and emphasizing the multimodal, dialogic nature of this cross-cultural adaptation.