While his reputation grew steadily throughout the early 1990s, Wong's international standing was "thoroughly consolidated" with the 1997 romantic drama "Happy Together" (1997). Its development was influenced by the handover of Hong Kong from Britain to China, which occurred that year. Wong was widely expected to address the event in his next film; instead, he avoided the pressure by choosing to shoot in Argentina. The issues of the handover were nevertheless important: knowing that homosexuals in Hong Kong faced uncertainty after 1997, Wong decided to focus on a relationship between two men. He was keen to present the relationship as ordinary and universal, as he felt Hong Kong's previous LGBT films had not.