Lan Yu (2001)

Purely Joyful Movie!

i must have seen a different film!!

Fantastic!

A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

As a film, "Lan Yu" can be classified as a simple love story whose protagonists make their intentions clear as they have concrete ideas about how far their relationship would go. It can be surmised that this type of brutal honesty might be appreciated by a certain section of viewers. As this is one of the few original gay themed films to come out of Hong Kong, director Stanley Kwan steers clear of any undue controversy as his film briefly alludes to a time period when Tiananmen Square protests caused tremendous anguish in China. Lan Yu does feature some scenes of mild nudity. However, viewers would find them to be timid if a comparison is made with other gay themed films especially by directors such as François Ozon, Pedro Almodovar and Fassbinder. This film can also be seen in the backdrop of a bigger sociological phenomenon as according to a latest estimate 16 million women are married to gay men in China. This is exactly the fate of this film's hero as he too had to marry to save face. This aspect forms part of the second half which is rather weak. It is from here that the film begins to end on a sluggish note. Finally, Lan Yu is a good film for anybody interested in exploring films made by Stanley Kwan.

Drawn from a novel anonymously posted on the Internet, Stanley Kwan's admirably audacious gay-themed Chinese film was filmed in China without the approval of officials, who surely would have been less than consenting to sanction the filming of a script which included frontal male nudity, sexually straightforward dialogue and allusions to Tiananmen Square and unethical businessmen.As the second most populous country moves more into the realm of capitalism, homosexuality is still underground, yet in the bar favored by Handong, the central character, for shooting pool and picking up boys things appear more or less on the face. He picks up a country lad, architectural student Lan Yu who needs money to bankroll his education and welcomes Handong's overture just for the money until as expected he discovers that he too is gay, falls in love with the urbane exec, and gets dumped. Dumped, until, naturally, there is an about-face in Handong's situation which backpedals the roles.The movie, set in Beijing in the late 1980s and early 1990s, is opulently crafted, but it is also more or less superficial and creatively stilted. Hu and Liu lay consistent, realistic performances at our feet that glimmer with grief, yearning and sentiment, but their characters feel skin deep, and the film will in all probably prevail in appeal almost exclusively to its target gay audience. The very elementary story appears too obtuse and the progression of the narrative essentially optional. For a film as concise as 86 minutes, this is considerably tardy material.

I was so very disappointed by this movie. There was absolutely no sex at all. Sure, they show you every little thing up until the act that I was waiting for the whole 86 minutes, and then they disappoint you. This movie is the biggest tease ever, in the history if things that tease. Also, why are all movies about gay Chinese men so depressing? They need to get their act together and just be happy like the Thai boys in Formula 17. Other than the great lack of getting it on, this movie did have good qualities. It does a really good job of portraying the growth of a relationship and the mistakes people make. However, the ending was completely unnecessary and seemed as though it was simply a way to make the movie even more depressing. The ending left me feeling the way one feels when the main character wakes up in a great movie and it was all a dream, as though the writers were out of ideas and just slapped something together in an effort to try to mess with the audience.

I went to see "Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon" with a young Chinese man who said to me, as if I didn't know this, "Of course it has a tragic ending. It's Chinese!" That awakening, plus seeing the movie in a Chinese filled theatre, taught me something. I rented "Lan Yu" expecting a Chinese movie. I didn't get one. There were no intense cultural overtones, just references. Mao, Tiannimen Square, Russians, yes. The matriarch's New Year's dinner was the closest thing to Chinese culture. But, of course, Beijing and Hong Kong are cosmopolitan. The plot even makes fun of Lan Yu being thrust into the city from the country.I put this movie in the category of "Parting Glances," "Steam," and "Love, Valor, Compassion," definitely not "Philadelphia." That's a high compliment for me. I've seen boring, "go for the audience impact" Gay movies. This isn't one, thank goodness. It's a love story with the complexity of approach/avoidance conflict, embraced by friends who are straight, even though the story is about Gay love. And it's about one-sided love, growing love, fearing the loss of love, committment anxiety, and all that, the same as in straight relationships. It has acceptance and tolerance and is totally devoid of sneers from the homophobic thrown in to thicken the plot.The character development is a little sparse, but actually we learn about them quickly. There's no long wind up. Skillful! The character depth is what grows. Lan Yu grows. His lover doesn't, until it's too late.The direction and photography were subtly superb. I didn't catch on until far into the film how good the photography was and placement of the characters. The acting was excellent -- or was it their direction?How interesting that the clearly more submissive character is the stronger one.Did those who hated this movie notice all of that, or are they jaded? I wouldn't like to be at a play or movie with them.Wonderful movie. I cried. I laughed. I'm still feeling it. Very few movies do that to me.