To
enjoy a long-term loving relationship is a goal sought by
most mature people. Why, then, is the goal so elusive for
gay men? Lan Yu, directed by openly
gay Hongkongian Stanley Kwan, explores that question. Although
the film directs our attention to the title role (played by
Liu Ye), the person whose character is most developed in the
film is his lover Chen Handong (played by Hu Jun), a successful
business executive in his late thirties or early forties.
When the film begins, Lan Yu is a student of architecture.
Born in the countryside, he is now taking courses at a university
in Beijing. One evening Lan Yu goes to a bar with a friend,
eager to be picked up so that he can earn 1,000 yuan (US$120)
or more. Handong takes him home, sleeps with him, and the
two immediately bond and carry on a passionate love affair
for some time. Handong is obviously rich and drives a Mercedes;
perhaps to keep some distance, he showers Lan Yu with gifts-clothes
at first, later a small villa. Since Handong is Lan Yu's first
male suitor, he learns a lot from Handong, including an aphorism
about gay relationships, namely, "When two people get
to know each other too well, it's time to separate."
During the two-week period of final exams, Lan Yu buckles
down to study and does not visit Handong. When he finishes
his exams, he splurges by taking a taxi to Handong's apartment,
only to discover that Handong is entertaining a very muscular
hustler. Harsh words are exchanged, and the two part company.
In due course, Handong finds himself drawn to a very intelligent
businesswoman. He explains to Lan Yu one day that he is following
the normal expectation of every man to eventually marry and
have a child. Later, the marriage ends in divorce. Then one
day Handong runs into twenty-eight-year-old Lan Yu; the latter
is a successful architect who has matured, keeps some distance,
and claims to have a boyfriend. Soon, they get together for
dinner at Lan Yu's apartment, embrace passionately again,
and the relationship is rekindled. Next, government authorities
find irregularities with Handong's business, and he is arrested
peremptorily. Lan Yu then puts up bail for him, raising the
cash by selling the villa and chipping in some of his own
savings. When he is released from detention, the two are reunited
happily again. Whereas filmviewers may have survived thus
far with dry eyes as the relationship takes so many twists
and turns over a period of nine years, especially during Lan
Yu's nighttime visit to Handong on June 4, 1989, when he sobs
over the tragic ending of the Tiananmen Square protest, the
ending does not permit any such impassivity for gays who have
had much experience trying to contain the emotions of unrequited
love. Rather than explaining what happens in this review,
the best description of the heartrending climax of the film,
based on the anonymously written but widely read Internet
novel Beijing Story, is that older gay Chinese men
will be holding back tears while glued to their seats as a
Chinese romantic song accompanies the final credits. Lan
Yu is not the first Chinese film to feature
gay love. Filmviewers may recall East Palace,
West Palace (1997), also starring Hu Jun, which
tries to show how an oppressive government discounts human
emotions. But the emotions displayed in Lan Yu,
filmed in a more liberated China mainland that might someday
allow the movie to be screened, have universal relevance to
the human need to love and be loved. MH
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