Monday, April 11, 2016
Chinese soap
The growing maturity of Chinese gay film is admirable.
Today's film
Lan Yu (2001) is beautifully realized throughout. An ending is tacked on to make it, old style, more acceptable for the blue noses, but it is so transparently a plow for approval by the State that it goes down quite easily.
In actual fact, the State stayed out of it. The film was made illegally without prior approval but no bureaucrat stopped it or even blocked its export. That ending, I bet.
There is a lot of explicit gay sex in this film and there is nothing closeted about it.
An older man falls for a younger associate, they have an affair, the older man gets married to seal his reputation, years later the younger man shows up and the two re-unite.
That is a spoiler but since it is standard love story number 5 out of 13, no one will be surprised.
You will be surprised to see beautiful bodies in great gay action.
I will not buy this film because it is flawed by its politicization but it would be fun to see it again. A 4 out of Netflix5.
