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Review

Set several months before the Tiananmen Square massacre, this new film by Stanley Kwan tells a forbidden tale of gay love in China. Thirty-something Chen Handong has made a lot of money running a rapidly growing trading business. The eldest son of a government worker, Handong lives a high life in the rapidly growing Chinese merchant class. In China, homosexuality is completely forbidden and few know that Handong likes boys.

Lan Yu is a poor country boy, newly arrived in Beijing to study architecture. He meets Handong in a pool-hall and their instant attraction changes their lives. Handong and Lan Yu court and Lan Yu becomes more and more attached to the older, friskier Handong. But Handong insists that he wants only a playmate, not a husband - he warns Lan Yu that their relationship won't last forever. Handong showers expensive gifts on Lan Yu, expecting to transform the boy's love into gratitude and dependency. But Lan Yu is undeterred in his ardor, until the night he catches Handong with another boy. Handong begins to give Lan Yu even more lavish gifts including a newly built villa on the outskirts of Beijing and a car and they begin living together as a couple. But all is not well in this troubled romance. (Mandarin with English subtitles)

The openly gay director says of his elegant and complex romance, "I've tried to make complicated things less complicated, or simple things even simpler."

Scott Cranin