Lanyu

Date of release: November 22, 2001

Story / Synopsis:

Beijing, 1988. On the cusp of middle age, Chen Handong has known little but success all his life. The eldest son of a senior government bureaucrat, he heads a fast-growing trading company and plays as hard as he works. His loyal lieutenant Liu Zheng is one of the few who know that Handong's tastes run to boys more than girls.

Lan Yu is a country boy, newly arrived in Beijing to study architecture. More than most students, he is short of money and willing to try anything to earn some. He has run into Liu Zheng, who pragmatically suggests that he could prostitute himself for one night to a gay pool-hall and bar owner. But Handong happens to be in the pool-hall that evening, and he nixes the deal. He takes Lan Yu home himself, and gives the young man what turns out to be a life-changing sexual initiation.

Handong and Lan Yu meet often, and the boy is soon very secure in his love for the man. But Handong insists that he wants a playmate, not a lifelong companion, and warns Lan Yu that they will eventually break up. "When people get to know each other too well," he says, "inevitably they part." Meanwhile he showers expensive gifts on Lan Yu, expecting to deflect the boy's love by turning it into gratitude or dependency. Lan Yu is undeterred, until the night he arrives at Handong's apartment and finds his lover in the process of seducing a college athlete.

They meet again on the night of 4 June 1989. Handong goes looking for Lan Yu, worried that he might have been caught up in the army's murderous sweep through Tiananmen Square. Handong gives Lan Yu his most lavish gifts yet - a newly built villa on the outskirts of Beijing and a car - and they begin living together as a couple. But again Handong shies away from his feelings for the boy. He enters a whirlwind romance with Jingping, a professional translator who has helped his company in trade negotiations with Russians, and marries her. Lan Yu moves out of the villa, and Handong loses contact with him.

Before long, Handong is divorced. He runs into Lan Yu by chance at the airport one day, and an invitation to try Lan Yu's home cooking leads to a resumption of their relationship. Now, at last, Handong learns to feel and show commitment to his lover - just when his company comes under investigation for smuggling and illegal fund-raising. Handong is facing long-term imprisonment, possible worse, but to the delight of his sister Yonghong and her husband Daning (not to mention Liu Zheng and his other employees) he is bailed out by Lan Yu. The boy sells the villa and the car, and pools the proceeds with his own savings - yielding enough to get Handong out of trouble. Finally, Handong and Lan Yu can be happy together.

But fate can play cruel tricks.

Other information:

"Lan Yu" wins 5 award in 2001 Taipei Golden Horse Awards:

Best Director - Stanley Kwan Best Leading Actor - Liu Ye Best Adapted Screenplay - Jimmy Ngai Best Editing - William Chang Audience's Choice of Best Picture

"Lan Yu" also participates in numerous international film festivals, including Cannes Film Festival, Tokyo Film Festival, Chicago Film Festival, London Film Festival, Vancouver Film Festival, Toronto Film Festival, and Rotterdam Film Festival etc.

Director's Statement - Stanley Kwan

Although I'm gay, I'm not particularly eager to deal with 'gay issues' in the films I make. This film came about entirely by chance. Zhang Yongning (who plays Daning in the film) found the original, anonymously written novel on the internet and asked me if I would like to direct a film adaptation. I read it and found the passions in the central relationship interesting and so I agreed to make the film. In my last film "The Island Tales", I made simple things too complicated. And so this time I've tried to make complicated things less complicated, or simple things even simpler.

The Novel and Its Author

The novel upon which "Lan Yu" is based was published on the internet. The first of three installments appeared in 1996. Each installment was given a different title; the final, unifying title for the ten-chapter work was "Beijing Gushi" (Beijing Story). The author adopted the pseudonym 'Beijing Tongzhi' - literally 'Beijing Comrade', but the word tongzhi, the traditional form of greeting between communists, has latterly picked up the slang meaning of 'gay'. The novel was the first frank exploration of gay lives and loves to appear in Mainland China, and it very quickly became hugely popular throughout the country's vast underground gay community. Beijing Story pioneered the idea of publishing 'illicit' Chinese fiction on the internet, setting a precedent since copied by several other authors.