Dong gong xi gong

I understand this film was banned in China because it deals with homosexuality. I prefer to think that it was banned because it could bore its audiences to death. Basically the story of a frustrated and screwed-up little Chinese queen who falls for a policeman who arrests him for cruising the park, this attempt at a movie is badly directed, incredible badly edited, static to the point of being a series of still pictures at times, with actors who maintain a single expression and have little to make one feel sympathy for them. Good grief... I sat through it though my hand itched to fast-forward to the end of this dreary exercise in movie-making. Skip this one...

It's my second time watching this film, the first time was almost 10 years ago. Still this gay- theme film remains to be shocking and controversial at the same times.

For the pros, I love its poetic atmosphere from its cinematography, lightning arrangement and the limited setting made it close to a play; and theme-aside, Yuan Zhang's directional abilities continue to surface from this film, the main scene is a small police office in Beijing where there is a fierce confrontation between a camp gay writer and a night-patrol policeman, which narrates the story of the life of the gay man. Usually I feel antipathetic against groups stereotyping as in this case, not every gay is campy, nevertheless in the film with its narrative novelty, it evolves into something could be perceive as some kind of funny performance art.

For the cons, the intrusions of Chinese opera are functionally essential but visually redundant. Judging from the conversations (especially from the policeman, a boring performance from Jun Hu), the director stands firmly as an outsider with some detectable mocking attitude, which damages the visceral influence to some extent.

A Chinese film explicit exploring of gay world in 1996 itself could be concluded as a both adventurous and smart strategy, although I don't like the film as a whole, it did help Yuan Zhang establish his status as an avant-garde Chinese director, who later films like GREEN TEA (2003), I Love You (2003) and Little Red Flowers (2006) are more mainstream and carry his own trademark, a superior feeling towards his objects (un unmarried master-degree female, the monomaniac struggle between a young married couple, the kindergarten children respectively).

P.S. - The film is adapted from a short story by the late Chinese novelist Xiaobo Wang, which I haven't read yet.

This film uses very simple means to tell its powerful story. I am very found of films which do exactly this, that composes a story with emotions in a condensed way that does not preach to you, that does not tell you in bad taste how to feel, but that still moves you, not only in the theater, but also later on.

I am sure that this film can evoke mixed emotions. Because as a viewer we may want one of the characters to be the victim, we may want him to be the one at the bottom which should fight, take the battle and overcome his oppressor. But that is not how the story is told. For those of you who know Genet and have read Genet's stories, you will know the ambiguity that can be given to the oppressor/victim relation. And how full of meaning and emotions a single object or moment can be.

So if you have read Genet and liked it, you will like this film. But be warned, if you are expecting a story which delivers a story about poor gay men in less fortunate countries, you will be challenged, not to think the other way around, however, rather to view the world in more than one dimension.

At a park where gays cruise for sex, police routinely harass them but can't actually charge them for a crime, even when confronted with "regulars". One is young writer A-Lan, who is picked up one night and spends until daybreak telling the sole policeman his life story. Interspersed with flashbacks, and also illustrations using Chinese opera (which I doubt is part of any actual opera). There is also a question as to how much of the story is true, and how much is his writer's imagination.

A-Lan keeps falling in love with handsome / taller / dominant men, and is happy to be sexually used and physically abused. It is not clear if any of his love objects actually self-identify as gay. However, A-Lan not only identifies as gay, but also has a gender fluidity with regards to those he loves, telling them to "treat me like a girl".

The Chinese opera depictions are interesting, but other things disappoint. It seems unlikely that a house with a suite of rooms is occupied by only one policeman, even overnight. Also, A-Lan's wife is mentioned but not explained.

This is a very unflattering depiction of one gay man's life in China, which could be generalized to all gay life in China of the period. Interestingly the film was banned in China for its gay subject matter, but China should have distributed it widely to warn against "going gay" by using this as a warning example.

For anyone who views understatement in cinema as dull, this is not the film to see. Every line, every angle, every event are introduced almost as if the viewer were in the same room with the actors, or at least on the edges looking in closely. Even its more melodramatic moments seem controlled, almost introspective.

The classical unities of stage drama hold sway here. Like the latter scenes in the film "Bent," there is a sexual tension that merges with a political theme. Ultimately that demonstrates freedom exercised in the face of tyranny. While I think it would be too limiting to emphasize either one or the other of these two elements, as some of the few comments here have stated or implied, any perceptive viewer is likely to come away with a feeling of frustration. And that is as it should be. It is a hallmark of any good story, cinematic or otherwise, to engage the imagination of a viewer or reader so as to elicit more questions than answers.

This is a movie that could just as well be a play acted in a small theater, a short story from the pages of a literary magazine, or a reality show played out before a psychology class. A small gem.