Jin se

Why did I watch this film? Admitted the beginning was tolerable but the cinematography was tacky and the film in general lacked well... everything! Acting fell short and the whole film in general, including the entire plot was just sad and pathetic. A gross misinterpretation of lesbians. Jenny's character is portrayed in a manner which just shows the stereotype idea of what gay people are.. Predators.. It is sad and probably set the LGBT community in China by 20 years. Oh and the sex! Vulgar. I honestly felt sorry for Chinese people... they've probably never had a single orgasm in their entire lives. IN the end its a sorry excuse for a film.

The Pink Lady (1991) mere words cannot describe this Category III classic. Films like this are rare in the Hong Kong Cinema. Normally found in European Cinema, a film like this one is a rare treat. I heard rumors about the existence of this film. i tracked down a copy a few years back, boy was I in for a surprise.

The story is about a relationship between two school girls. As they get older it blossoms into a true romance. That is until one day one of them grows weary of their "forbidden love". The director took advantage of the lax Category III film classification and made a steamy film filled with several beautifully filmed and staged girl-on-girl scenes. Even though the film is pure exploitation, the director tried to make a story out of movie. He did a very good job and should be commended for bringing out such emotion from these two novice actresses.

I was very pleased by this picture. Sadly it has never been re-issued on D.V.D. and it's nearly impossible to find. Oh well, maybe someday it'll see the light of day and it'll get the true respect it deserves. An absolute classic!

Highest recommendation possible.

Good heavens! Finally, finally, (I am gasping when I am writing now...) I found this movie. There's so much, far too much I wanna say, I got so much in my head right now, I hope my head won't explode or implode.

The English name though is "Pink Lady", the more faithful translation of "Jin Se" coincidentally is something related to "pink" --- "Forbidden (jin) Colours (se)". Sounds familiar? Yes, it's the book title of Yukio Mishima's homosexual fiction published in 1951. It shocked the Japanese society at that time. Then in 1983, Ryuichi Sakamoto and David Sylvian co-produced a global hit "Forbidden Colours" for Oshima's flick "Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence" where homosexuality is insinuated. By the way, in Chinese and Japanese languages, 'se' (colour) carries many meanings, one of them is 'sex'.

These two homosexual buzzwords are too enticing, later in 1988, a Hong Kong canto-pop band 'Tat Ming Pair' used the same title (in Cantonese) for one of their songs. Again it's about homosexual love: how the society suppresses the love of the two lovers, how the singer declares his fearless love to his lover. The lyrics is a "love declaration" of the two band members to each other. (Of course, neither of them admitted that they were partners openly. The local media keeps guessing even until today.) The mood of the song is moody, lowly, romantic, mystic and there's a regretless death wish that the two lovers are willing to afford to pay their lives to seek a dream-like utopian realm where their love is allowed to exist, their pain can be released. The piano intro, the violin accompaniment and the flute ending snare and wrench people's emotion.

Surprisingly, the song lyrics is describing the story development of "Jin Se", and more stunning to me is that the movie story plot is telling the personal stories of the members of this band!

It's a simple story: two high school girls (lesbians) of a prestigious and nobility-like girl convent school meet and fall in love. The more aggressive side is from a dysfunctional but well-to-do family, she is a hopeless romantic nymph who can do everything to keep her lover, even losing her life. Her partner, the weaker side, is from an ordinary family. She lives with her sister because her parents passed away(?) or separated (?). They both fight against many oppositions of the world to stay together. The conflict comes when Emotion Chan, a young man runs into their lives. The weaker girl starts to feel confused about her sexual preference after having sex with that guy, hetero or homo or bi? The ending scene is a blend of violence and desperate romance. The rich girl holds a knife to fight blindly against the 'intruder' but she is the loser. Her love betrays her to follow the man and leaves her in a puddle of blood.

As for 'Tat Ming Pair', the band disbanded in 1991. In 1989, the split began to emerge because the band could not produce any wonderful music together like before. Just like one of them said vaguely that their 'desire to make music together' love faded. Then in March 1998, one of them got married with a woman that he had got to know only for one year in a rushing manner, no banquet, no big reception. Pregnant? No. Purportedly, the bridegroom was so anxious to sign the marriage certificate as soon as possible at the ceremony. Why such a hurry? He longed to clear the 'rumour' that he was gay, which has been spreading from day one when he entered the hall of fame.

Back to the movie, the two girls in the movie have only made this one and only one movie. I tried hard to track down more information about them but in vain. Presumably I gather that their parents might have stopped them after this x-rated (Hong Kong Category III) movie with explicit sex scenes was released to the public. Actually, the 'rich girl', who tied a pony tail all the time in the movie, somehow got a camera face. I have to say she acted pretty well and naturally, and she looks fresh and attractive. I thought that she might have a promising future in show-biz afterwards but she has fallen into oblivion now, pity, pity. I still remember her lovely baby fat. Maybe the movie was a wrong inception to her. (Where's she now?)

It's possible to remake this one, to remake it to look more elegant. Perhaps the capital invested was small, it's true for most indie or category III production. Yet, with a better package, this can be a good gay movie.

Homosexual love is something "forbidden" in most artistic depiction namely the movie, "Forbidden Love: The Unashamed Stories of Lesbian Lives". In unisex schools all over the world, homosexual is not something strange in the campus. However, in the conservative society like ours, we know its existence but we never discuss it, talk about it. Ignore it, suppress it are the own "measures" to this "evil". Sometimes the truth's that the young people are still not sure about their sexuality. They need help and acceptance.

True, in the Bible, it states clearly that God doesn't allow it. Yes, it's forbidden, yet it is striving hard for its utopia to show its colour.