Average Rating: 6.2/10
Reviews Counted: 34
Fresh: 22 | Rotten: 12
A well-crafted love story, but it may be too simplistic for some.
Average Rating: 6.1/10
Critic Reviews: 13
Fresh: 8 | Rotten: 5
A well-crafted love story, but it may be too simplistic for some.
liked it
Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 2,332
Stanley Kwan, one of Hong Kong's few openly gay filmmakers, directed this drama that blends a same-sex love story into a tableau of China's tumultuous recent history. In 1988, Lan Yu (Liu Ye) is a college student from rural China who has just arrived in Beijing, where he intends to pursue his studies -- and where he begins to acknowledge his sexual leanings. While visiting a gay bar, Lan Yu meets Handong (Hu Jan), a successful businessman whose father is an important Communist Party official.
Jun 13, 2002 Wide
May 20, 2003
Strand Releasing
All Critics (38) | Top Critics (15) | Fresh (22) | Rotten (12) | DVD (4)
Hu and Liu offer natural, matter-of-fact performances that glint with sorrow, longing and love.
The movie is gorgeously made, but it is also somewhat shallow and art-conscious.
It's probably worth catching solely on its visual merits. If only it had the story to match.
Assured, vital and well wrought, the film is, arguably, the most accomplished work to date from Hong Kong's versatile Stanley Kwan.
In the end, we are left with something like two ships passing in the night rather than any insights into gay love, Chinese society or the price one pays for being dishonest.
There is much that is touching in the affair of Lan Yu and Handong.
A gay love story based on an anonymous Internet novel.
The characters seem one-dimensional, and the film is superficial and will probably be of interest primarily to its target audience.
Seems like something American and European gay movies were doing 20 years ago.
This delicately observed story, deeply felt and masterfully stylized, is a triumph for its maverick director.
A nicely constructed film with an unusual, though not unheard-of theme for Chinese cinema.
Lan Yu is a genuine love story, full of traditional layers of awakening and ripening and separation and recovery.
It's a lovely, sad dance highlighted by Kwan's unique directing style.
The very simple story seems too simple and the working out of the plot almost arbitrary.
Ooooooh my god, it has been SO damn long. I have seen like, 25 movies since I've last updated. However, I will not stop! ((reviews later)) I also saw the HK films... Abnormal Beauty (9/10 - Ekin Factor + 1 - 10/10) As you can see from my sticky post worshipping Ekin darling, this movie barely had him in it. I
June 19, 2006
Lan Yu (2002) "Its goodness is a decision for the mouth to make." A wealthy Chinese businessman and a struggling Chinese student trade sex for favors until the student?s affection grows too great and the businessman opts for marriage with an associate, tossing aside the relationship with the same sense of ethics he
June 4, 2005
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