Lan Yu Reviews

This film takes the Tienanmen massacre as its subtle backdrop, so subtle that it all happens though sounds heard off-screen.

Full Review | Original Score: B+

A gay love story based on an anonymous Internet novel.

Full Review | Original Score: B

The characters seem one-dimensional, and the film is superficial and will probably be of interest primarily to its target audience.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

Seems like something American and European gay movies were doing 20 years ago.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

Hu and Liu offer natural, matter-of-fact performances that glint with sorrow, longing and love.

| Original Score: 3/4

This delicately observed story, deeply felt and masterfully stylized, is a triumph for its maverick director.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

A nicely constructed film with an unusual, though not unheard-of theme for Chinese cinema.

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Lan Yu is a genuine love story, full of traditional layers of awakening and ripening and separation and recovery.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

The movie is gorgeously made, but it is also somewhat shallow and art-conscious.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4

It's probably worth catching solely on its visual merits. If only it had the story to match.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4

It's a lovely, sad dance highlighted by Kwan's unique directing style.

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Assured, vital and well wrought, the film is, arguably, the most accomplished work to date from Hong Kong's versatile Stanley Kwan.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5

The very simple story seems too simple and the working out of the plot almost arbitrary.

A beautifully crafted love story that should stand as a career breakthrough for the subtle Hong Kong stylist Stanley Kwan.

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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.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5

For the simplicity and strength of its emotional core, Lan Yu is an exquisite film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5

There is much that is touching in the affair of Lan Yu and Handong.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/4

While it is welcome to see a Chinese film depict a homosexual relationship in a mature and frank fashion, Lan Yu never catches dramatic fire.

Brave and sweetly rendered love story.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5

Though Lan Yu lacks a sense of dramatic urgency, the film makes up for it with a pleasing verisimilitude.

| Original Score: 2.5/4