Film
What's on at the cinema plus reviews of the latest movie and DVD releases
Bookmark this pageLan Yu (2001)
Director: Stanley Kwan
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Beijing, 1988. Successful commodities trader Handong (Hu) takes his one-night stand with architecture student Lan Yu (Liu) very lightly, but it was a life-changing experience for the boy. One major obstacle after another gets in the way of the two of them becoming a couple: Handong's compulsive promiscuity, Handong's impulsive (and short-lived) marriage, Lan Yu's involvement in the Tiananmen Square demos of 1989. They end up together anyway, only to find that fate isn't always kind to true lovers. Kwan's adaptation of an anonymous novel published only on the Internet (it galvanised the vast underground gay community in 1996 and established a new kind of samizdat publishing in China) is courageously simple and frank. The film eliminates most of the novel's near-porno sex scenes and tones down the melodrama, producing a matter of fact and emotionally truthful account of a relationship marked by its time and place. Superbly acted, too.Author: TR
Cast & crew
Director: Stanley Kwan
Producer: Zhang Yongning, James Tsim
Cast: Hu Jun, Liu Ye, Su Jin, Li Huatong, Zhang Yongning, Luo Fang, Li Shuang, Zhang Fan full cast
Duration: 86 mins
Most popular on this site
Top Stories
Review: Penélope Cruz more raunchy than ever in 'Nine'
Dave Calhoun reports on Rob Marshall's Oscar-touted musical with Daniel Day-Lewis playing a troubled director
Time Out's 101 Films of the Decade
Ten years, thousands of movies and millions of dollars in international box office, and it all boils down to this
Jim Jarmusch on 'The Limits of Control'
Jim Jarmusch has followed ‘Broken Flowers’ with an esoteric crime mystery. Dave Calhoun speaks to him from his New York office
Richard Linklater on 'Me and Orson Welles'
Dave Calhoun meets the 49-year-old, Houston-born filmmaker Richard Linklater to discuss his new comedy
Our verdict on Peter Jackson's The Lovely Bones
Peter Jackson ends a triumphant decade with a sentimental misfire with this lush Alice Sebold adaptation
On the set of Ken Loach's 'Route Irish'
Dave Calhoun meets Ken Loach on the set of his forthcoming Iraq war movie
Is 'Paranormal Activity' the new 'Blair Witch'?
How does a film go from DIY experiment to box-office smash? 'Paranormal Activity' director Oren Peli explains
A gateway to all things 'New Moon'
In anticipation of 'The Twilight Saga: New Moon', Time Out is offering the chance to pick up a limited edition pack with three exclusive magazines and a free poster.
The films that deserve a TV spin-off
With Roland Emmerich suggesting he'd like to make a '2012' TV spin-off, we propose some more movie-to-TV serialisations
Time Out's 50 greatest animated films with commentary by Terry Gilliam
In celebration of the release of Pixar's 'Up' and Wes Anderson's 'Fantastic Mr Fox', read our rundown of fifty classic feature length animations
What do you think?
Post your review now