East Palace, West Palace [DVD]

Zhang Yuan's relationship with the Chinese authorities, never especially cordial, reached an all-time low with East Palace West Palace. The problem was the subject matter - homosexuality in Bejing. (The title refers to a meeting place for gays - public toilets in spitting distance of The Forbidden Palace.) When the film was selected for Un Certain Regard at the Cannes Festival, the director had his passport confiscated. No official reasons were given for this sanction, but in the West it was presumed that the had broken an unwritten law - homosexuality is still considered taboo in Chinese cinema. Inevitably, the controversy raised the film's profile.

"I was astonished to find out that the Beijing homosexuals knew the parks where the best-looking police were," Zhang commented when asked to explain what inspired the film. "They like the uniforms: there's an incredibly direct connection between sex and power." The story concerns a young gay writer (Si Han) who has the temerity to confront a heterosexual cop (Hu Jun). At first, the cop, who arrests him, is disgusted by his antics, but when the couple spend an evening in each other's presence, the policeman becomes fascinated with his provocative young prisoner who goads him to behave ever more brutally. However much he tries to suppress it, the cop seems attracted to the writer.

East Palace West Palace was made on a tight budget of around $260,000 (with support from The Hubert Bals Fund). Critics in Cannes and elsewhere were as impressed with Zhang's formal mastery as with his willingness to tackle uncompromising material. The consensus was that the film, which has also been produced as a play, showed a technical virtuosity which some of his earlier work had lacked. They also noted how the director successfully coaxed subtle but intense performances from his two leads.

Zhang Yuan is already well-known to Rotterdam audiences (his 1995 effort Erzi (Sons) won a Tiger Award). East Palace, West Palace is likely to confirm his reputation as one of the most innovative and iconoclastic young directors working in Chinese cinema.

I believe this movie is still banned in China, but the word must have spreaded around underground. If you are gay and anywhere related to Beijing, you must have heard of the "East Palace" and "West Palace", two famous gay cruising public WC near TianAnMen in Beijing. This movie borrowed the popular name, but is not about the life in the WC. It is about the obsessing and confusing between a gay and a policeman. It is the first gay movie out of mainland China, and is well received worldwide. The movie will be released in America late part of the year.

"Dong gong xi gong (East Palace West Palace)" (1996; also released under the title "Behind the Forbidden City" in 1998) is a rather unique story about the overnight detention of a young gay Chinese man, A Lan, who was caught having sex with a man in a park near the Forbidden Palace in Beijing. Although homosexuality was not actually illegal during the time in which the film is set, gays in that country were routinely harrassed by the police, who could detain and arrest them for "hooliganism". The film unreels as A Lan tells his captor, a young park policeman named Xiao Shi, about his life, including his gradual realization that he was gay, and his experiences and yearnings. He reveals that he is married, which makes him a bit of an outcast among his other gay friends who gather at the park. His childhood recollections somewhat explain why he has a particular fascination to big, male authority figures who treat him badly, including his police captor. The policeman, who consistently called A Lan "disgusting" and worthy of shame, is also fighting his own fascination with the boy's story, and his growing attraction to him as well.

From what I have read in a couple of other reviews, the film has considerable political relevance in that it was the first Chinese film to criticize the government's hypocritical treatment of homosexuals. The film's director was reportedly arrested in 1997, and it is only because of friends' actions that the film was smuggled out of the country, where it was featured at the Cannes film festival. Obviously, I can't comment or judge based on political or cultural relevance, but the story itself is intriguing, the cinematography and direction excellent, and I was especially intrigued with Si Han, the young actor who played A Lan, who probably had constant, dramatic dialogue during 60 of the film's 94 minutes...

Si Han performs brilliantly as A-Lan, a young gay writer who falls madly in love with Shi, a macho police officer (played by Hu Jun) who has arrested and proceeds to interrogate him intensively. A key idea to understanding this film is that there is no such thing as love, real compassionate devotionate unconditional love, without at least some element(s) or component(s) of suffering or genuine sacrifice involved. Si Han's powerful acting renders A-Lan's ardent passion, suffering and compassion into vivid cinematic actualization, translated very well to VHS with excellent subtitling.

There is mystery, subtlety, subtext, metaphor and allusion in this movie which only heighten the audience's interest. What, for example, is A-Lan referring to exactly when he speaks of his being "married?" We are captivated by this mesmerizing captive as he gradually unveils his story, and his soul, to the cop, his captor, his tormentor, possibly even his executioner, yet at the same time his deeply beloved.

In the hands of a lesser director this film might've failed on any number of levels, but Zhang Yuan has crafted a jewel, a delicate labor of love no less. This film reminds the reviewer of the sort of humanistic psychology reminiscent of Carl Rogers, also the kinds of healing breakthroughs achieved by Gong Shu, art therapist and acclaimed student of psychodrama's cofounder Zerka Moreno. "East Palace, West Palace" is so imbrued with hope, care, sensitivity and metanoia for and towards its characters that one gets the feeling these actors (and actresses) all of them are Yuan's own beloved children. With a gentle but firm, parental hand he directs and guides his exceptional cast to incredible fruition in their compelling portrayals and core revelations.

There is something for everyone here. There is fantastic and poignant humor; one will come away never thinking of "bus" in quite the same light ever again. There is sex; lots of it, gobs of it, sometimes even extremely violent sex, though rendered all-the-more powerfully precisely because much of it is left to that ocean of sensuality and eroticism itself, the theatre of the mind. And there are moments in this movie where your eyes will well with tears, and you will welcome them.

If it is true that, as comparative mytheologian Joseph Campbell insists, "from sacrifice comes bliss," then the many and great sacrifices Zhang Yuan made to bring "East Palace, West Palace" to us are rewarded in the exceptional bliss which you will discover and engage in this rare, precious and life-giving gem from Beijing. Please don't miss it.