Director : Stanley Kwan
Producer : Zhang Yongning
Executive Producer : Jian Qin
Associate Producers : Yi Feng, Zhou Bin, James Tsim
Screenplay : Jimmy Ngai
Production Designer : William Chang
Cinematography : Yang Tao
Original Music : Zhang Yadong
Editor : William Chang
Sound Design : Wang Xueyi
Still Photographer: Luo Dong
Cast:
Hu Jun - Chen Handong
Liu Ye - Lan Yu
Su Jin - Lin Jingping
Li Huatong - Liu Zheng
Luo Fang - Yonghong
Zhang Yongning - Daning
Li Shuang - Weidong
Zhao Minfen - Mother
Zhang Fan - Jian-er
Synopsis:
Beijing, 1988. On the cusp of middle-age, Chen Handong has known little but success all his life. The eldest son of a senior government bureaucrat, he heads a fast-growing trading company and plays as hard as he works. His loyal lieutenant Liu Zheng is one of the few who know that Handong's taste run to boys more than girls.
Lan Yu is a country boy, newly arrived in Beijing to study architecture. More than most students, he is short of money and willing to try anything to earn some. He has run into Liu Zheng, who pragmatically suggests that he could prostitute himself for one night to a gay pool-hall and bar owner. But Handong happens to be in the pool-hall that evening, and he nixes the deal. He takes Lan Yu home himself, and gives the young man what turns out to be life-changing sexual initiation.
Handong and Lan Yu meet often, and the boy is soon very secure in his love for the man. But Handong insists that he wants a play-mate, not a lifelong companion, and warns Lan Yu that they will eventually break up. "When people get to know each other too well," he says, "inevitably they part." Meanwhile he showers expensive gifts to Lan Yu, expecting to deflect the boy's love by turning it into gratitude or dependency. Lan Yu is undeterred until the night he arrives at Handong's apartment and finds his lover in the process of seducing a college athlete.
They meet again on the night of 4 June 1989. Handong goes looking for Lan Yu, worried that he might have been caught up in the army's murderous sweep through Tiananmen Square. Handong gives Lan Yu his most lavish gifts yet ¨C a newly built villa on the outskirts of Beijing and a car -- and they begin living together as a couple. But again Handong shies away from his feelings for the boy. He enters a whirlwind romance with Jingping, a professional translator who has helped his company in trade negotiations with Russians, and marries her. Lan Yu moves out of the villa, and Handong loses contact with him.
Before long, Handong is divorced. He runs into Lan Yu by chance at the airport one day, and an invitation to try Lan Yu's home cooking leads to a resumption of their relationship. Now, at last, Handong learns to feel and show commitment to his lover -- just when his company comes under investigation for smuggling and illegal fund-raising. Handong is facing long-term imprisonment, possible worse, but to the delight of his sister Yonghong and her husband Daning (not to mention Liu Zheng and his other employees) he is bailed out by Lan Yu. The boy sells the villa and the car, and pools the proceeds with his own savings -- yielding enough to get Handong out of trouble. Finally, Handong and Lan Yu can be together.
But fate can play cruel tricks...
Credit/Source: http://lanyu.gstage.com/english/
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The first time I watched this movie was in cantonese and I love it. So, I bought the DVD in it original language which is mandarin. While waiting for the DVD to arrive, I also surfed the net for more info on Lan Yu and found there were some missing scenes in the cantonese version I watched. I thought the missing scenes wil be included in the original DVD I bought, but I was very disappointed when my DVD arrive and found the scenes are not in that version either.
The copy I bought is the HK version distributed by Universe Laser.
So, if anyone has or has seen a version of Lan Yu that has the following scenes, can u please tell me what version is it and from which distributor?
1) Handong and Lan Yu in the bathroom. Lan Yu was bathing, Handong seemed to be washing Lan Yu's hair or something. - The reviewer mentioned this scene in her review. So, it's definitely in the version she saw.
2) Lan Yu sitting on some kind of balcony of an unfinished building.
3) Handong was standing at the doorway of a building with the name plate 'nan sheng gong yu' (男生公寓). - This scene is in the backcover of my copy of Lan Yu.
4) Extra scenes on Handong and Jinping's marriage.
Thanks.