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Queer
Asian
Cinema
- B
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China
Dolls
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Yellow
Fever
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Stanley
Beloved
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Fall 1990
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Banana Queers
Release year: 1991
Country: Hong Kong
A unique collection
of award-winning shorts explore the emotional landscapes of
banana queers (those yellow on the outside, white on the inside)
gay boys who must contend with double discrimination for their
skin colour as well as sexuality.
China Dolls
documents the trials and tribulations of Asian gay men growing
up in predominantly white Australia, and is directed by Hong
Kong immigrant Tony Ayres.
Yellow Fever tells
the story of Monty, a gay Chinese anglophile desperately seeking
his white knight when a chance encounter with his neighbour
from Taiwan turns his world upside down.
Stanley Beloved,
a Eurasian teenager comes clean to his best friend on Stanley
beach on the day he discovers he must soon leave Hong Kong for
England.
Fall 1990
is a campus romance between an ex-gigolo who enrolls in a California
university and falls for his classmate, a middle-class Korean-American
recovering from a painful breakup with his girlfriend.
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Beautiful Mystery
Release year: 1993
Country: Japan
Shinohara is a young bodybuilder
who joins a para-military sect in Northern Japan. Amidst the
discipline and rigor of the group, his instructor, Takizawa,
develops a special interest in this new recruit. Before long,
they develop a special and loving relationship. Japanese with
English subtitles. One of the so-called Japanese "Pink Films,"
this adult-themed film follows a young bodybuilder who develops
a special relationship with his instructor in a paramilitary
group. A non-explicit examination of homosexuality in Japan.
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Bishonen
Release year: 1998
Country: Hong Kong
One of the
best Gay themed films to come out of the Hong Kong cinema. As
the title declares, beauty is everywhere in this movie, from
the cinematography, the music, right down to four of the hottest
male stars around today (Daniel Wu, Stephen Fong, Terence Yin
and Jason Tsang). Daniel Wu in his first screen role shows he's
got what it takes to hold an audience's attention. Wu plays
Sam, a tortured police officer that cannot embrace his homosexuality,
but cannot deny either. His inability to except who he is causes
him to runaway from those he loves. This makes the overly melodramatic
end of the film understandable yet unfulfilling. The ending
it regrettable but the steamy shower scene between Sam and the
up-in-coming rock star played by Terence Yin is unforgettable!
The character that steals the picture not to mention your heart
is Jet, the narcissistic male escort/call boy exquisitely portrayed
by Stephen Fong. He plays Jet with all the arrogance the part
demands, but then gives the character an honest vulnerability
that brings tears to your eyes. Director Yonfan may have been
inspired by the real-life scandal of a few Hong Kong Police
officers who were willing to be photographed in and out of uniform,
but ended up with a beautiful film of people interwoven in purpose
and passion.
Reviewer:
The Long Yang Club - Denver
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The Black Lizard
(Kuro Tokage)
Release year: 1968
Country: Japan
Black Lizard is the nickname of
the heroine of this classic Japanese film, the story of a mysterious
jewel thief played by Akihiro Maruyama, a female impersonator.
Visually stunning, Black Lizard is best known for its screenplay
adaptation by Yukio Mishima, one of Japan's most prolific and
respected gay writers of classics Confessions of a Mask and
The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, who appears in
the film as one of the Black Lizard's eerie human statues. The
film was released two years before Mishima committed suicide
by ceremonial seppuku at age 45.
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Body Weapon
Release year: 1999
Country: Hong Kong
Chui
Man Cheuk, Angie Cheung and Stephen Au are cops, Wu, Ling and
Lee assigned to investigate a rape case but who are also in
a bit of a romantic triangle. Ling marries Lee but their wedding
night is interrupted by the rapists and Lee is murdered. Ling
and Wu go out for revenge with Ling taking some rather strange
advice from a homosexual sifu who teaches her where the male
G spot is and how to use her body to lure men (hence the title).
The plot is pretty much the standard revenge story that has
been the template of numerous martial arts films. Thrown into
this mix of sleaze, brutality and surrealism are some not bad
fight sequences.
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Bombay Boys
Release year: 1997
Country: India
At the airport in Bombay, three strapping young
men of Indian extraction are quizzed as to the purpose of
their trip. The bloke from England, Xerxes Mistry, is on a
quest to 'find' himself; the chap from Australia, Ricardo
Fernandes, is searching for his brother; the guy from New
York, Krishna Sahni, is seeking to further his acting career.
They all end up in the back of a taxi, then go on to share
a flat in a high-rise overlooking Bombay, each one managing
to land in some kind of hot water. Sahni gets implicated in
a film that a shady producer wants to flop as a tax write-off
to launder 'black money'. Ricardo scours the phone book for
his brother's name among the one million 'Fernandes' listings,
and falls for the shady producer's uninhibited mistress. Xerxes
gets into scrapes while deciding if he's gay and tries to
rehearse with a group of drug-addled musicians, the Bombay
Boys, who claim to be big in Bangladesh despite having neither
lyrics nor their own instruments ("that's a simple technicality").
And in one rollicking East-meets-West digression, the three
pumped-up wayfarers strip for cash to a roomful of Bombay
women in saris and sunglasses.
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Bomgay
Release year: 1996
Country: India
Structured around
six poems by R. Raj Rao, this stylized tour of the gay male
underground samples many a classic queer space, or transforms
those that arent already queer: the breakfast table,
a Warholesque nude library, a grimy tearoom. Rao and Wadias
approach is both celebratory and satirical, the latter taking
an amusingly scatological turn in lines like "Constipation
is an occupational hazard!" (They also thoughtfully reassure
us that alls soon right: "Next day the bowels are
loosened and you are redeemed by noisy shit jets!") The
library scene, in which nude hunks eat eggs off each others
tits, should assure limited release of this work in India.
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Booty Call
Release year: 1997
Country: USA
A pair of friends
out on a double date in New York's Chinatown run into a little
problem after dinner--both of their lovely young women are
ready to take things to a more intimate level, but neither
fella has the requisite latex protection! Thus begins a series
of misadventures as the guys hit the streets looking in vain
for the goods to insure their "booty call".
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Boy's Choir
Release year: 2003
Country: Japan
Michio, 15, is
sent to a remote, Catholic boys orphanage soon after the death
of his father. Awkward and unable to speak without stuttering,
he finds it nearly impossible to get along in his new environment.
Yasuo, the star soprano in the school choir, helps him escape
but then convinces him to come back to the orphanage and join
the choir. The two boys become fast friends. But while rehearsing
with the choir at a neighboring girls school, Yasuo becomes
jealous of Michios sudden fascination with the opposite
sex. To vent his frustration, Yasuo spends the Summer marching
in anti-war demonstrations in Tokyo. When he returns to school
in the Fall, he discovers to his horror that his angelic voice
has changed...
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The Broken Hearts Club
Release year: 2000
Country: USA
Dennis is a gay 28-year-old,
West Hollywood photographer who's begun to grow tired of having
casual sex and is looking for something more. As he does so
and attempts to provide some guidance to Kevin, a 23-year-old
who's just starting to come out of the closet, his various gay
friends also find themselves confronting their sex, social and
love lives. There's Cole, the handsome actor who seemingly has
no problem leading a life filled with nothing but casual sex.
Howie, on the other hand, hasn't been able to get over his breakup
with Marshall; Benji finds that he's looking for love and sex
in all of the wrong places; while Taylor, the most flamboyant
of the bunch, has just been dumped via a long distance phone
call. Patrick, who laments the fact that he's not as good looking
as his friends, faces an entirely different dilemma. His sister,
Anne, wants him to donate his sperm to her lesbian lover, Leslie,
so that they can have a child together. As the men hang out
at the "Jack of Broken Hearts" restaurant and club owned by
their "mother hen," Jack, and discuss all things homosexual,
the men try to sort out their various relationships and ideologies
about their romantic lives.
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The Buddha of Suburbia
Release year: 1993
Country: Great Britain
Coming-of-age "dramedy" about
Pakistani immigrant's son mixes sex, race, rebellion in 1970s
London. Lengthy, but not a moment is wasted for those interested
in slice-of-life look at acculturation issues.
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Bugis Street
Release year: 1996
Country: Hong Kong
An off-beat coming-of-age story
set in the late 60s of exotic Singapore. A wide-eyed 16-year-old
girl comes from a rural village to work in a hotel populated
by transvestite prostitutes in Singapore's red light district.
Admidst colorful lives of the "girls" and the distraction of
beautiful and hunky young Johns she discovers the secrets and
pains of love, sexuality and womanhood.
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Bungee Jumping On Their Own
Release year:
2000
Country: Korea
In-woo and Tae-hee are two college freshmen who didn't believe
in love at first sight, but later find themselves wrapped
in a deep relationship that would last forever. One day they
vow to make their love eternal by sealing it with a bungee
jump. But their promise is never fulfilled when Tae-hee suddenly
disappears out of In-woo's life for what seems like eternity.
Seventeen years later, In-woo is still unable to get Tae-hee
out of his mind even though he's married and has a loving
family. While giving a lecture to his students, In-woo is
reminded of the memorable times he spent with Tae-hee when
one of the students asks about his first love experience.
From this point on, In-woo thinks nothing of it until the
student rehashes habits and sayings that are so reminiscent
of Tae-hee. Clinging onto his hope that he will meet Tae-hee
once more, a strange mystery unfolds as In-woo tries to discover
who this student really is.
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Burlesk King
Release year: 1999
Country: Philippines
Set in the uniquely Filipino world
of macho dancers comes this wonderfully entertaining melodrama
of one young man's bitter seach for his parents - a journey
which takes him throught the steamy underbelly of male prositution,
gay bars and sensuous nude dancing. (Tagalog with English
subtitles)
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But I'm A Cheerleader
Release year: 2000
Country: USA
Megan's super normal suburban
existence is filled with friends, pom-poms and rah-rah
enthusiasm until her straight-laced parents suspect that their
"little poodle" may, in fact, be showing lesbian tendencies.
In a complete panic, Megan's parents elicit the help of her
friends and the guidance of the homosexual rehabilitation facility,
True Directions, to mount an intervention. Mike a True Directions
counselor, leads the intervention and before Megan can pack
her pom-poms she is whisked off to learn how to be a perfect
heterosexual woman. True Directions is run under the strict,
all-seeing eyes of queen homophobe Mary Megan dutifully gets
with the deprogramming so she can quickly return to her life
of boyfriends, football games, and her absolute favorite activity
- cheerleading. However, she resists the first step of the "rehabilitation"
process which is to admit she is gay. In fact, she really does
not believe she is a lesbian, until she meets Graham, a sexy
tomboy who has also been sent to the camp. In a harming
twist of romantic fate, Megan realizes she may have found her
true direction in the most unlikely of places.
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We
hope you have found the Long Yang - Denver's
Queer
Asian Cinema
informative.
If you know of a film with a gay Asian character that is still
available to rent or buy, please drop us an e-mail and tell us
about it so we can add it to our list!
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