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LAN YU
"What's notable is the sophisticated nonchalance with which it portrays
a contemporary gay relationship in a closeted society...The affair
endures many twists and separations, yet each estrangement only
brings the two closer, and the director, Stanley Kwan, swathes them
in layers of shadow that make us seek out the light of connection
in their faces... there are moments it captures the erotics of intimacy
in a way that makes most American love stories look downright unfree."
--
Owen Gleiberman,
Entertainment Weekly
"Stanley Kwan, a veteran Hong Kong director who's openly gay, made
the movie without official government approval...It reportedly wouldn't
have been given, because the film violates two major taboos: full-frontal
male nudity and a 30-second sequence that references the 1989 Tiananmen
Square massacre...'Lan Yu' deserves high marks for political courage
but barely gets by on its artistic merits." --Lou
Lumenick, The New York Post
"For all of its careful realism, 'Lan Yu' is constructed around clichE`s,
plummeting toward a modestly heroic sacrifice and a tearjerking act
of fate. But Kwan is a master of shadow, quietude, and room noise,
and Lan Yu is a disarmingly lived-in movie." --Michael Atkinson, The
Village Voice
"'Lan Yu' not only includes some fairly explicit love scenes but also
uses the Tiananmen Square massacre of 1989 and the shady dealings
of the country's business elite as central plot devices. For all that,
the movie feels neither incendiary nor, at least until its abrupt,
maudlin ending, especially melodramatic...rather than probe too deeply
into their psyches or try to untangle the vicissitudes of their relationship,
Mr. Kwan is content to observe the meandering course of their attraction,
and to illuminate the moments it sparks into love." --A.O. Scott,
The New York Times
"...while the subject matter is lusty and the bodies sensuous, Kwan
keeps a cool lid on matters carnal...Still, even as 'Lan Yu' attempts
a Bergmanesque emotional austerity, its heart lies somewhere between
'A Star Is Born' and 'Mildred Pierce'...As an overall experience,
it most resembles its title character: beautiful and guileless, but
far less seductive than sin." --John Anderson, Newsday
"With its scenes of full-frontal nudity and its references to the
Tiananmen Square protests, 'Lan Yu' may be a breakthrough film for
China, but it's well-trod territory for American viewers." --Jami
Bernard, The New York Daily News
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