Lan Yu (4K Restoration) (15)

★★★★ "Stanley Kwan’s masterly and gentle Beijing-set melodrama was the strongest in a wave of gay-themed Chinese films in 2001 and remains a poignant work that tugs at audience heartstrings." ~ The Guardian.

22 years after it’s initial release, Lan Yu is presented in a new 4K restoration.

The film is based on a (then) anonymously written internet novel, ‘Beijing Story’; the first frank exploration of gay lives and loves to appear in mainland China, which quickly became hugely popular throughout the country’s vast underground gay community.

Set in Beijing, 1988. On the cusp of middle age, Chen Handong (Hu Jun) has known little but success all his life.

As the eldest son of a senior government bureaucrat, he heads a fast-growing trading company and plays as hard as he works.

Few know that Handong's tastes run more to boys than girls.

Chen develops a relationship with a young boy named Lan Yu (Ye Liu) that goes farther than he ever wanted it to.

Handong must choose between his comfortable yet closeted straight life, or an honest yet subversive life with Lan Yu.