Summer Palace
Yiheyuan
credits:
Director: Lou YeProducers: Fang Li, Nai An, Sylvain Bursztejn
Writers: Lou Ye, Mei Fang, Ma Yingli
Cast: Guo Xiaodong, Hao Lei, Hu Ling, Zhang Xianmin
China/France 2006 | 140 mins | 35mm | Mandarin w/E.S.
A heady and emotionally charged chronicle of the short-lived sexual and political idealism which swept through Beijing in the late ‘80s, Lou Ye’s fourth feature (PURPLE BUTTERFLY, SFIAAFF ‘04) marks a stunning new direction for Chinese cinema. Certainly the most erotic and sexually explicit film to come from mainland China, SUMMER PALACE is ground-breaking in its scope, ambition and poeticism, brilliantly capturing the euphoria of liberation and the dissolution of idealism that marked this period of time.
At the film’s core is the stormy, passionate relationship between Yu Hong (Hao Lei) and Zhou Wei (Guo Xiaodong), students at Beijing University. Narrated by Yu, the film begins with her arrival in Beijing in 1987 and meeting with Zhou. Their sexual connection, charged by the developing political landscape just outside of their dorms, ignites as the two struggle to find a place in a world where the consequences of actions are momentarily suspended. Still young when the tumultuous events of Tiananmen Square transpire, the crackdown’s haunting aftermath tears their lives apart. Over the next decade, lovers and time intervene against a relationship which will linger and fade, but never disappear.
Lou’s films are unlike any of those of his fellow Sixth-Generation Chinese filmmakers. Restless, dynamic and sensual, they are indebted more to his French contemporaries in sensibility and style, showcasing a singular humanism, potent sexuality and blunt political force. Hao Lei and Guo Xiaodong give magnetic performances, both possessing a beauty and intensity that is impossible not to stare wide-eyed at. SUMMER PALACE is an astonishing and unforgettable masterpiece.
—Chi-hui Yang
