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East Palace, West Palace

Original title: Dong gong xi gong
  • 1996
  • 1h 30m
IMDb RATING
6.5/10
1.4K
YOUR RATING
East Palace, West Palace (1996)
MandarinDrama

A-Lan, a young gay writer, being attracted to a young policeman named Xiao Shi, manages to have himself arrested and interrogated for a whole night. Xiao Shi's attitude shifts from revulsion... Read allA-Lan, a young gay writer, being attracted to a young policeman named Xiao Shi, manages to have himself arrested and interrogated for a whole night. Xiao Shi's attitude shifts from revulsion to fascination and, finally, to attraction.A-Lan, a young gay writer, being attracted to a young policeman named Xiao Shi, manages to have himself arrested and interrogated for a whole night. Xiao Shi's attitude shifts from revulsion to fascination and, finally, to attraction.

  • Director
    • Yuan Zhang
  • Writers
    • Xiaobo Wang
    • Yuan Zhang
  • Stars
    • Si Han
    • Jun Hu
    • Jing Ye
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • IMDb RATING
    6.5/10
    1.4K
    YOUR RATING
    • Director
      • Yuan Zhang
    • Writers
      • Xiaobo Wang
      • Yuan Zhang
    • Stars
      • Si Han
      • Jun Hu
      • Jing Ye
    • 15User reviews
    • 14Critic reviews
  • See production info at IMDbPro
  • See production info at IMDbPro
    • Awards
      • 4 wins & 2 nominations total

    Photos144

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    Top Cast4

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    Si Han
    • A Lan
    Jun Hu
    Jun Hu
    • Xiao Shi
    Jing Ye
    Wei Zhao
    Wei Zhao
    • Director
      • Yuan Zhang
    • Writers
      • Xiaobo Wang
      • Yuan Zhang
    • All cast & crew
    • Production, box office & more at IMDbPro

    User reviews15

    6.51.3K
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    Featured reviews

    8arthur_tafero

    Better Than Brokeback Mountain

    This haunting Chinese film is multi-texured. It is not just about being gay; it examines the very fabric of Chinese society in Beijing, which pretty much represents Chinese society in just about every city in China. It makes a strong political .statement without being political. It makes a strong social statement about those who are judgmental about gay men and their chosen lifestyle. And most of all; it humanizes a gay man. This man is far more in touch with his feelings than is his inquisitor. In my opinion, this film is better than Brokeback Mountain, but not quite as good as Philadephia and The Boys in the Band, the two best films ever made on gay lifestyles, and which humanize their protagonists, rather than sensationalize them. I can recommend this film as a unique cinematic experience.
    6lasttimeisaw

    Behind The Forbidden City

    It's my second time watching this film, the first time was almost 10 years ago. Still this gay- theme film remains to be shocking and controversial at the same times.

    For the pros, I love its poetic atmosphere from its cinematography, lightning arrangement and the limited setting made it close to a play; and theme-aside, Yuan Zhang's directional abilities continue to surface from this film, the main scene is a small police office in Beijing where there is a fierce confrontation between a camp gay writer and a night-patrol policeman, which narrates the story of the life of the gay man. Usually I feel antipathetic against groups stereotyping as in this case, not every gay is campy, nevertheless in the film with its narrative novelty, it evolves into something could be perceive as some kind of funny performance art.

    For the cons, the intrusions of Chinese opera are functionally essential but visually redundant. Judging from the conversations (especially from the policeman, a boring performance from Jun Hu), the director stands firmly as an outsider with some detectable mocking attitude, which damages the visceral influence to some extent.

    A Chinese film explicit exploring of gay world in 1996 itself could be concluded as a both adventurous and smart strategy, although I don't like the film as a whole, it did help Yuan Zhang establish his status as an avant-garde Chinese director, who later films like GREEN TEA (2003), I Love You (2003) and Little Red Flowers (2006) are more mainstream and carry his own trademark, a superior feeling towards his objects (un unmarried master-degree female, the monomaniac struggle between a young married couple, the kindergarten children respectively).

    P.S. - The film is adapted from a short story by the late Chinese novelist Xiaobo Wang, which I haven't read yet.
    10singh

    the metaphor of subordination in East Palace West Palace

    East Palace West Palace is an excellent film for its subtle attention to the relation of power and subordination in modern China. Set in present day Bejing, it boldly shirks the trend of the "fifth-generation" Chinese directors to ignore contemporary issues. Among the more daring of those films, To Live and The Blue Kite presented us with the dehumanization on which China's current population was founded; EPWP explores the inhumanity it faces now.

    The main characters evince the respective macrocosms of the subordinated Chinese civilian populace and its privileged oppressors. A Lan is a gay man, rounded up in a park near the Forbidden City by Xiao Shi, a police officer. The plot involves A Lan's night-long interrogation, involving flashbacks of his hard life. The film is not sympathetic to homosexuality, despite its casual screenings at gay festivals, exuberant to find identification in a foreign culture. Rather, it uses homosexuality as a portrayal of weakness and subordination, to a powerful end. The film's telling message resides in a philosophy I've explored in the writings of Gandhi and James Joyce--that a repressed society is always in someway responsible for its own domination. Xiao Shi finds A Lan's homosexuality reprehensible, but the detached, scrawny, weak A Lan eventually falls in "love" with him. In China, everyone is in some way a catamite of state power. As A Lan has been arrested for the night, so the Chinese have been ensnared in a dark age. As dawn approaches, the film builds to a confusing, frightful, bitter, and ultimately moving catharsis. It is not afraid to look forward, into the rising sun.
    6chong_an

    Artistic depiction of one gay man's life in 1990s China

    At a park where gays cruise for sex, police routinely harass them but can't actually charge them for a crime, even when confronted with "regulars". One is young writer A-Lan, who is picked up one night and spends until daybreak telling the sole policeman his life story. Interspersed with flashbacks, and also illustrations using Chinese opera (which I doubt is part of any actual opera). There is also a question as to how much of the story is true, and how much is his writer's imagination.

    A-Lan keeps falling in love with handsome / taller / dominant men, and is happy to be sexually used and physically abused. It is not clear if any of his love objects actually self-identify as gay. However, A-Lan not only identifies as gay, but also has a gender fluidity with regards to those he loves, telling them to "treat me like a girl".

    The Chinese opera depictions are interesting, but other things disappoint. It seems unlikely that a house with a suite of rooms is occupied by only one policeman, even overnight. Also, A-Lan's wife is mentioned but not explained.

    This is a very unflattering depiction of one gay man's life in China, which could be generalized to all gay life in China of the period. Interestingly the film was banned in China for its gay subject matter, but China should have distributed it widely to warn against "going gay" by using this as a warning example.
    9anderzzz-1

    Powerful in meaning, gentle in tone

    This film uses very simple means to tell its powerful story. I am very found of films which do exactly this, that composes a story with emotions in a condensed way that does not preach to you, that does not tell you in bad taste how to feel, but that still moves you, not only in the theater, but also later on.

    I am sure that this film can evoke mixed emotions. Because as a viewer we may want one of the characters to be the victim, we may want him to be the one at the bottom which should fight, take the battle and overcome his oppressor. But that is not how the story is told. For those of you who know Genet and have read Genet's stories, you will know the ambiguity that can be given to the oppressor/victim relation. And how full of meaning and emotions a single object or moment can be.

    So if you have read Genet and liked it, you will like this film. But be warned, if you are expecting a story which delivers a story about poor gay men in less fortunate countries, you will be challenged, not to think the other way around, however, rather to view the world in more than one dimension.

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    Related interests

    Jonathan Chang in Yi Yi (2000)
    Mandarin
    Naomie Harris, Mahershala Ali, Janelle Monáe, André Holland, Herman Caheej McGloun, Edson Jean, Alex R. Hibbert, and Tanisha Cidel in Moonlight (2016)
    Drama

    Storyline

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    Did you know

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    • Trivia
      In 1997 the Chinese government put director 'Zhang, Yuan' under house arrest and confiscated his passport. His friends smuggled this movie out of the country so it could be shown at the 1997 Cannes film festival.
    • Connections
      Referenced in Century of Cinema: Naamsaang-neuiseung (1996)

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    FAQ16

    • How long is East Palace, West Palace?Powered by Alexa

    Details

    Edit
    • Release date
      • July 24, 1998 (United States)
    • Countries of origin
      • China
      • France
    • Language
      • Mandarin
    • Also known as
      • Behind the Forbidden City
    • Production companies
      • Quelqu'Un D'Autre Productions
      • Ministrère de la Culture Français
      • Ministère des Affaires Étrangères
    • See more company credits at IMDbPro

    Box office

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    • Gross US & Canada
      • $46,470
    • Opening weekend US & Canada
      • $28,024
      • Sep 11, 1998
    See detailed box office info on IMDbPro

    Tech specs

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    • Runtime
      • 1h 30m(90 min)
    • Color
      • Color
    • Sound mix
      • Dolby SR
    • Aspect ratio
      • 1.85 : 1

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