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STRAIGHTFORWARDLY GAY Stanley Kwan answers questions about Lan Yu When were you first aware of the original novel, published on the internet? In February 2000. Zhang Yongning, who lives and works in Britain, read it and found it very moving. He identified strongly with the character of Chen Handong, I think. He desperately wanted to see the novel made into a film, and had the idea that he could produce and act in it. I'd never met him before, but he came to Hong Kong and we had a meeting. He brought the novel to my attention. What did you think of it? I reacted rather differently from Zhang Yongning. He told me it moved him to tears when he first read it, but I stayed quite composed. I was mildly shocked by the novel's explicitness about gay lovemaking, especially in the early chapters; it's almost pornographic in its detail. It's a fairly short novel, only ten chapters, and I thought it was rather slight. I didn't think it was in any way a great piece of writing, but I did respond to elements in the central romance. At that point, I had no thought of filming it myself. But after reading it a second time, I found myself relating to some of the themes and issues. For example, Handong's decision to get married and his desire to have a child. In 1992 my own partner William told me that he wanted to get married and have a baby; he saw it as a failing of our relationship that we couldn't have a child. There's a generation gap between Handong and Lan Yu in the novel, and Lan Yu understands himself better than Handong does. He's more direct, more honest. Although there's no generation gap between me and William, there's a similar difference between our attitudes to our sexuality. I think I'm as direct and accepting of my orientation as Lan Yu is. That was the kind of thought, which struck me when I re-read the novel ¨C thoughts from beyond the fiction itself. The novel is set in Beijing, but it must have been hard to think of shooting the film there? I can't tell you how or where we shot it, but it's true that we needed to use some ingenuity. The producer and I hope that the existence of the film will help promote a more tolerant and understanding attitude to homosexuality in China, especially in government circles. Did your lead actors have any embarrassment or inhibition about accepting gay roles? The main casts are all mainland Chinese, and their attitude to acting is rather different from anything you'd find in Hong Kong. They take the characters they play as fictional, and don't make connections between the fiction and their own lives. It's a very professional and responsible way of approaching the job of acting. Hong Kong actors, especially those who are also singers, are almost neurotically concerned about their public images; most would be terrified about playing a gay role in case their fans would get the idea that they're really gay. You know, Hong Kong is supposedly more 'civilized' and relaxed about homosexuality than other Chinese societies, but the reality is that China and Taiwan are far more mature, and far less neurotic. It's true that it's all but impossible to be openly gay in China, and that the issue remains more or less taboo in public discussions. But once you get past the surface reticence, you find that mainland Chinese gays are actually very confident and secure in their sense of their own sexuality. Is your adaptation very close to the original novel? The book is an out-and-out melodrama, and I tried to minimize the melodramatic elements. The way that William Chang has edited the film - with my complete agreement - cuts out many unnecessary developments in the plot and leaves the audience some space to imagine what happens in the episodes not shown. The film is less detailed than the novel, and less pedantic. But the central relationship is quite faithful to the version in the book. Fans of the book may be disappointed that we didn't show more of the sex, but they should certainly recognize the characters. The general atmosphere of repression in China makes people hungry for the kind of sexual explicitness you find in the novel, but I don't think the film's international audience needs that in the same way. Is it anomalous for a Hong Kong director to make a ˇ®mainland' film, even now that Hong Kong has reverted to China's sovereignty?
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