To enjoy a long-term loving relationship is a goal sought by most mature people. Why, then, is the goal so elusive for gay men? Lan Yu, directed by openly gay Hongkongian Stanley Kwan, explores that question. Although the film directs our attention to the title role (played by Liu Ye), the person whose character is most developed in the film is his lover Chen Handong (played by Hu Jun), a successful business executive in his late thirties or early forties. When the film begins, Lan Yu is a student of architecture. Born in the countryside, he is now taking courses at a university in Beijing. One evening Lan Yu goes to a bar with a friend, eager to be picked up so that he can earn 1,000 yuan (US$120) or more. Handong takes him home, sleeps with him, and the two immediately bond and carry on a passionate love affair for some time. Handong is obviously rich and drives a Mercedes; perhaps to keep some distance, he showers Lan Yu with gifts-clothes at first, later a small villa. Since Handong is Lan Yu’s first male suitor, he learns a lot from Handong, including an aphorism about gay relationships, namely, “When two people get to know each other too well, it’s time to separate.” During the two-week period of final exams, Lan Yu buckles down to study and does not visit Handong. When he finishes his exams, he splurges by taking a taxi to Handong’s apartment, only to discover that Handong is entertaining a very muscular hustler. Harsh words are exchanged, and the two part company. In due course, Handong finds himself drawn to a very intelligent businesswoman. He explains to Lan Yu one day that he is following the normal expectation of every man to eventually marry and have a child. Later, the marriage ends in divorce. Then one day Handong runs into twenty-eight-year-old Lan Yu; the latter is a successful architect who has matured, keeps some distance, and claims to have a boyfriend. Soon, they get together for dinner at Lan Yu’s apartment, embrace passionately again, and the relationship is rekindled. Next, government authorities find irregularities with Handong’s business, and he is arrested peremptorily. Lan Yu then puts up bail for him, raising the cash by selling the villa and chipping in some of his own savings. When he is released from detention, the two are reunited happily again. Whereas filmviewers may have survived thus far with dry eyes as the relationship takes so many twists and turns over a period of nine years, especially during Lan Yu’s nighttime visit to Handong on June 4, 1989, when he sobs over the tragic ending of the Tiananmen Square protest, the ending does not permit any such impassivity for gays who have had much experience trying to contain the emotions of unrequited love. Rather than explaining what happens in this review, the best description of the heartrending climax of the film, based on the anonymously written but widely read Internet novel Beijing Story, is that older gay Chinese men will be holding back tears while glued to their seats as a Chinese romantic song accompanies the final credits. Lan Yu is not the first Chinese film to feature gay love. Filmviewers may recall East Palace, West Palace (1997), also starring Hu Jun, which tries to show how an oppressive government discounts human emotions. But the emotions displayed in Lan Yu, filmed in a more liberated China mainland that might someday allow the movie to be screened, have universal relevance to the human need to love and be loved. MH