To me, 颐和园 or Summer Palace in English, means 2 things to me.
1. It is a garden located in a palace centuries ago, before it was destroyed in some kind of revolution in China.
2. The modern China sex drama directed by Lou Ye, the Chinese director who directed Purple Butterfly and Suzhou River.
And when Singapore is the second country in the world to screen Summer Palace in cinema after France, fans of Lou Ye (and i believe that it only limited to a few, since Lou Ye is a familiar name to the modern 5th Generation China film makers.) and some Mainlanders living in Singapore would be delighted to see the film in Singapore, since it was banned in China. (Summer Palace discussed the Tiananmen incident in 1989, which is something the government is feeling sensitive about, so they rejected the film to be passed thru the censors. Director Lou Ye then take the film to Cannes film fest 2006 without the permission of the authorities. Thus it receives high accliamation, but angered the Chinese the government, where the prints and materials related to the film was confiscated, and Lou was banned by the government from making any movie in China for 5 years.)
And not forgetting that Summer Palace is China's first movie that contains explicit sex scenes with full frontal male and female nudity. Thus, the above 2 reasons makes Summer Palace making a big bang before hitting the theatres in Singapore. And i catch it twice: once in Golden cinema, another at Cine Orchard.
The story is based on the diary of a fictionous character named Yu Hong, a country girl who is a student of Beijing university. She befriends Li Ti, her nextdoor roommate. From there, she gets to know Ruo Gu, Li's boyfriend. And when Zhou Wei, a friend of Li Ti, was introduced to Yu Hong, Yu found the man who enters her life.
Soon they fall in love, and they spend their days drowning in sex and love. While Yu was in love with Zhou, Zhou was swinging in between Yu and Li.
1989 was the year where Tiananmen incident brokeout. Zhou and Li were caught by the administrative officials in the school dormitory for having casual sex. Yu was taken back home by her boyfriend for fear that she would lost her life in the constant riots that broke out every now and then.
Soon, the calender was fast forwarded to 1998. Zhou and Li migrated to Berlin, while Yu was still swinging in between other mens for sex.
Until 2000. Li commited suicide by throwing herself down a building in Berlin, and a devastated Zhou returned back to Chongqing, only to know that Yu was living in Chongqing too. They meet up, hugged at each other, without words.
And they go separate ways after that.
The End.
Now playing: Qing Chun Wu Qu - Dayo Lo