East Palace, West Palace (1996)
- Original title
- 东宫西宫
- Directed by
- Zhang Yuan
- Genre
- drama film, LGBTQ-related film
- Country
- People's Republic of China
- Runtime
- 1h 30m
- Rated
- 18A
- Rating
- 6.3 of 10 from 26 voters
- Elsewhere
- IMDb
How it feels
A young police officer detains a gay man in a Beijing park and interrogates him through the night. Their conversation becomes a charged exploration of desire, shame, and power between the two men.
intimateconfrontationaltensemelancholiccontemplativesparseemotionaloppressive
What happens
East Palace, West Palace (Chinese: 东宫西宫; pinyin: Dōng gōng xī gōng) is a 1996 Chinese film directed by Zhang Yuan, starring Hu Jun and Si Han, and based on a short story by writer Wang Xiaobo. It is also known as Behind the Forbidden City or Behind the Palace Gates. East Palace, West Palace is the first mainland Chinese movie with an explicitly homosexual theme. The title of the movie is derived from the two parks near the Forbidden City—the East Palace and the West Palace. The parks, specifically their public washrooms, are well known for being places of nighttime congregation for homosexuals. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)
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