Summer Palace (2006)

Original title

颐和园

Directed by

Lou Ye

Genre

drama film, romance film, coming-of-age film

Country

People's Republic of China

Runtime

2h 20m

Rated

18

Rating

7.3 of 10 from 114 voters

Elsewhere

IMDb

How it feels

A young woman leaves her small town to study at a university in Beijing. She starts a passionate romance with a fellow student as political protests unfold around them. Over the following years, the couple and their friends struggle with lost ideals and changing lives.

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What happens

Summer Palace (simplified Chinese: 颐和园; traditional Chinese: 頤和園; pinyin: Yíhé Yuán) is a 2006 Chinese romance film and the fourth feature film by director Lou Ye. The film was a Chinese-French collaboration produced by Dream Factory, Laurel Films, Fantasy Pictures and Sylvain Bursztejn's Rosem Films. It was made in association with France's Ministère de la Culture et de la Communication, Ministère des Affaires Étrangères and Centre National de la Cinématographie (CNC). The film deals with a young student played by Hao Lei who leaves her small hometown to study at the fictional "Beiqing University" (an homage to Peking University). There she meets a fellow student and begins an intense romantic relationship in the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre. The film also follows the eventual disillusionment of these young idealists after the crackdown, as the years progress through the 1990s and into the 2000s (decade). The film is named after the Summer Palace located in Beijing. The film is the first from mainland China to feature the full-frontal adult nudity of both its male and female leads, though earlier films such as Xiao Wu (1998), Lan Yu (2001), Green Hat (2003), and Star Appeal (2004), have featured full-frontal adult male nudity. Summer Palace's sex scenes and political undertones made the film tinder for controversy in China, leading both the director, Lou Ye, and his producers into conflict with China's State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT). After screening Summer Palace in the 2006 Cannes Film Festival without government approval, the film was placed under a de facto ban in Mainland China, and its filmmakers officially censored. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

Trailer

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