A Voice of Their Own
Asian filmmakers get into focus at S.F. lesbian, gay film fest
by Andrew Huang

As filmmaking becomes ever more independent and inexpensive, people who live on the margin of society have developed a more pronounced voice in a medium that started out aiming for mass profit and common denominators. Indie chic aside, independent gay films have proved themselves far more worthwhile than their mainstream counterparts by refusing to water down and dumb out homosexual content.

This year’s San Francisco International Lesbian and Gay Film Festival sees a wide array of Asian gay films of formidable caliber. While America’s home-spun gay films continue to get stuck in the fluffy “gay” and “caricature” modes due to their conservative market structure, Asian gay films have easily transcended the “gay film” labels to become something universal, stimulating and entertaining to all.

The most rewarding films continue to come from the Chinese film industry, where the impact of the celebrated Chinese new wave directors lingers, despite the domestic market slump.

Headlining this year’s festival are two recent films by acclaimed Hong Kong auteur Stanley Kwan, who will appear at the Castro Theater to accept the Frameline Award for Outstanding Achievement in Lesbian and Gay Media Arts. Hold You Tight (Sunday, 6 p.m.), a study of love and alienation that involves five interlocking characters, is Kwan’s most daring and heartfelt work to date.

In Hold You Tight, computer nerd Wai takes his wife for granted until he loses her in a plane crash. He then befriends an overweight gay man and encounters a befuddled teenage boy who has a secret crush on him. Kwan’s Yang + Ying: Gender In Chinese Cinema (June 19, 8 p.m., Roxie) is a Celluloid Closet-esque documentary that traces the homoerotic images and text in a century’s worth of Chinese films. From the cross-dressing tradition in Chinese theater/cinema, to the symbolism in John Woo’s gunfights and kung-fu movie sword plays, to the various new wave directors’ discussion of their films, this gem is both entertaining and illuminating.

Continuing Hong Kong directors’ propensity for blending the mainstream with the cutting edge, two Hong Kong films manage to work in homosexuality as the central premise in highly conventional genres -- the costumed epic love story and the action thriller. Intimates (June 22, 6 p.m., Castro), a lush period drama by Jacob Cheung, is a love story between two women set against the epic backdrop of a strife-torn, early Republic China. In Intimates, Foon joins the virgin life of a traditional women-only organization to escape marriage with the men she doesn’t love. Taken in by a beautiful, spunky courtesan, Foon’s loyalty to her mistress slowly turns into love as they survive one calamity after another. Portland Street Blues (June 21, 10:30 p.m. and June 23, 3:30; Castro), an engrossing, stylish and trigger-happy thriller by director Raymond Yip Wai Man, features Sister Thirteen, a powerful female member of the gang society in Hong Kong triads as she battles her rivals and reminisces about her love for her past girlfriend and their shared infatuation for a local boxer.

On the Taiwanese front, the films continue to delve into the coming-of-age pains in the vein of Hou Hsiao-Hsien. Lin Cheng-Sheng, acclaimed director of A Drifting Life, offers Murmur of Youth (Monday, 6:15 p.m., Castro) a film that explores with persuasive delicacy the burgeoning affair between two young girls who share the same name but different social classes in Taipei. In Min-Chen Huang’s languid and lovely Too Young (Sunday, 7 p.m., Roxie; June 24, 4:15 p.m., Castro), a bookish social outcast escapes the mundane regimen of a boys’ school with spiritual self-help tapes. His quotidian life briefly sparkles when he encounters a mysterious outsider with a rumored past.

Filipino director Gil Portes scores with his amiable satire, Miguel, Michelle (June 24, 8 p.m., Victoria), in which Miguel, the outstanding student and favorite son in the family, takes off for an American education with the blessing of his family. He comes back five years later, surgically transformed into Michelle, turning the conservative small town upside down.

Three documentaries merit attention for exploring the different aspects of gay Asian life. Australian director Tony Ayres’ Sadness (June 23, 7:45 p.m., Roxie) profiles the journey of photographer-cum-performance artist William Yang and his Sydney friends with AIDS. Rice and Potatoes (June 26, 1:45 p.m., Roxie), filmed in San Francisco by Todd Wilson and John Biasatti, is a revealing documentary that examines the dynamics of interracial relationships through interviews with 17 gay men, both Asian and Caucasian. We Are Transgenders (Saturday, 4 p.m., Victoria), winner of the Best Amateur Video Award at the Tokyo Lesbian and Gay Film Festival, is Lulu Ogawa’s investigation of the transgender movements thriving in today’s Japan. Proponents of the various alternative branches of the transgender/cross-dressing lifestyle are given voice in examining the constructs and impacts of gender roles in the traditionalist Japanese society.

Screenings will be held at the Roxie Cinema, 3117 16th St.; the Victoria Theater, 2961 16th St.; and the Castro Theater, 429 Castro St. For tickets or more information, call 415-703-8663 or visit the festival Web site at http://www.frameline.org/festival.