[2009.05.16] MIXED REVIEWS FOR LOU YE'S LATEST

Photo courtesy of takungpao.com

The Mainland film SPRING FEVER premiered at Cannes, the first film in competition to appear. The film revolves around four people's complicated romantic and sexual relationships. Lou Ye sets his sight on homosexual group's underground lifestyle conditions, as the subject and the visuals again challenge the sensitive bottomline. Yet after the film's screening, the response is not as stimulating as the subject itself.

After the screening, the official publication SCREEN stated that SPRING FEVER overall is better than Lou Ye's previous film. The film is very ambitious but lacks powerful character descriptions. Even if the audience understands the complex and confusing relationships, the film cannot convey the pain inside the characters; Lou Ye's style has shades of Wong Kar Wai and Jia Zhangke's films, but his own style has not been formed yet.

A Shanghai reporter says that the relationships are full of twists but awkward, the cast performance is average. A Taiwan reporter describes the relationships as "thrilling". Yet the European media are generous with the film. A English reporter claims that he has never seen Lou Ye's work before and originally thought this was a normal same sex love triangle, but was pleasantly surprised to see the film's concern for other people in the same sex phenomenon: homosexuals who in order to hide their identities choose legal marriage mates.