"Dong Gong Xi Gong" is a Chinese movie about gay writer A Lan (Si Han) who is attracted to young cop Xiao Shi (Hu Jun) in a park, gives him a kiss on the cheek and jogs off, looking seductively over his shoulder. The cop returns a few days later, this time out of uniform, wearing a leather jacket, and brings A Lan back to the empty police station where a nightlong interrogation ensues. Is the cop looking for a confession or a turn-on? He becomes fascinated with his young prisoner who goads him to behave ever more brutally. However much he tries to suppress it, the cop seems attracted to the writer. A Lan tells his life story about repression in Chinese society. In China, homosexuality isn't illegal, but homosexuals are routinely persecuted by police and arrested for "hooliganism". The film's title is Chinese slang for the notorious bathrooms located in Bejing near the Forbidden City--the East Palace and the West Palace. The two parks are favorite haunts of Beijing gays at night. Billed as the first mainland Chinese drama to deal openly with the subject of homosexuality, a subject considered taboo in Chinese cinema, it was shot in 1996, then smuggled out of China for post-production in France. It premiered at the Mar del Plata Film Festival in Argentina in November 1996 and at the 1997 Cannes Film Festival as part of the "Un Certain Regard" competition.The film angered Chinese censors and this resulted in authorities confiscating director Zhang Yuan's passport shortly after his return from Hong Kong on April 10, 1997, thereby preventing him from attending the Cannes Film Festival. Zhang Yuan wrote the screenplay with Wang Xiaobo. The English title is "East Palace, West Palace", or "Behind the Forbidden City", or "Behind the Palace Gates".
