Spring Fever
スプリング・フィーバー
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
Shot in secret during Lou Ye's ban; a wife hires a man to follow her husband and he falls for the lover instead.
Nanjing, the present day. Lin Xue, a schoolteacher, suspects that her husband, Wang Ping, is having an affair, and pays Luo Haitao, a young man with a camera, to follow him. Wang's lover turns out to be a man, Jiang Cheng. Hoping to make things easier, Wang introduces Jiang to his wife as an old classmate. She already knows. She storms into Jiang's workplace and makes a scene, and Jiang, who has kept his life hidden at work, stops answering Wang's calls.
Lonely, Jiang spends his nights singing in drag at a gay bar, and Luo, who was paid to watch him, cannot stop watching. They become friends, then lovers, although Luo has a girlfriend, Li Jing, who works in a hidden factory making counterfeit clothes. Wang, cut off by Jiang and unable to go on with his marriage, takes his own life. Lin brings the news. Luo, who has never told Jiang that he was the one who exposed him, can only hold him while he weeps. Police raid Li's factory and arrest her boss, who was also her lover; she collects him when he is released, then walks out on him.
Jiang quits his job and sets out on a trip, and Luo goes with him, bringing Li. For a few days the three share hotel rooms, a karaoke bar, a swimming pool. Li sees the two men kiss and pretends she has not. Then, at a roadside stop, she disappears. Soon after, changing a flat tyre, Jiang turns on Luo and sends him away. Both weep.
Back in Nanjing, Lin attacks Jiang in the street and runs. People walk past without stopping. He survives, and has a flower tattooed on his neck to cover what the attack left behind. He sells clothes now, and someone new is waiting for him at home. Lines from Yu Dafu's story Intoxicating Spring Nights, from which the film takes its Chinese title, are read aloud near its beginning and again at its close.
Starring
Qin Haoas Jiang Cheng
A young man who hides his sexuality at work, parted from his married lover and drawn to the man hired to follow him.
Jiang Cheng’s story
Jiang hides who he is at work and meets his married lover, Wang Ping, in secret. After Wang's wife makes a scene at his office, he stops answering Wang's calls and spends his nights singing in drag at a gay bar. There Luo, the man paid to follow him, becomes his friend and then his lover. When Wang takes his own life, Jiang weeps backstage in Luo's arms, not knowing who Luo is. He quits his job and takes to the road with Luo and Luo's girlfriend, until, changing a flat tyre, he turns on Luo and sends him away, both of them in tears. Back in Nanjing, Lin attacks him in the street. He survives, covers what the attack left on his neck with a flower tattoo, sells clothes, and comes home to someone new.
Chen Sichengas Luo Haitao
Paid by a suspicious wife to follow her husband, he falls for the husband's lover and never tells him how they met.
Luo Haitao’s story
Luo is paid by Lin to follow her husband, and his camera finds Wang with Jiang. He goes on watching Jiang after the job is done, at the gay bar where Jiang sings in drag, and steps in when Jiang gets into a fight with a customer. They become friends, then lovers, though Luo has a girlfriend, Li Jing, and he never tells Jiang that he was the one who exposed him. When Wang dies, all he can do is hold Jiang while he weeps. Asked along on Jiang's trip, he brings Li too, and for a few days the three share hotel rooms, karaoke and a swimming pool. After Li vanishes at a roadside stop, Jiang turns on him beside a flat tyre and sends him away, and Luo walks off in tears.
Tan Zhuoas Li Jing
Luo's girlfriend, who works in a counterfeit clothing factory and joins the men's journey because she loves Luo.
Li Jing’s story
Li Jing's days are spent in a hidden workshop turning out fake designer clothes, and she is her boss's lover as well as Luo's girlfriend. When the police raid the factory and arrest the boss, she collects him on his release, then leaves him at the table and walks out. She rings Luo to say she misses him, and he brings her along on the trip he is taking with Jiang. At the hotel she comes back to find the two men kissing and slips away as if she has seen nothing. At the karaoke bar and the swimming pool she keeps hold of Luo. Then, while the men are out of the car at a roadside stop, she disappears, and they cannot find her.
Wu Weias Wang Ping
Lin's husband, who cannot give up Jiang and cannot leave his marriage.
Jiang Jiaqias Lin Xue
A teacher who has her husband followed and cannot forgive the man he loves.
Why it matters
Spring Fever was made while its director was banned. After Summer Palace, China's film authority barred Lou Ye from making films for five years; he shot this one in Nanjing regardless, registered it as a Hong Kong and French co-production, and showed it at Cannes without government approval, where Mei Feng won the prize for best screenplay. Those conditions are visible in what it shows. It is a film about gay men in contemporary China living in the gaps: a married man who cannot choose, a lover who hides at work, a hired watcher who falls for the man he watches. The camera itself often peers through gaps, like the detective. What it leaves open is plain and hard: whether a love that can only be lived in borrowed rooms and on the road can survive an ordinary city, where a man can be attacked on the pavement and nobody stops.