Summer Palace
天安門、恋人たち
Storyline
The whole story, ending included.
A student's sexual awakening runs through the 1989 protests; Lou Ye was banned from filmmaking for five years.
In 1987 Yu Hong, a girl from Tumen, a small city on the North Korean border, gets a place at Beiqing University in Beijing and leaves her boyfriend, Xiao Jun, behind. Lonely in the crowded dormitory, she is befriended by Li Ti, whose boyfriend, Ruo Gu, introduces them to his friend Zhou Wei. Yu Hong and Zhou Wei fall into a passionate, volatile love. She is jealous and unstable; he is exasperated, and he begins an affair with Li Ti.
In 1989 the students join the protests in Tiananmen Square. After the army's crackdown, Xiao Jun comes to fetch Yu Hong, and she leaves the university without finishing. Zhou Wei goes to Berlin, where Li Ti and Ruo Gu have settled.
The years pass, marked by news footage: the end of the Cold War, the handover of Hong Kong. Yu Hong moves from Tumen to Shenzhen, and then to Wuhan. She cannot forget Zhou Wei, and has empty affairs, with a married man and with a quiet, kind mailroom worker. When she finds she is pregnant, she has an abortion, then moves to Chongqing and marries. In Berlin, Li Ti and Zhou Wei still sometimes sleep together, but she knows that he does not love her. When he decides to go home to China, she takes her own life.
Back in China, Zhou Wei gets Yu Hong's email address from old classmates. More than ten years after they parted, they meet at the seaside resort of Beidaihe. They hold each other and ask what happens now. Yu Hong goes out, saying she will buy drinks. Zhou Wei understands that they can never be together, and he leaves as well.
Starring
Hao Leias Yu Hong
A student from a border town who comes to Beijing wanting to live more intensely, and never gets over her first love.
Yu Hong’s story
Yu Hong leaves her boyfriend, Xiao Jun, in Tumen and goes to university in Beijing. Lonely in the dormitory, she makes a friend in Li Ti and through her meets Zhou Wei. They row together on the lake at the Summer Palace, and their love is passionate and volatile; her jealousy exasperates him, and he begins an affair with Li Ti. After the crackdown of 1989 she leaves the university with Xiao Jun. Over the next decade she moves to Shenzhen, then Wuhan, has an affair with a married man and another with a kind, quiet mailroom worker, ends a pregnancy, moves to Chongqing and marries. More than ten years after they parted, she meets Zhou Wei at Beidaihe. They ask each other what happens now. She goes out, saying she will buy drinks, and does not come back.
Guo Xiaodongas Zhou Wei
A fellow student, deeply in love with Yu Hong and unfaithful to her, who goes to Berlin after 1989.
Zhou Wei’s story
Zhou Wei falls for Yu Hong soon after his friend Ruo Gu introduces them, and they row together on the lake at the Summer Palace. Her jealousy exasperates him, and he begins an affair with her friend Li Ti; the university catches them together in his dormitory. After the crackdown of 1989 he searches for Yu Hong and learns that she has gone. In Berlin he still sleeps with Li Ti from time to time, though she knows he does not love her. When he decides to go home, Li Ti takes her own life. Back in China he finds Yu Hong through old classmates, and more than ten years after they parted they meet at Beidaihe. When she goes out for drinks and does not come back, he understands that they can never be together, and drives away.
Hu Lingas Li Ti
Yu Hong's first friend at university and later her rival, who goes to Berlin and loves Zhou Wei without being loved back.
Li Ti’s story
Li Ti lives in the next dormitory and draws the lonely Yu Hong into her circle: her boyfriend, Ruo Gu, back from studying in Berlin, and his friend Zhou Wei. When Zhou Wei tires of Yu Hong's jealousy, Li Ti begins an affair with him, and the university catches the two of them together in his dormitory. After 1989 she lives in Berlin with Ruo Gu, and Zhou Wei is there too. The three live quietly as expatriates, and she still sometimes sleeps with Zhou Wei, knowing that he does not love her. When he decides to go back to China, she takes her own life.
Zhang Xianminas Ruo Gu
Li Ti's boyfriend, back from studying in Berlin, who introduces Zhou Wei to the two women.
Why it matters
Summer Palace is the first film from mainland China to show full-frontal nudity of both its male and female leads, and it tells a love story straight through the Tiananmen protests of 1989 and the crackdown that ended them. Lou Ye showed it in competition at Cannes in 2006 without government approval. China's film authority refused it a distribution certificate, officially for poor picture and sound quality, and banned Lou and his producer, Nai An, from making films for five years. The film treats 1989 not as its subject but as the break in a generation's life. Before it, love and politics are the same intoxication; after it, Yu Hong drifts from city to city and from man to man, with sex standing in for any other contentment. It asks what happens to desire when the future it belonged to is closed off, and it does not console.