Kiss of the Spider Lilies

On Thursday I was looking around the many Chinese YouTube clones seeing if I could find the latest episode of Lost. (This method is sometimes faster than trying to download it from a BitTorrent server in the states.) As I came to the first page of OuOu, I noticed that one of the featured links had quite the risque picture associated with it. The link was also ridiculously popular. (At the time of this writing, it has been watched by more than 5 million viewers.)

What is it? It's from a press conference on 4/17 regarding the recent movie from Taiwan called Spider Lilies. The movie stars Rainie Yang as a cam-girl (if you don't know what that is, good for you) and Isabella Leong as a tattoo artist. They happen to develop a romantic relationship.

After seeing the clip, I tried in vain to find a download location so that I could see the film in its entirety. Lacking that, I can't say much about the film in general, but apparently it's been well received by the LGBT community. It even won the Teddy Bear Award at the recent Berlin Festival for Best Queer Film. (See: http://www.varietyasiaonline.com/content/view/829/ and http://www.shadowsonthewall.co.uk/shfesbff.htm) The director, Zero Chou, is herself a lesbian.

That's all well and good, but at the press conference, the director showed some deleted scenes which showed a much more "involved" kiss between the two leads. You can hear the cheering from the audience when this occurs. And I wonder if the resulting attention this publicity stunt might cause throughout the internet might detract from the message, whatever that message may be. All in all, the movie is clearly using the premise of two attractive girls encountering each other physically to bring itself attention.

And looking at the figures, it seems to be working. It sits atop a long list of other short user-submitted films that promise "female comrades" to a (presumably) male audience in China that is hungry to push the digital boundaries of what the state censors officially permit them to view. Just recently, Baidu's Japanese home page (http://www.baidu.jp) was ironically blocked in China because it seemed too many Chinese were interested in viewing the sights and sounds of Japanese bedrooms that were hitherto off-limits to them. (See: http://www.danwei.org/net_nanny_follies/baidu_japan_blocked_in_china.php)

I cannot see such developments as positive even if in this case they come in the package of a movie that might purport to promote tolerance.

For the sake of completeness, here is the video in question; be forewarned as it is NSFW:


And here is a trailer for the movie as a whole: