Any good Chinese LGBT drama/ movie recommendations? And where to watch it?
Hmmm I thought I would have a lengthy list of recommendations but limited to just Chinese-language films/dramas, and ones that I would actually recommend, I realise that my list is a lot shorter 😅.
These are pretty much all going to be gay (mlm). Sorry for the lack of diversity 😔. Summaries are taken from Letterboxd for the most part.
Film Recs
(in chronological order)
霸王别姬 || Farewell My Concubine (1993) - China (mainland), Hong Kong - dir. Chen Kaige
Personal rating: 4/5 || [HQ link, EN subs]
Abandoned by his prostitute mother in 1920, Douzi was raised by a theater troupe. There he meets Shitou and over the following years the two develop an act entitled “Farewell My Concubine” that brings them fame and fortune. When Shitou marries Juxian, Douzi becomes jealous, the beginnings of the acting duo’s explosive breakup and tragic fall take root.
东宫西宫 || East Palace, West Palace (1996) - China (mainland) - dir. Zhang Yuan
Personal rating: 4/5
A heterosexual Beijing policeman and a young homosexual challenge each other’s sexuality.
春光乍洩 || Happy Together (1997) - Hong Kong - dir. Wong Kar-wai
Personal rating: 4/5 || [link, EN subs]
A couple take a trip to Argentina in search of a new beginning, but instead find themselves drifting ever further apart.
自梳 || Intimates (1997) - Hong Kong - dir. Jacob Cheung
Personal rating: 4/5 || [link, ZH subs]
Set in Hong Kong and China in the early 1900s, an older Wan and Wai travel through China in search of Foon, Wan's true love. Wai, whose on-and-off status with her boyfriend leads her into a struggle with self-identity, slowly learns about the life of the aging Wan. Through flashbacks, we learn about Wan in her early days and Foon, who move in and out of each other's lives.
美少年之恋 || Bishonen (1998) - Hong Kong - dir. Yonfan
Personal rating: 3/5 ~ 3.5/5 (I flipflop on this lol)
Jet is a gay hustler who one night spots a young man walking with a woman, and falls for him instantly. He does some research, and discovers that the man is called Sam, and is an apparently straight policeman.
蓝宇 || Lan Yu (2001) - China (mainland) - dir. Stanley Kwan
Personal rating: 5/5 || [HQ Link EN subs] [HQ link, ZH subs] - Bear in mind these are both the cut version of the movie. There are about 4 scenes cut from this version, which is unfortunately the most easily found.
A love story between a country boy in Beijing to study and a wealthy businessman set against the backdrop of the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident.
春风沉醉的夜晚 || Spring Fever (2009) - China (mainland) - dir. Lou Ye
Personal rating: 3/5
Hired to spy on a philandering husband, Luo Haitao soon becomes entangled in a clandestine affair with the other man. Along with Luo’s girlfriend, they succumb to the delirium of drunken nights, but how long can their tryst last?
谁先爱上他的 || Dear Ex (2018) - Taiwan - dir. Mag Hsu, Chih-yen Hsu
Personal rating: 4/5 || [HD link, EN sub]
When Sanlian’s ex-husband passes away, she discovers he has altered his insurance policy, cutting out their son in favor of a stranger named Jay.
叔・叔 || Twilight’s Kiss (2019) - Hong Kong - dir. Ray Leung
Personal rating: 3.5/5 || [HD link, EN subs]
One day Pak, a taxi driver who refuses to retire, meets Hoi, a retired single father, in a park. Although both are secretly gay, they are proud of the families they have created through hard work and determination. Yet in that brief initial encounter, something is unleashed in them which had been suppressed for so many years. As both men recount and recall their personal histories, they also contemplate a possible future together.
刻在你心底的名字 || Your Name Engraved Herein (2020) - Taiwan - dir. Liu Kuang-hui
Personal rating: 3.5/5
In 1987, as martial law ends in Taiwan, Jia-han and Birdy fall in love amid family pressure, homophobia and social stigma.
Extra mentions (haven't watched these ones yet but they have decent reviews):
夜奔 || Fleeing by Night (2000) - China (mainland)
Saving Face (2004) - U.S.A
盛夏光年 || Eternal Summer (2006) - Taiwan
Drama Recs
Most of the LGBT dramas I've watched are trash or censored, sorry to say, and I tend to watch movies over dramas, so what's left for me to recommend is just from the HIStory (Linked: wiki with summaries) Taiwanese webdrama anthology:
HIStory1: My Hero (PR: 3/5)
HIStory1: Obsession (PR: 3/5)
History2: Crossing the Line (PR: 3.5/5)
History3: Trapped (PR: 3.5/5)
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Who are all of these people who are drowning in pro-Izzy content to the exclusion of all other characters and have they been in a fandom that actually has a ridiculous overrepresentation of some shitty guy? I see posts like this:
And the problem sounds a lot more like they are objecting to any Izzy content. Because I certainly can't find this overwhelming dominance. So fine. Let's see how popular Izzy is...
There are 12072 OFMD works on AO3 as I type this.
"Israel Hands" is character tagged in 5393 of them. That's 44.7%. Lower than I would expect, seeing as that includes every fic where he's the choice of villain as well as simply present or a focus. 122 of those are tagged "Major Character Death" (out of 225 in the whole fandom), and I suspect that's undertagged by people who don't think Izzy's fate is that important.
Comparably we have Lucius at 3560 (29.5%), Jim at 2226 (18.4%), and Oluwande at 1935 (16%). Lower than Izzy, yeah, but how many of those Lucius fics have him tagged just to get violently killed off or verbally wrecked and sent away for everyone else's happy ending? How many times does the crew show up untagged individually? I'm guessing the numbers of positive fics are probably a lot more equal... But let's see if we can look at this another way.
How about ships?
Izzy's ship fics are probably more likely to be pro-Izzy / significant content, yeah? So I'll break those down.
The most popular ship in the "Israel Hands" character tag is - to no one's surprise - BlackBonnet at 3183 (so 59% of "Israel Hands" character tagged fics, and 26.4% of all OFMD fics are tagged BlackBonnet + "Israel Hands"). I'd guess that number includes a lot of the "villain Izzy getting defeated" stories. Ships that actually have Izzy in them go:
Edward/Izzy at 1287 under "Israel Hands", 1374 (11.4%) total
Stede/Edward/Izzy at 762 under "Israel Hands", 812 (6.7%, probably with a good amount of BlackHands overlap) total
Stede/Izzy at 482 under "Israel Hands", 509 (4.2%, with overlap again) total
Izzy/Lucius at 477 under "Israel Hands", 514 (4.3%) total.
Lucius/Pete btw? 746 under "Israel Hands", 1188 (9.8%) total. Oluwande/Jim has 579 under "Israel Hands" and 1023 (8.5%) total. They both outrank every non-Edward/Izzy ship inside Izzy's tag, and are not far behind Edward/Izzy in total.
Another consideration I can attest to as a BlackHands reader... a lot of those Edward/Izzy fics are labeled "one sided" in various ways (which gets tag wrangled as the ship). 107 are just plain tagged "Unrequited Love". 94 have "One-Sided Blackbeard | Edward Teach/Israel Hands". Or they are toxic / abusive with a different ship endgame - BlackBonnet (tagged on 656 of them, with 389 as SteddyHands) or Izzy/Lucius (tagged on 70) or a negligible ship like Izzy/Frenchie or Izzy/Sam Bellamy.
These numbers are just NOT an overwhelming surge of fan attention. Izzy is not a third protagonist, no, but he's the most developed antagonist with easily 3rd or 4th most screentime / characterization. Having maybe 1/5 or less of the fandom content that you could call "focused" on him is not much or unusual or proof of bias 🙄 (the tag "Israel Hands-centric" is on 341 fics, or 2.8% of OFMD fics, "POV Israel Hands" on 176 so 1.5%, "Soft Israel Hands" on 107 or 0.9%... These are not big numbers).
Do people want to know where all that attention they think is owed to Jim or Lucius or Frenchie or Ivan and Fang is going?
8705 works tagged as BlackBonnet. That's 72.1% of all OFMD fics. Running the "otp: true" search for BlackBonnet ONLY fics pulls up 5764 results, so still 47.7%! Almost half of this fandom's content is ship fic that only covers the OTP without even tagged background ships.
"Blackbeard | Edward Teach" is character tagged in 9698 OFMD fics at 80.3% and "Stede Bonnet" is next in 8889 at 73.6%.
In the 1188 Lucius/Pete fics, BlackBonnet is tagged in 936 of them. That's 78.8% of all Lucius/Pete.
In the 1023 Oluwande/Jim fics, BlackBonnet is tagged in 788 of them. That's 77% of all Oluwande/Jim.
Those BlackBonnet numbers are insane. Fucking Destiel - the biggest ship on AO3, in a show insanely hostile to side characters - is tagged in 107526 fics of 268568 in the Supernatural fandom. That's 40%. You read that right. Less than half. Maybe some more recent tumblr darlings?
Catra / Adora from She-Ra hit 10248 out of 16141, so 63.5%. And they are canon.
Newer, but I've seen Dream / Hob Gadling surging and it's at roughly 500 (the tags need wrangling) out of 1743 in the Sandman (TV 2022), hitting 28.7%
Never watched The Owl House, but Amity Blight / Luz Noceda is the top ship at 7650 of 16277, so 47%. Pretty sure that one is canon too.
Stranger Things has 51424 works, with top ships Steve/Eddie at 10266 (20%) and Billy/Steve at 9046 (17.6%). Again, I don't watch, but I'm pretty sure these are a lot more accurate examples of minor character takeover ships, and Billy especially is the shitty white guy breakout with barely any screentime. Who has been dead for multiple seasons. And it's still beating Edward/Izzy's percentage significantly.
I'm sorry that your fave isn't getting the content you want. It sucks. But this supposed unfair focus on Izzy just does not exist at any level that would actually be impacting other character content.
Anyone complaining about it is not making a complaint about fandom bias grounded in reality.
And anyone who is proposing "solutions" for this lack of content (a questionable proposition already) better have the bulk of their list as "More BlackBonnet writers need to try branching out" or they are just making up reasons to complain about minor content focused on a character or ship they don't like.
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Sometimes you read a fic where the author is clearly and intentionally writing dead dove content like:
These garbage boys are going to torture and gaslight each other until they’re inextricably intertwined 😈 they are going to make each other the most fucked-up and worst versions of themselves 🔪 they will be so codependent and broken they will never be able to be with anyone else after ☠️
And, like, this is probably written by a pretty normal, well-adjusted person. Genuinely. The dove is dead but the author knows that the dove is dead because they killed the dove. On purpose. Gleefully. They were like “wouldn’t it be fucked up if…” and then wrote the if.
But then sometimes you read a fic where the author is like:
uwu these soft boys are soooo cute and in love 🥰 they’re so sweet and pure and good 💕 I just want them to be cutesy-wutesy and in lurveeee forever 😍 this is my new fic about soft boys being soft 💋 this is the height of romance 😘
And then the fic is. Not. The relationship is THE must fucked up, manipulative, passive-aggressive shit show where both characters are being awful to each other, but in the most socially-acceptable heteronormative way where you could 100% picture a friend of a friend telling you this bizarre story at a party while you’re sitting there like wow 😬 straight people are wild who acts like that?
I don’t read fics like that often, but whenever I do I’m always like................... 👀 you good? You doing okay? You seem to think this kind of behavior is, uh. Normal. And, uh, romantic? But these characters certainly seem to hate each other. Not in the narrative, in the narrative they’re super in love somehow but uhhh. Um. You good?
There is such a chasm between people writing something fucked up on purpose vs someone writing something fucked up on accident. And the latter is where things are not tagged properly, and they’re infinitely more disturbing imo.
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𝗲𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗻𝗮𝗹 𝘀𝘂𝗻𝘀𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗲.
➞ pair: yoongi x female reader.
➞ word count: 1k
➞ synopsis: "yoongi and reader making a meal together for yoongi's parents" with a little bit of a domestic twist.
➞ genre: established relationship, husband!yoongi, dad!yoongi, just fluffy fluff fluff, they cook together, dad!yoongi, nothing goes wrong, dad!yoongi, just pure happiness, they also call it tooth-rotting fluff lol, did I mention: DAD!YOONGI ???, they have a babygirl uwu <33
➞ A/N: first off, thank u anon for sending me this super cute prompt, I loved it and had sm fun writing it!! second, EID MUBARAK TO MY FELLOW MUSLIMS OUT THEREEE <3 this is my lil gift for yall on this eid. it wasn't supposed to be this long tbh, and I haven't written anything for over a month, so, sorry if this is kind of messy and all over the place??? im trying to get my sht together again. but I really liked the prompt and!!! had to write it!!!! kkk enjoy bbys <3
ps. any form of feedback is reallyyyy appreciated. I live for compliments :) !
★ MASTERLIST.
ᵎᵎ 𖦹彡⋆。˚・ ─ ・ ⋯ ・ ─ ⊹ ♡₊˚๑
It was one warm spring morning.
Yoongi was back from a long series of concerts just a couple of days ago. Grateful to be finally home with the two people that mean the absolute world to him. Your cat was purring on his chest as the two of you laid on the bed, enjoying the quiet of Saturday that had just begun, when his mother called to announce that, later that evening, she and his father would be coming over.
One thing led to another, and there you stood with your husband in the kitchen. One was chopping ingredients up by the stove, the other handling a mixer. Your two years old baby girl, Nara, was sitting in her high chair somewhere away from the oven and any other harmful thing. What used to be your favorite playlists playing ever so softly in the background as you fixed yourselves your favorite meals, together, was replaced with the mindless blabbering of your sweet baby girl instead, playing with the wooden spoon you had given her to play with some minutes before.
“Is this good?” Yoongi dipped the tip of his finger into the mixture he’s been working on, and carefully brought it up to your lips. You hummed in satisfaction as soon as the flavors hit your taste buds, a little bit taken aback at how he nailed your mother’s secret recipe only in the first try, “Great. You’re getting so good at this, Yoonie. I think you should take over kitchen duties very soon.”
He snorted, “If that means I’ll never have to do the laundry ever again, then sure.”
Feigning annoyance, you hissed at him, “You’re so lazy.”
“No one likes doing laundry, honey. Not even you.”
"You're so annoying."
Your daily bickering banters were disturbed by the sound of his phone ringing from the other room. He left to take the call, leaving you with your noisy little baby. The chef hat she had on her head–Yoongi's idea, by the way, along with the tiny apron she wore as well–was almost too big on her. It made her look a thousand times more adorable that you immediately started grinning and cooing when she looked up at you.
"And what about you chef? Are you having fun?"
She balled her fists up and raised them in the air, wiggling in her seat to let you know that she wanted to be picked up. Being the ever so whipped mom that you were, you scooped her up in your arms right away, and peppered kisses all over her chubby face. Her giggles seeped through your skin and locked into your bones, aching with a sickeningly utmost adoration.
“Mom said they’re almost here.” Said Yoongi upon entering the kitchen, putting his phone atop the table and smiling as soon as his eyes fell on the two of you—his girls.
“Are you being a good chef assistant, baby?” He cooed, kissing her cheek, then leaning in to leave a peck on your lips.
“She’s been blabbering her life off the whole time you were gone." you hummed.
“Mom is going to have a good time conversing with her this evening.”
“We’re almost done cooking now.” You reminded him, “Honey, check on the oven please.”
“Right.”
A wave of heat hit his face as soon as he opened the oven, but he smiled once he checked on the muffins, “they are done.”
When he took the tray out and swiftly put it on the counter, Nara erupted in a fit of loud blabber, flailing the arm that clutched on the wooden spoon in the air and almost smacking your face in the process.
It had your husband giggling, of course. He couldn’t help but join in and engage with her blather, how could he not when he got such an adorable chatterbox for a child? “Huh, Nini? The muffins are done! Yeah!”
He took her into his arms, allowing you to go check on the stewpot that was still boiling on the stove, before bringing her to have a look at the tray of the mouth watering muffins, and cheered, “look!”
Your heart, yet again, swooned, almost oozing out of your ribs with how tight your chest grew to be at the sound of your baby’s joyful squeals. She was all excited as her daddy showed her around the process of cooking the dinner for her grandparents.
Nara was having the time of her life. For some reason, she's always loved being in the kitchen. Yoongi once made a comment about her becoming a successful chef, which then turned into a long, heartwarming talk about your daughter and her future. The gentle smile Yoongi had on his face throughout that was one to die for, especially when he sulked about not wanting your babygirl to grow up. His pout was so intense, you ended up engulfing him in a bone crushing hug for almost half an hour.
It was moments like this one that you wished were pictures so you could cut them up and hide them. Somewhere deep inside your heart. Forever. That's how you often found yourself observing and admiring every single interaction your husband made with your baby, and that’s how you ended up listening attentively as he continued to talk so passionately and earnestly with her, while simultaneously attempting to work with his free arm to the best of his abilities.
She, at one point, got so ecstatic that she accidentally thrusted her arm forward and hit him in the face with that spoon. But he only turned to look at you with an affectionate smile.
Struggling through a fit of giggles, you slipped the wooden object from her grasp and gave her a big kiss; making sure to squish her doughy cheeks—a trait that she definitely got from her father, “No more hitting mama and papa for you!”
The little girl’s squeaks only got louder as she reached out with her arms towards you, addressing you with more words of her very own and special language.
“Family hug?” you asked, glancing at a grinning Yoongi.
“Family hug!” He wrapped his free arm around you, bringing your body closer so that Nara could get a hold of you as well, then added, “but let’s make it a short one or else my parents are going to come to a burnt dinner.”
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