Farewell my concubine

Helen Hok-Sze Leung

Farewell My Concubine: A Queer Film Classic is a thought-provoking consideration of Chen Kaige's acclaimed 1992 Chinese film set in the mid-20th century about two male Peking opera stars and the woman who comes between them, set against the political turmoil of a China in transition. The film's treatment of gender performance and homosexuality was a first in Chinese cinema, and the subject of much controversy there. The movie,which helped to bring contemporary Chinese films onto the world stage, won the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival (the first Chinesefilm to do so), and was nominated for a Best Foreign-Language Film Oscar.