Cinema of the World

Description: Taiwanese lesbian director Zero Chou's latest film, Spider Lilies (Ci qing), seems on the surface to be light and music video-like, with its bright colors, cybersex story line and tattoos. But this film, which won the Teddy Award for Best Feature Film at the Berlin Film Festival, is actually quite an intense story about the impact of trauma on the lives of two women and their families...

Jade (played by Taiwanese pop star Rainie Yang) lives with her grandmother but operates a cybersex webcam out of her bedroom. She plays up her youth, appearing on-camera in school uniforms and carrying on conversations with her dolls.

She decides that a tattoo will make her look even sexier online, and she visits a tattoo parlor operated by Takeko (played by Hong Kong actress Isabella Leong) to make a selection. The large tattoo of golden flowers — spider lilies — on Takeko's arm triggers a memory in Jade: Takeko was the older neighbor girl Jade had a crush on when she was 9. Jade decides she should get the same tattoo...

The contrast between the cartoonish quality of Jade's sex-kitten webcam persona and Takeko's serious demeanor heightens the on-screen chemistry between these two women: opposites attract indeed. They look great together...

...I did enjoy this intense film and appreciated its unique story line. With film festivals full of coming-out stories, girl-meets-girl tales and lesbians-considering-children films, it's great to have a film where, as in Takeko's case, sexuality is important to the plot but is explored in tandem with other aspects of a character's psychology and history.

~ by Suzanne Corson





http://rapidshare.com/files/217594093/Spider_Lilies.avi.001
http://rapidshare.com/files/217593915/Spider_Lilies.avi.002
http://rapidshare.com/files/217594108/Spider_Lilies.avi.003
http://rapidshare.com/files/217593835/Spider_Lilies.avi.004
http://rapidshare.com/files/217593867/Spider_Lilies.avi.005
http://rapidshare.com/files/217594366/Spider_Lilies.avi.006
http://rapidshare.com/files/217595345/Spider_Lilies.avi.007
http://rapidshare.com/files/217593116/Spider_Lilies.avi.008
http://rapidshare.com/files/217591081/Spider_Lilies.srt

eng subs
no pass