Banana Queers
Release year: 1991
Country: Hong Kong

A unique collection of award-winning shorts explore the emotional landscapes of banana queers (those yellow on the outside, white on the inside) gay boys who must contend with double discrimination for their skin colour as well as sexuality.

China Dolls documents the trials and tribulations of Asian gay men growing up in predominantly white Australia, and is directed by Hong Kong immigrant Tony Ayres.

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Yellow Fever tells the story of Monty, a gay Chinese anglophile desperately seeking his white knight when a chance encounter with his neighbour from Taiwan turns his world upside down.

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Stanley Beloved, a Eurasian teenager comes clean to his best friend on Stanley beach on the day he discovers he must soon leave Hong Kong for England.

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Fall 1990 is a campus romance between an ex-gigolo who enrolls in a California university and falls for his classmate, a middle-class Korean-American recovering from a painful breakup with his girlfriend.

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Beautiful Mystery
Release year: 1993
Country: Japan

Shinohara is a young bodybuilder who joins a para-military sect in Northern Japan. Amidst the discipline and rigor of the group, his instructor, Takizawa, develops a special interest in this new recruit. Before long, they develop a special and loving relationship. Japanese with English subtitles. One of the so-called Japanese "Pink Films," this adult-themed film follows a young bodybuilder who develops a special relationship with his instructor in a paramilitary group. A non-explicit examination of homosexuality in Japan.

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Big Heat
Release year:
Country: Hong Kong

Wong Wai Pong, an honored and experienced senior police inspector, is compelled to resign from the Royal Hong Kong Police when he finds out his right hand is suffering from neural spasms. Wong shelves his resignation letter after he knows of the brutal murder of his informant, Wily happens to be his very good friend for many years. Wong is determined to nail the murdered himself, before he resigns. With the help from a Malaysian police officer, Ong Chat Fu, who brings with him some substantial evidence, Wong is able to work on the first suspect, a shipping tycoon called Ho. They suspect Ho of killing Wily because the latter blackmail him with photos of his scandalous homosexual activities. To Wong's surprise, he finds himself under some kind of mysterious surveillance...

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Bishonen
Release year: 1998
Country: Hong Kong
                                                                                 One of the best Gay themed films to come out of the Hong Kong cinema. As the title declares, beauty is everywhere in this movie, from the cinematography, the music, right down to four of the hottest male stars around today (Daniel Wu, Stephen Fong, Terence Yin and Jason Tsang). Daniel Wu in his first screen role shows he's got what it takes to hold an audience's attention. Wu plays Sam, a tortured police officer that cannot embrace his homosexuality, but cannot deny either. His inability to except who he is causes him to runaway from those he loves. This makes the overly melodramatic end of the film understandable yet unfulfilling. The ending it regrettable but the steamy shower scene between Sam and the up-in-coming rock star played by Terence Yin is unforgettable! The character that steals the picture not to mention your heart is Jet, the narcissistic male escort/call boy exquisitely portrayed by Stephen Fong. He plays Jet with all the arrogance the part demands, but then gives the character an honest vulnerability that brings tears to your eyes. Director Yonfan may have been inspired by the real-life scandal of a few Hong Kong Police officers who were willing to be photographed in and out of uniform, but ended up with a beautiful film of people interwoven in purpose and passion.

Reviewer: The Long Yang Club - Denver

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The Black Lizard
(Kuro Tokage)
Release year: 1968
Country: Japan

Black Lizard is the nickname of the heroine of this classic Japanese film, the story of a mysterious jewel thief played by Akihiro Maruyama, a female impersonator. Visually stunning, Black Lizard is best known for its screenplay adaptation by Yukio Mishima, one of Japan's most prolific and respected gay writers of classics Confessions of a Mask and The Sailor Who Fell from Grace with the Sea, who appears in the film as one of the Black Lizard's eerie human statues. The film was released two years before Mishima committed suicide by ceremonial seppuku at age 45.

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Body Weapon
Release year: 1999
Country: Hong Kong

Chui Man Cheuk, Angie Cheung and Stephen Au are cops, Wu, Ling and Lee assigned to investigate a rape case but who are also in a bit of a romantic triangle. Ling marries Lee but their wedding night is interrupted by the rapists and Lee is murdered. Ling and Wu go out for revenge with Ling taking some rather strange advice from a homosexual sifu who teaches her where the male G spot is and how to use her body to lure men (hence the title). The plot is pretty much the standard revenge story that has been the template of numerous martial arts films. Thrown into this mix of sleaze, brutality and surrealism are some not bad fight sequences.

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Bombay Boys
Release year: 1997
Country: India

At the airport in Bombay, three strapping young men of Indian extraction are quizzed as to the purpose of their trip. The bloke from England, Xerxes Mistry, is on a quest to 'find' himself; the chap from Australia, Ricardo Fernandes, is searching for his brother; the guy from New York, Krishna Sahni, is seeking to further his acting career. They all end up in the back of a taxi, then go on to share a flat in a high-rise overlooking Bombay, each one managing to land in some kind of hot water. Sahni gets implicated in a film that a shady producer wants to flop as a tax write-off to launder 'black money'. Ricardo scours the phone book for his brother's name among the one million 'Fernandes' listings, and falls for the shady producer's uninhibited mistress. Xerxes gets into scrapes while deciding if he's gay and tries to rehearse with a group of drug-addled musicians, the Bombay Boys, who claim to be big in Bangladesh despite having neither lyrics nor their own instruments ("that's a simple technicality"). And in one rollicking East-meets-West digression, the three pumped-up wayfarers strip for cash to a roomful of Bombay women in saris and sunglasses.

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Booty Call
Release year: 1997
Country: USA

A pair of friends out on a double date in New York's Chinatown run into a little problem after dinner--both of their lovely young women are ready to take things to a more intimate level, but neither fella has the requisite latex protection! Thus begins a series of misadventures as the guys hit the streets looking in vain for the goods to insure their "booty call".

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The Broken Hearts Club
Release year: 2000
Country: USA

Dennis  is a gay 28-year-old, West Hollywood photographer who's begun to grow tired of having casual sex and is looking for something more. As he does so and attempts to provide some guidance to Kevin, a 23-year-old who's just starting to come out of the closet, his various gay friends also find themselves confronting their sex, social and love lives. There's Cole, the handsome actor who seemingly has no problem leading a life filled with nothing but casual sex. Howie, on the other hand, hasn't been able to get over his breakup with Marshall; Benji finds that he's looking for love and sex in all of the wrong places; while Taylor, the most flamboyant of the bunch, has just been dumped via a long distance phone call. Patrick, who laments the fact that he's not as good looking as his friends, faces an entirely different dilemma. His sister, Anne, wants him to donate his sperm to her lesbian lover, Leslie, so that they can have a child together. As the men hang out at the "Jack of Broken Hearts" restaurant and club owned by their "mother hen," Jack, and discuss all things homosexual, the men try to sort out their various relationships and ideologies about their romantic lives.

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The Buddha of Suburbia
Release year: 1993
Country: Great Britain

Coming-of-age "dramedy" about Pakistani immigrant's son mixes sex, race, rebellion in 1970s London. Lengthy, but not a moment is wasted for those interested in slice-of-life look at acculturation issues.
 

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Bueno Aires Sero Degree
Release year:   
Country: Hong Kong

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Bugis Street
Release year:  1996 
Country: Hong Kong

An off-beat coming-of-age story set in the late 60s of exotic Singapore.  A wide-eyed 16-year-old girl comes from a rural village to work in a hotel populated by transvestite prostitutes in Singapore's red light district.  Admidst colorful lives of the "girls" and the distraction of beautiful and hunky young Johns she discovers the secrets and pains of love, sexuality and womanhood.

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Bungee Jumping On Their Own
Release year:  2000
Country: Korea

In-woo and Tae-hee are two college freshmen who didn't believe in love at first sight, but later find themselves wrapped in a deep relationship that would last forever. One day they vow to make their love eternal by sealing it with a bungee jump. But their promise is never fulfilled when Tae-hee suddenly disappears out of In-woo's life for what seems like eternity.
Seventeen years later, In-woo is still unable to get Tae-hee out of his mind even though he's married and has a loving family. While giving a lecture to his students, In-woo is reminded of the memorable times he spent with Tae-hee when one of the students asks about his first love experience. From this point on, In-woo thinks nothing of it until the student rehashes habits and sayings that are so reminiscent of Tae-hee. Clinging onto his hope that he will meet Tae-hee once more, a strange mystery unfolds as In-woo tries to discover who this student really is.

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Burlesk King
Release year:  1999
Country: Philippines

Set in the uniquely Filipino world of macho dancers comes this wonderfully entertaining melodrama of one young man's bitter seach for his parents - a journey which takes him throught the steamy underbelly of male prositution, gay bars and sensuous nude dancing.  (Tagalog with English subtitles)

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But I'm A Cheerleader
Release year:  2000
Country: USA

Megan's super normal suburban existence is filled with friends,  pom-poms and rah-rah enthusiasm until her straight-laced parents suspect that their "little poodle" may, in fact, be showing lesbian tendencies. In a complete panic, Megan's parents elicit the help of her friends and the guidance of the homosexual rehabilitation facility, True Directions, to mount an intervention. Mike a True Directions counselor, leads the intervention and before Megan can pack her pom-poms she is whisked off to learn how to be a perfect heterosexual woman. True Directions is run under the strict, all-seeing eyes of queen homophobe Mary Megan dutifully gets with the deprogramming so she can quickly return to her life of boyfriends, football games, and her absolute favorite activity - cheerleading. However, she resists the first step of the "rehabilitation" process which is to admit she is gay. In fact, she really does not believe she is a lesbian, until she meets Graham, a sexy tomboy who has also been sent to the camp. In a  harming twist of romantic fate, Megan realizes she may have found her true direction in the most unlikely of places.

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We hope you have found the Long Yang - Denver's
Queer Asian Cinema
informative.  If you know of a film with a gay Asian character that is still available to rent or buy, please drop us an e-mail and tell us about it so we can add it to our list!