Summary
With his first film, Taiwanese-Austrian filmmaker C.B. Yi arrives as a fully-formed voice with a unique point of view.
C.B. Yi’s debut film premiered Un Certain Regard at Cannes this year, shining a global light on the less explored area of LGBTQIA+ issues in China. Yet MONEYBOYS (尋找) can also be seen as broad exploration of the outsider experience and sex work in China within Yi’s gorgeously framed Taiwan-set visuals.
When we meet Fei (Kai Ko), he is starting his career as an illegal hustler. He sends money back to his family in a rural village, but he can’t be open with them about either his job or his homosexuality. When one of Fei’s clients pushes things too far, his overprotective boyfriend Xiaolai (JC Lin) steps in with violent results. To avoid the law, Fei leaves Xiaolai and moves to to another city.
Five years later in another city, Fei is living a comfortable life and settled into his role of hustler. Fei’s ties to his past, including his own internal sense of responsibility to his family, are made tangible when Long (Bai Yufan), a childhood friend from his village, comes to stay. As Long tries to start a relationship with Fei, a reconnection with Xiaolai sparks a series of conflicting emotions.
The first thing you’ll notice about MONEYBOYS is just how gorgeously shot it is. Cinematographer Jean-Louis Vialard, who we recently saw some impressive work from in Terrorizers, uses lush neon blues and pinks to frame these characters in bars and stunning apartments. These shots are often juxtaposed with naturally lit village or street life, drawing a visual dividing line between the two worlds that Fei treads.
While often melancholic, and not quite the positive LGBTQIA+ story that some may be looking for, Yi’s depiction of homosexuality in Taiwan/China — along with his observational approach to sex work — never feels anything less than authentic. As Fei is unable to live openly with family, Yi sets up the narrative as a series of contrasts to further demonstrate that divide: ornate tea ceremonies are immediately followed by sexual encounters. Family meals at home are followed by a long take of a bus trip back to the city.
The back third of the film occasionally feels a little compressed and uneven, perhaps due to the last-minute need to adjust the story after Yi moved the movie from China to Taiwan. (The director has stated that this was due to budgetary reasons, but it’s hard to imagine this film being produced on the mainland without some degree of censorship).
MONEYBOYS is the first of a planned thematic trilogy, including Paris-set Purelands, about a student protecting and a third set partly in Paris in the 60s as well. With this debut, the Taiwanese-Austrian Yi arrives with a point of view that transcends geographic boundaries, and it will be exciting to see what he does with connected material against a different backdrop.
2021 | Taiwan, Austria, France, Belgium | DIRECTORS: C.B. Yi | WRITER: C.B. Yi | CAST: Kai Ko, JC Lin, Bai Yufan, Chloe Maayan | DISTRIBUTOR: ARP Sélection, Flash Forward Entertainment, Taiwan Film Festival in Australia 2021 | RUNNING TIME: 120 minutes | RELEASE DATE: 16 September – 30 September 2021 (TWFF 2021)
