Beautiful Men
Du Haibin
Release year: 2005
Run time: 100 min
Film type: Documentary
Synopsis
Set in a famous drag bar in Chengdu, Sichuan, this film explores the on- and off-stage lives of three of the club’s drag queen dancers. Sister Sha, was the bar owner’s first love. Now 47, he still practices and performs, but has become the butt of the troupe’s jokes. Qingqing, a veteran dancer, is married with a baby daughter. And Xixi, a rising star, plans to marry his lesbian girlfriend in order to please both their parents.
Every night at ten o’clock, these men take to the bar’s stage to perform a ballet number or a folk dance. Year in year out, the peach blossoms are the same, but the faces smiling back are different.
Director biography
DU Haibin, filmmaker, teaches at the School of Film in China Academy of Art. He graduated from the photography department at Beijing Film Academy in 2000, and started documentary filmmaking and creative photography work since 1998. His works include Doudou (1999), Along the Railway (2000), Under High-rise Buildings (2002), Beautiful Men (2005), Film Childhood(2006), Stone Mountain (2006), Umbrella (2007), 1428 (2009), and A Young Patriot (2015). Among his many awards, Along the Railway was named Best documentary at the Festival du film indépendant Chinois in Paris and won Special Mention at the International Documentary Film Festival in Yamagata, Beautiful Men won the Best Asian Documentary award at the IFF in Pusan, 1428 won the Orizzonti Award for Best Documentary at the Venice International Film Festival.