Homosexual men (and lesbian men) in a heterosexual genre: three gangster films from Hong Kong.
Of the East Asian film genres that have captured the attention of film goers internationally, it should be of little surprise that martial and heroically masculine genres have been the most popular, for violent action translates well into any language. Although it has been no secret that male martiality often leaks into homoerotic desire (on the part of the audience, too), three Hong Kong films from 1998 have finally explicated the generic homosexuality that the action genre has been (defensively) ashamed to admit all along. However, rather than posit this textual homosexuality as transgressive, the generic forces under which these films operate rewrite their homosexualities, both gay and lesbian, into generic modes fashioned around regressive oppositions of gender, and not progressive liberations of sexuality.
Grossman
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D001154:Art; D003415:Crime; D005260:Female; D005783:Gender Identity; D006716:Homosexuality; D018452:Homosexuality, Female; D018451:Homosexuality, Male; D006723:Hong Kong; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D009040:Motion Pictures