Outcasts (1986)
Based on the book written by author Pai Hsien-yung and first published in 1983 in Taiwan. A-Qing, a young student is discovered during sex by a night watchman, young A-Qing is beaten and expelled from home by his violent abusive father. In a public park in Taipei he is found by Yang (a middle-aged photographer), who introduces him to three other teenage boys--all abandoned by their families because they were gay. They form a kind of surrogate family. When A-Qing meets Wang Kei-Lung, he falls madly in love.
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good back-story, and good acting
Excellent, a Must See
It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
I believe movies should be judged (if at all) on their own merits, rather than how they might measure up to their literary sources. Different medium, different story. That said, I watched this adaptation of the novel, Nieh-Tzu (Crystal boys) the same day I finished reading the book (in English translation). I read it after cataloging an academic work that touched on the novel's importance related to gay issues in 21st Taiwan. I have not seen the TV series Crystal Boys which debuted in 2003. This film from 1986 may have been groundbreaking in its time (I lack the cultural credentials to know), but from my foreign perspective, it does not bear up well. First of all, the music sounds pretty bad to me, like sappy pop. I appreciate that there is compassion for the young gay boys, but the soundtrack sentimentalizes what gritty dignity they possess. The intimate "Cozy Nest" gay nightclub of the novel is here transformed into the glitzy Blue Angel disco. (More bad music.) It seems as if 2 or 3 characters from the book are conflated into one father figure for the gay boys, which is understandable, and similarly, a landlady's role is amplified into something like a fag hag. I kind of liked her. I also liked the dramatically lit bridge in the park which serves as a cruising area. On the whole, however, I found this version rather disappointing.