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baihe_mediaAsaurumcalendula highlighted in this post, the short films directed by Liu Yun Rui (流云蕊) are one of the fandoms nominated for this year'sfestivids, so I thought it might be helpful, or at least interesting, to have a look at her GL work over time, and in particular how she became known for her series of feminist, sapphic shampoo ads mostly (though not always) starring actresses Sheng Wei (圣微) and Ai Ye (爱野) (known affectionately within Chinese fandom circles as the 'shampoo ship').
Liu Yun Rui's first overtly GL work (or at least, the first one to be uploaded to her Bilibili account) is a 2020 short film featuring Sheng Wei and Ai Ye in Qing Dynasty(-inspired) costumes and settings. It is in essence a very opulent MV set to 'An Itch' (痒, pinyin: yang) performed by Huang Ling (黄龄), filled with a kind of languid yearning. There's no dialogue, nor is there really any plot, but a popular fan headcanon is that it depicts a love story between two women who are married to the same man (one as his wife and the other as a concubine), and take advantage of his absences to indulge themselves.
Following the Florasis advert, Liu Yun Rui went on to release another three GL-themed adverts in 2021. The first of these is for the shampoo brand Adolph (who would go on to become one of her longtime sponsors/collaborators), and stars Qi Xiaxia and Li Li (莉莉). It is also reincarnation-themed, and tells the story of the same characters across three different lifetimes. The design and packaging for the shampoo in this advert was inspired by the Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海经, pinyin: shan hai jing), a classical compilation of Chinese mythic geography and beasts. In keeping with this, in the first two lifetimes, the actresses play human embodiments of some of the mythical creatures described in the text.
The second of these three adverts once again features the pairing of Sheng Wei and Ai Ye, which will recur a lot in her later work. This is an advert for facial wipes from the brand Allmed, and stars Sheng Wei as Emperor Huizong (徽宗) of the Song Dynasty (the nature of the medium means it's not really important to establish why Emperor Huizong is a woman in this AU, though I will note that female emperors are a not uncommon motif in baihe novels) who falls in love with the courtesan Li Shishi (an actual historical figure, who did have a romantic relationship with the historical Emperor Huizong), played by Ai Ye. In this version of the story, Li Shishi is a cat spirit. The two of them are forced to separate when the Jin army invades the Song Empire, and the cat spirit lives through multiple lifetimes until she finally encounters the reincarnation of Emperor Huizong again.
The last of Liu Yun Rui's GL-themed adverts to be released in 2021 is for another makeup brand, HH. This one stars Qi Xiaxia and Ai Ye, and is more light-hearted in tone. Ai Ye plays a webnovelist — to be precise, the author of the webnovel Silly Disciple Wants to Flirt with Her Shifu — who falls asleep at her desk, and in accordance with the best webnovel traditions, finds herself in the world of her own book, transmigrated into the body of the titular 'silly disciple'. She then proceeds to have flirty interactions with her shifu, played by Qi Xiaxia, until she's woken up in the real world by her friend/romantic interest, who looks exactly like her shifu from the dream.
2022 saw the release of three more GL-themed short films from Liu Yun Rui. The first is set during the Republican Era, and features the by-now familiar duo of Sheng Wei and Ai Ye. Visually, this is essentially a string of loosely-connected scenes featuring Ai Ye looking fragile and tortured and yearning (something she's very good at) while Sheng Wei looks majestic and somewhat inscrutable. The voiceover narration, however, turns it into the story of an assassin (Ai Ye) pining away for her handler (Sheng Wei).
Perhaps even more significantly, 2022 also saw the release of the first two sapphic shampoo adverts — both for the brand Adolph — in the format for which Liu Yun Rui has now become known. In the first of these, Ai Ye plays a fox spirit whose life was once saved by Sheng Wei's character, a noblewoman whose family has since fallen from grace. On learning that the noblewoman has been compelled to marry an abusive man, the fox spirit arranges for herself to be taken into the same household as her husband's latest concubine. The two of them join forces to give their husband the violent end he fully deserves.
In the second of these adverts, an opera singer (Ai Ye) and a noblewoman (Sheng Wei) fall in love, and the latter gallantly rescues the former from an abusive sex work situation. However, the triple forces of patriarchy, social hierarchy and homophobia mean that they are unable to stay together, and the noblewoman is compelled to marry a man her family considers 'suitable', leaving the opera singer to grieve alone. Two different versions of this advert were produced, with the second one ending on a happier note.
2023 saw Liu Yun Rui build on this productive streak, releasing (as of the date of writing) six sapphic shampoo adverts (plus one with a hetero romance), all of them for Adolph. The first of these is set during the late Qing Dynasty, and once again stars Sheng Wei and Ai Ye. Ai Ye plays Gu Shuyi, a traditionally brought up young woman who has been sent by her foster family to seduce a wealthy businessman named Bai Fengsheng. Sheng Wei plays his sister Bai Yuwei, a modern woman who has been given a Western education. The two of them gradually come to realise that, despite their seemingly very different experiences and outlooks, they're both prisoners of the patriarchy. The film ends with them running away together, breaking free of the confines of their feminine roles.
In the second of these 2023 adverts, Ai Ye plays Gu Qingcheng, a dispossessed heiress, while Sheng Wei plays Lin Ran, her bodyguard. The film begins with Gu Qingcheng committing suicide after being betrayed by her brother and husband. When she is reborn at a point before these betrayals happened, she vows not to let history repeat itself, and Lin Ran is all too happy to help her.
The third of these adverts features Sheng Wei alongside a different actress, Zhi Chun He (至春禾). Zhi Chun He plays Yulu, a young woman who is desperate to receive an education, but is preventing from doing so by her strict father, who believes that women have no place in the schoolroom. Sheng Wei's character, A-Ni, teaches her to how to read and write women's script (女书), a now-extinct script that was historically used among women in Jiangyong County in the Hunan Province. When Yulu's father discovers what she's been doing behind his back, he locks her up, but she manages to send a message to A-Ni in women's script. The two of them escape, and go on to found a school which takes female students.
The fourth of these adverts pairs Sheng Wei with Wang Laoji (aka Wang Xuexi - Jiji) (王学习-吉吉), her co-star in the mini-dramas Ye-Mu 1, Ye-Mu 2, A Flower for Three Lifetimes, Nü Er Hong, and more. Sheng Wei plays A-Ying, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Known within her city as the 'Little Tyrant', A-Ying regularly terrorises and bullies the local residents. At his wits' end, her father enlists Wang Laoji's character, a jianghu adventurer adventurer named Huaixue, to teach her a much-needed lesson.
With the fifth of these adverts, we return once again to the familiar pairing of Sheng Wei and Ai Ye. This is again set in the Republican Era. Sheng Wei plays Wanting, an ambitious woman who has received an excellent Western-style legal education. As she is not permitted to practise law, she has to settle for being her lawyer husband's secretary and helpmeet. Ai Ye plays Wenxiu, a close friend of Wanting who is stuck in an abusive marriage. When Wenxiu is arrested for killing her husband in self-defence, Wanting defies her husband (and society at large) by insisting on defending Wenxiu in court.
The sixth (and so far, latest) of these adverts released in 2023 is also set in the Republican Era, and sees Sheng Wei playing the role of a spy (almost certainly from the Communist Party, although the film doesn't say so expressly) who has been sent to infiltrate a warlord's household while disguised as a young (male) soldier named Song Yuan. Unexpectedly, she finds herself getting along well with the warlord's daughter Shen Wanqing, played by Ai Ye. The latter soon discovers her secret, and helps her escape the warlord's mansion so that she can bring vital intelligence to her comrades.
These shampoo adverts all feature feminist themes, and clearly show the lead characters fighting against and/or escaping from patriarchal violence and restrictions. Hair-washing, and the use of the featured shampoo, is presented as an act of care and healing between the lead characters.
In June 2023, Liu Yun Rui wrapped filming on a projected entitled In the Old Mansion (旧宅深, pinyin: jiu zhai shen), a mini-drama starring Sheng Wei and Ai Ye and due to be aired on Bilibili. The project revisits a number of familiar themes from Liu Yun Rui's work, and the synopsis runs as follows:
aurumcalendula highlighted in this post, the short films directed by Liu Yun Rui (流云蕊) are one of the fandoms nominated for this year'sfestivids, so I thought it might be helpful, or at least interesting, to have a look at her GL work over time, and in particular how she became known for her series of feminist, sapphic shampoo ads mostly (though not always) starring actresses Sheng Wei (圣微) and Ai Ye (爱野) (known affectionately within Chinese fandom circles as the 'shampoo ship').Liu Yun Rui's first overtly GL work (or at least, the first one to be uploaded to her Bilibili account) is a 2020 short film featuring Sheng Wei and Ai Ye in Qing Dynasty(-inspired) costumes and settings. It is in essence a very opulent MV set to 'An Itch' (痒, pinyin: yang) performed by Huang Ling (黄龄), filled with a kind of languid yearning. There's no dialogue, nor is there really any plot, but a popular fan headcanon is that it depicts a love story between two women who are married to the same man (one as his wife and the other as a concubine), and take advantage of his absences to indulge themselves.
Following the Florasis advert, Liu Yun Rui went on to release another three GL-themed adverts in 2021. The first of these is for the shampoo brand Adolph (who would go on to become one of her longtime sponsors/collaborators), and stars Qi Xiaxia and Li Li (莉莉). It is also reincarnation-themed, and tells the story of the same characters across three different lifetimes. The design and packaging for the shampoo in this advert was inspired by the Classic of Mountains and Seas (山海经, pinyin: shan hai jing), a classical compilation of Chinese mythic geography and beasts. In keeping with this, in the first two lifetimes, the actresses play human embodiments of some of the mythical creatures described in the text.
The second of these three adverts once again features the pairing of Sheng Wei and Ai Ye, which will recur a lot in her later work. This is an advert for facial wipes from the brand Allmed, and stars Sheng Wei as Emperor Huizong (徽宗) of the Song Dynasty (the nature of the medium means it's not really important to establish why Emperor Huizong is a woman in this AU, though I will note that female emperors are a not uncommon motif in baihe novels) who falls in love with the courtesan Li Shishi (an actual historical figure, who did have a romantic relationship with the historical Emperor Huizong), played by Ai Ye. In this version of the story, Li Shishi is a cat spirit. The two of them are forced to separate when the Jin army invades the Song Empire, and the cat spirit lives through multiple lifetimes until she finally encounters the reincarnation of Emperor Huizong again.
The last of Liu Yun Rui's GL-themed adverts to be released in 2021 is for another makeup brand, HH. This one stars Qi Xiaxia and Ai Ye, and is more light-hearted in tone. Ai Ye plays a webnovelist — to be precise, the author of the webnovel Silly Disciple Wants to Flirt with Her Shifu — who falls asleep at her desk, and in accordance with the best webnovel traditions, finds herself in the world of her own book, transmigrated into the body of the titular 'silly disciple'. She then proceeds to have flirty interactions with her shifu, played by Qi Xiaxia, until she's woken up in the real world by her friend/romantic interest, who looks exactly like her shifu from the dream.
2022 saw the release of three more GL-themed short films from Liu Yun Rui. The first is set during the Republican Era, and features the by-now familiar duo of Sheng Wei and Ai Ye. Visually, this is essentially a string of loosely-connected scenes featuring Ai Ye looking fragile and tortured and yearning (something she's very good at) while Sheng Wei looks majestic and somewhat inscrutable. The voiceover narration, however, turns it into the story of an assassin (Ai Ye) pining away for her handler (Sheng Wei).
Perhaps even more significantly, 2022 also saw the release of the first two sapphic shampoo adverts — both for the brand Adolph — in the format for which Liu Yun Rui has now become known. In the first of these, Ai Ye plays a fox spirit whose life was once saved by Sheng Wei's character, a noblewoman whose family has since fallen from grace. On learning that the noblewoman has been compelled to marry an abusive man, the fox spirit arranges for herself to be taken into the same household as her husband's latest concubine. The two of them join forces to give their husband the violent end he fully deserves.
In the second of these adverts, an opera singer (Ai Ye) and a noblewoman (Sheng Wei) fall in love, and the latter gallantly rescues the former from an abusive sex work situation. However, the triple forces of patriarchy, social hierarchy and homophobia mean that they are unable to stay together, and the noblewoman is compelled to marry a man her family considers 'suitable', leaving the opera singer to grieve alone. Two different versions of this advert were produced, with the second one ending on a happier note.
2023 saw Liu Yun Rui build on this productive streak, releasing (as of the date of writing) six sapphic shampoo adverts (plus one with a hetero romance), all of them for Adolph. The first of these is set during the late Qing Dynasty, and once again stars Sheng Wei and Ai Ye. Ai Ye plays Gu Shuyi, a traditionally brought up young woman who has been sent by her foster family to seduce a wealthy businessman named Bai Fengsheng. Sheng Wei plays his sister Bai Yuwei, a modern woman who has been given a Western education. The two of them gradually come to realise that, despite their seemingly very different experiences and outlooks, they're both prisoners of the patriarchy. The film ends with them running away together, breaking free of the confines of their feminine roles.
In the second of these 2023 adverts, Ai Ye plays Gu Qingcheng, a dispossessed heiress, while Sheng Wei plays Lin Ran, her bodyguard. The film begins with Gu Qingcheng committing suicide after being betrayed by her brother and husband. When she is reborn at a point before these betrayals happened, she vows not to let history repeat itself, and Lin Ran is all too happy to help her.
The third of these adverts features Sheng Wei alongside a different actress, Zhi Chun He (至春禾). Zhi Chun He plays Yulu, a young woman who is desperate to receive an education, but is preventing from doing so by her strict father, who believes that women have no place in the schoolroom. Sheng Wei's character, A-Ni, teaches her to how to read and write women's script (女书), a now-extinct script that was historically used among women in Jiangyong County in the Hunan Province. When Yulu's father discovers what she's been doing behind his back, he locks her up, but she manages to send a message to A-Ni in women's script. The two of them escape, and go on to found a school which takes female students.
The fourth of these adverts pairs Sheng Wei with Wang Laoji (aka Wang Xuexi - Jiji) (王学习-吉吉), her co-star in the mini-dramas Ye-Mu 1, Ye-Mu 2, A Flower for Three Lifetimes, Nü Er Hong, and more. Sheng Wei plays A-Ying, the daughter of a wealthy merchant. Known within her city as the 'Little Tyrant', A-Ying regularly terrorises and bullies the local residents. At his wits' end, her father enlists Wang Laoji's character, a jianghu adventurer adventurer named Huaixue, to teach her a much-needed lesson.
With the fifth of these adverts, we return once again to the familiar pairing of Sheng Wei and Ai Ye. This is again set in the Republican Era. Sheng Wei plays Wanting, an ambitious woman who has received an excellent Western-style legal education. As she is not permitted to practise law, she has to settle for being her lawyer husband's secretary and helpmeet. Ai Ye plays Wenxiu, a close friend of Wanting who is stuck in an abusive marriage. When Wenxiu is arrested for killing her husband in self-defence, Wanting defies her husband (and society at large) by insisting on defending Wenxiu in court.
The sixth (and so far, latest) of these adverts released in 2023 is also set in the Republican Era, and sees Sheng Wei playing the role of a spy (almost certainly from the Communist Party, although the film doesn't say so expressly) who has been sent to infiltrate a warlord's household while disguised as a young (male) soldier named Song Yuan. Unexpectedly, she finds herself getting along well with the warlord's daughter Shen Wanqing, played by Ai Ye. The latter soon discovers her secret, and helps her escape the warlord's mansion so that she can bring vital intelligence to her comrades.
These shampoo adverts all feature feminist themes, and clearly show the lead characters fighting against and/or escaping from patriarchal violence and restrictions. Hair-washing, and the use of the featured shampoo, is presented as an act of care and healing between the lead characters.
In June 2023, Liu Yun Rui wrapped filming on a projected entitled In the Old Mansion (旧宅深, pinyin: jiu zhai shen), a mini-drama starring Sheng Wei and Ai Ye and due to be aired on Bilibili. The project revisits a number of familiar themes from Liu Yun Rui's work, and the synopsis runs as follows:
During the late Qing Dynasty, orphaned Bai Wei schemes to marry into the Zhao family in order to take revenge on its patriarch, Zhao Tianbao, who was responsible for ruining her own family. However, her plans are discovered by his concubine, Liu Rushuang. Liu Rushuang uses this to blackmail Bai Wei into promising her her freedom. The two are compelled to work together, and over time they become even closer than sisters. They think their scheme is flawless, but little do they know that Zhao Tianbao's son Zhao Tianyou has been watching their every move...There is no firm release date for the mini-drama yet.
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Date: 2023-10-24 10:40 pm (UTC)(By the way, I think the the html for the first video (The Little Disciple and Her Beautiful Shifu) is messed up? There's a blank space where the embedded video should appear.)
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Date: 2024-02-03 11:53 pm (UTC)Thank you for putting this together! I ended up receiving a treat that linked to this post as making the vid possible, and this was the fandom I was most excited about this year, so: Thank you! (Also like for all the other work you do to compile and translate this content!)
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