Chinese GL

Picking up from aurumcalendula's post a couple of days ago, here's a subtitled version of the trailer for A Pair of Rabbits (双兔, pinyin: shuang tu), a possible GL airing on iQiyi on 27 December. It stars Yang Fuyu, who has appeared in a number of GL mini-dramas and short films, and Liang Jingxian, a more mainstream actress who played Tie Xinlan in the 2020 adaptation of Gu Long's Handsome Siblings (绝代双骄, pinyin: juedai shuang jiao). As of the time of writing, I can't find it on iQiyi international, so presume it's limited to iQiyi China (correct if I'm wrong), at least for the time being. While there's no detail about how long each episode will be, it's branded as a 'short drama', and shows which have previously aired on iQiyi with that label seem to be about ten to fifteen minutes per episode.



Some shippy BTS and promo videos can be viewed on the drama's official Weibo and Douyin accounts.

I'm personally not quite sure how GL this will actually end up being, given that the gauntlet that the most recent GL and would-be GL mini-dramas have had to run. Liu Yun Rui's The Canary in the Cage (笼中雀, pinyin: long zhong que; previously known as In the Old Mansion (旧宅深, pinyin: jiuzhai shen)) had so many cuts that it barely made sense as a cohesive story; Zhang Zhiwei's The Lost World (夏夜知道风的甜, pinyin: xiaye zhidao feng de tian) was straight-up taken down from its airing platform; and Qi Xiaxia's A Transient Dream (浮华梦, pinyin: fuhua meng) had to be re-edited to make the protagonist a man. Though the overall level of shippiness in the trailer and promos is promising.

I was going to subtitle a longer film with Sheng Wei in it today (it features transmigration), but since I'm incredibly tired (due to a combination of hormones, having just returned from a trip to Wales, and the prospect of a fun but packed weekend), I did a shorter (and dialogue-light) one instead. Such are the factors that govern my creative choices. The link to the original video is here, and the subtitled version can be viewed below.



In dramas, etc, the 'Westernised woman latterly returned from abroad' vs 'traditional woman who very much stayed at home' tend to be cast as romantic rivals (and signifiers of different sets of values) for the affections of the male lead. There's been a recent trend among content creators on Bilibili and Douyin of making videos where the two archetypal women become friends/allies/lovers instead (you can see it in, for instance, some of Liu Yun Rui's more recent work). Yet another topic I would love to read multiple essays on.

Yet another sapphic shampoo ad directed by Liu Yun Rui! This one is environmental-themed, and takes the discharge of nuclear wastewater from Fukushima plant as its starting point. Before the full version was released, I was somewhat on the fence about subtitling it in case it got uncomfortably nationalistic (as I've seen happen on Chinese social media), but fortunately I don't think it is overtly so (YMMV, of course).


I wrote up an overview of Liu Yun Rui's previous GL work earlier, here it is.

Another sapphic shampoo ad directed by Liu Yun Rui! This one is set in the Republican Era and, as is typical for things set during that period, ends in tragedy. The subtitles aren't amazing but that's what I get for doing this while (1) feeling under the weather and (2) juggling about a million other things to do.

Let's start by getting an important point out of the way: there is, to date, no live action adaptation of a baihe novel which has already aired. The authors of the two most popular current-generation baihe novels, Miss Forensics (我亲爱的法医小姐, pinyin: wo qin'ai de fayi xiaojie) and Reading the Remnants (问棺, pinyin: wen guan), have indicated that they have been approached about possible live action adaptations, but both have turned down these advances due to concerns about the major plot and relationship changes that would be needed to allow the adaptations to air. However, a live action adaptation of the extra from the contemporary baihe novel Kissing a Gardenia (都什么年代了啊, pinyin: ou shenme niandai le a) by Qi Xiao Huang Shu (七小皇叔), author of Reading the Remnants, has been filmed by an independent production team and is currently in post-production. This is projected to be a 30- to 40-minute film, and will air under the title When We Met (去年烟火, pinyin: qunian yanhuo; my preferred and more literal translation of the title is Fireworks of Yesteryear). The production team's Weibo account can be found here, and a subtitled version of their BTS reel can be viewed here. A live action adaptation of She Is Still Cute Today (今天的她也是如此可爱, pinyin: jintian de ta ye shi ruci ke'ai; also known as She Is Also Cute Today), the high school baihe manhua by Guo Si Te (郭斯特), completed filming in 2022, but at the time of writing, remains unreleased.

Mapping the landscape of GL live action is a complicated task, due to (i) censorship rules precluding mainland Chinese productions from being advertised explicitly as GL or baihe, meaning that the more ambiguous marketing tag of 'double female lead' is used instead; (ii) censorship rules meaning that any such production must rely heavily on subtext and coding instead of explicit displays of romantic affection or sexual interest; and (iii) the overlap between GL live action productions and what I think of as 'serious queer/lesbian cinema'. But I will do my best.

( Full-length dramas )

( Mini-dramas and short series )

( Short films )

Special thanks to superborb for doing the thankless grunt work of proofreading and checking each link.