Flow (1996) Online

After watching Mr. Lee's recent feature DRIFT, I was finally able to find a rare copy of his "first" feature FLOW on rental. FLOW was a 360 degree shift from DRIFT. First of all, it was sort of considered his first feature because Mr. Lee cleverly stitched together five of his short films... four of which range from highly experimental to a moving Asian boy meets Asian boy romance, and the last one wraps the four together about the fictional filmmaker's of the four short films.

It's a tough film to describe, because there's just so much in it. The scope of the film is ambituous and exciting which evokes the spirit of New Queer Cinema in the vein of POISON. At the same time, the film feels very personal... It's a very curious and brilliant film... and yes, like every film, there are things that work and don't... but just for the sake of its ambition and willingness to break all boundaries, visually and thematically, it's well-worth watching.

I was fortunate enough to see Flow in one of its earliest screenings at Outfest, the Los Angeles Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, with director Quentin Lee in attendance. The film is actually a "portmanteau" affair, beginning with three strange experimental shorts which are visually striking but may leave you cold. Still, hold on for the final segment, a more traditional narrative featurette with rewarding performances, which opens as two male Asian-American students become dorm-mates at a large university (it was shot at UCLA). One is openly gay, almost militantly so, and the other has a girlfriend who feels there's room for only one bitch around her man. The gay Asian has a stereotypically older huskier white boyfriend, which got a good laugh from the audience I was in, since he's a self-professed "potato queen" who would NEVER date another Asian guy. However, things take an unexpected turn when he meets the supposedly straight platonic pal of his roommate's girlfriend. This was really a refreshing opportunity to see characters that you don't find onscreen everyday. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and would watch it again anytime.