Writer-director Jun Li received a degree in journalism from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, and in his self-referential film Queerpanorama, the journalistic impulse is embedded in its very conception. Jayden Cheung plays the protagonist, a solitary gay man living in Hong Kong who structures his life around sex. He meets most of his partners on hookup apps, and most are expats (some snarkily refer to him as a “local”). He peppers each of his partners with questions about their lives, and at each new encounter, he takes on the name and profession of the last man he had sex with. Li modeled the film on his own sex life, noting in an interview that Queerpanorama is “very much autobiographical. The inspiration happened when I was getting penetrated. It just came to me while I was having sex and I thought, ‘Oh, that would be a good idea!’” The men that Cheung’s character has sex with, accordingly, are based on some of Li’s own past sexual partners, and many are non-professional actors playing themselves. Shot in crisp, evocative black-and-white by director of photography Yuk Fai Ho, Queerpanorama is as aesthetically appealing as it is sexually forthright, but the film is undercut by its muted tone and inherently insular nature.
While the episodic structure of Queerpanorama precludes a traditional character arc for its unnamed protagonist — the “real” name of this character who tries on a multitude of identities is never revealed — Li does slowly unfurl his initially inscrutable protagonist’s state of mind with each new scene. He is intellectually curious and artistically inclined, but also struggles with depressive episodes, telling one partner that he took up smoking after reading a warning on a package that cigarettes “kill you slowly.” For Cheung’s character, sex takes on many roles in his life beyond momentary pleasure: it’s a form of casual social contact, of temporary escape from his own unsettled identity, and, possibly, a source of deeper interpersonal connection.
The actors playing the one-night stands give performances of varied effectiveness, as is to be expected from an ensemble consisting of both professionals and non-actors playing themselves. The naturalistic, often lengthy scenes include extensive small talk, and Li and his actors never quite manage to make these awkward minutiae of pre- and post-coital interactions cinematically compelling. Some of the desultory conversations do reach more provocative places, particularly when domestic and global politics filter into the lovers’ discourse. The repressive political environment of Hong Kong and the lingering effects of the 2019 pro-democracy protests subtly inflect the film, and through the many conversations onscreen held between men of different nationalities, Li thoughtfully probes the relative nature of personal and political freedom within this complex sociopolitical environment. Take, for example, a pithy observation made by a Taiwanese flight attendant, who has recently broken up with a long-term boyfriend rather than move with him to the UK: “When I am in Europe, I always wonder how much they care about human rights when you have to pay to use the toilet.”
Elsewhere, Li shoots Queerpanorama‘s sex scenes with frank clarity. He neither downplays nor sensationalizes sex; sex acts involving poppers, lingerie, and dildoes that might be depicted as cheaply titillating by other filmmakers are treated as casually by Li as platonic cuddling. Li’s approach to sex on film, however, veers a touch too close to being overly distanced. Most of the sex scenes take place in a frame within a frame: within the already-compressed Academy ratio the film is shot in, doorways and walls often close in on sex acts that tend to occur deep in the frame. These multiple distancing devices lend an impersonal, near-clinical tone, and in combination with the protagonist’s own emotional remove, the viewer is placed a few degrees too far outside of the situation to fully engage. Li’s overly distanced approach to Queerpanorama’s sexuality is symptomatic of a larger issue with the film: the circular sexual odyssey Li depicts is ultimately too inwardly focused, keeping the viewer at arm’s length not only from the sexual acts themselves, but from the development of his protagonist’s interiority. The array of queer men depicted in Li’s film is indeed panoramic, but Li struggles to fully pair the external variety with internal depth.
Published as part of NYAFF 2025 — Dispatch 1.
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