PART ONE

My mom often talks about her youth—about the college entrance exams reinstated after the Cultural Revolution, the one-log-bridge path to university, the chaos of being sent to the countryside, how she met my dad while living in the dorms. I never understood why, even in college, one had to be anxious about finding a future husband. Why did people have to marry immediately after graduation? Why did my mom, completely unprepared to raise a child, still end up having me just a few years into her marriage? And why, when she was meant to become a scientist, did she end up teaching art—a subject she disliked and which had nothing to do with her field of study? I always felt that era was full of helplessness, chaos, and confusion. Until I returned to China in 2016 and realized: despite all the supposed progress, everything remains the same at its core.

On paper, gender equality has been achieved in China. The Constitution guarantees equality between men and women. The Law on the Protection of Women’s Rights covers marriage, employment, education, and more. The Anti-Domestic Violence Law was enacted in 2016. The Civil Code outlines rules for divorce, asset division, and child custody. But if all this is true, why is it still so hard to seek justice for domestic abuse? Why are rape sentences so light? Why is the age of sexual consent so low? Why is it so difficult to collect evidence? Why is everything taken so lightly? Why is there a “cooling-off period” for divorce? Who is it protecting—women or men? Or is it about birth rates and so-called social stability?

If things are truly that good, why was I set up on a blind date by my male boss at my first job—with a male coworker I didn’t even know? Why was I forcibly kissed by a male colleague I barely knew at my second job? Why was I warned not to talk to another male coworker just because “he has a girlfriend”? What kind of gender stereotype is that? Am I not allowed to talk to men just because I’m a woman? Why did women in my second company who held the same positions all come from overseas or top universities like Tsinghua or Peking University, while the men—holding even higher positions—often came from third-tier schools or had no degree at all? Where did all the social resources go? Why did my mom always teach me how to sit and stand like a girl should—warning me not to appear too “strong” or I wouldn’t find a partner? Everyone knows what’s going on. Women bring life into the world, and men struggle for survival—and this kind of division is still called equality?

In California, I can file for divorce directly. If the other party doesn’t respond within 30 days, it’s considered uncontested—unless they decide to go to court. California is a community property state, which means all income, assets, and debts acquired during marriage are split equally. Property acquired before marriage, gifts, or inheritance are considered separate property. Child custody and visitation are based on the child’s best interest, usually favoring joint custody. But there’s still a mandatory 6-month waiting period—what kind of rule is that? Is this designed to trap abused wives? Turns out, China and the U.S. really aren’t that different after all.

Against this backdrop, I watched the film Summer Palace.

PART TWO

To say I wasn’t angry would be a lie. I truly don’t understand why a woman who clearly shows signs of not-so-mild depression—who keeps a diary to organize her thoughts, who hangs out by the swimming pool because being in her room triggers her depression—is filmed in this fractured, quiet, “aesthetic” way. Depression is not fractured. It’s not calm. It is manic, extreme, and destructive. I’m tired of Lou Ye’s foggy, slanted lens, the long stares into the distance, a single tear running down Hao Lei’s face. I wanted to leave halfway through, but I wasn’t alone. The person I came with wasn’t even sitting next to me, so I had to wait until they finished watching. And why is diary-writing demonized? I don’t get it. I write a diary—so what?

Yes, Hao Lei is beautiful, stubborn, and intense—but she’s also naive, reckless, and makes problematic choices. I seriously doubt a mentally healthy person would make these choices. Knowing Zhou Wei doesn’t respect her at all, she still gets entangled with him over and over again. Generally speaking, if your prefrontal cortex, amygdala, hippocampus, and thalamus are functioning normally—and your serotonin, dopamine, norepinephrine, and cortisol are within range—a woman’s brain should mature around 22, and a man’s around 25. So if someone’s in their teens or early twenties and has emotional control issues or hypomanic tendencies, that’s still within the range of normal. The behavior of Zhou Wei, Hao Lei, and Li Ti in college—poor self-control, bad decision-making, and possibly mental health issues—makes their betrayals and cycles of breaking up and getting back together somewhat understandable.

Li Ti’s character is really strange. She’s clearly the kind of woman who admires and is brave enough to approach someone like Hao Lei—she must be into her, even obsessed. She introduces Zhou Wei to Hao Lei and even gives them her room key. That doesn’t sound like someone with low emotional intelligence. On the contrary, she’s capable of getting Zhou Wei to Germany, proving she has both decisiveness and execution power—she’s not lacking in intelligence or ability. So why would a woman like that stay entangled with Zhou Wei while maintaining a façade with Ruo Gu, whispering in bed with Hao Lei all the while? It seems like she likes Hao Lei much more than Zhou Wei. If she was secretly in love with Hao Lei, that would explain a lot—why she could sleep with Zhou Wei without guilt, why she could stay with Ruo Gu even though she didn’t love him. Because she didn’t love either of them, and naturally, neither of them loved her. I don’t believe a man can keep sleeping with a woman who passionately loves him without feeling anything in return. That’s more the trait of someone who would eventually marry you—not someone who feels nothing.

Now I’m wondering—was this subplot intentionally embedded? The first time Li Ti talks to Hao Lei, she says, “Either you’ve been heartbroken, or you’re gay.” Hao Lei just smiles. Later, Li Ti introduces Zhou Wei—“the guy all the girls in the department want to sleep with”—to Hao Lei, who immediately hooks up with him. That feels like a test. Giving the key to Hao Lei instead of Zhou Wei feels like a gesture of protection. Like how Hao Lei teaches little Dongdong to masturbate on the pipa, Li Ti gives her the “best” guy to her. Isn’t that also a form of care and affection?

Shit. I think I just discovered a huge secret.

PART THREE

The more I think about it, the more something feels off. To cast Hao Lei, Lou Ye literally put the entire production on hold—just to wait until she was ready to shoot. But when it came to Zhou Wei, the originally cast Liu Ye left due to delays, and they replaced him with someone else. The director didn’t seem to care. That says it all: Zhou Wei wasn’t the point—Hao Lei was.

And then there’s Li Ti. Her taste in women—Hao Lei—already reveals a striking, almost masculine boldness, and her attitude toward sex is equally distinct. Lou Ye could’ve cast someone like Dongdong to play Li Ti. Instead, he chose Hu Ling, whose look is noticeably androgynous. Interestingly, Liu Ye had just finished starring in Lan Yu, a queer romance. If he had stayed on, maybe it would’ve been easier to surface the unspoken, possibly queer undercurrents among the three characters. That actually makes my theory seem even more plausible.Relationships in this film are always triangles—Zhou Wei, Li Ti, and Hao Lei; or Li Ti, Zhou Wei, and Ruo Gu. As soon as the triangle breaks, everyone scatters. Either Hao Lei leaves, or Li Ti jumps off a building. It’s as if balance only exists in threes—never in twos.

But what if my theory is wrong? I still have major issues with this script. Two women—clearly intelligent, emotionally experienced—are portrayed as emotionally unstable, hysterical, self-sabotaging, and totally lost when it comes to love or career. That might be understandable in college, but years into adulthood? That’s a stretch. Take Li Ti: she’s sharp enough to have known all along that Zhou Wei didn’t love her. If she was truly looking for love, she would’ve looked elsewhere. This kind of writing seriously underestimates her.

If that’s the case, Summer Palace has its value, but not much—just like how I felt about The Unfinished Film. If you truly want to understand June Fourth, watch a documentary. If you really want to communicate information about a pandemic, go into journalism. As a film—as a screenplay—being written and made like this, it’s hard to endorse.He said that once he understood love, he understood the world. Personally, I don’t think he made anything clear at all—and he still seemed quite pleased with himself.

Lou Ye knew from the very beginning what kind of impact this film would have on Hao Lei. After she initially turned it down, he insisted on putting the entire production on hold just to wait for her. After making this film, Hao Lei was banned from acting for three years—and she broke up with Deng Chao. Lou Ye, a man who basically predicted Yu Hong’s future, knew exactly what would happen, how people would judge her, how men would use this film to hurt her—and still, he placed her in a position so vulnerable, so exposed. And all of this, just for the sake of his so-called “artistic creation,” caused her real-life harm.

It’s the height of double standards—he got what he wanted, then played innocent. I absolutely cannot go along with that.