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Spring Fever

Director: Ye Lou

Writer: Feng Mei

Cast: Qin Hao, Wu Wei

Country: China

Synopsis: Luo Haitao has been hired by Wang Ping’s wife to spy on the passionate relationship between her husband and another man, but slowly loses control of the situation. With his beautiful girlfriend, Li Jing, he is drawn in to the affair, overcome by the fever of drunken spring nights. All are possessed by an exhilarating madness of the senses, a dangerous malady that leads the heart and head astray... [Synopsis courtesy of Cannes Film Festival]

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Round-Up: "Evoking the graphic sex in John Cameron Mitchell’s 'Shortbus,' which stirred the Cannes fest three years ago, full on sex with scenes that don’t use cinematic trickery to imply intercourse hit the screen within moments of the film’s opening and are peppered liberally throughout," indieWIRE's Brian Brooks wrote of "Fever". The film follows Wang Ping (Wu Wei), whose wife suspects him of adultery. She hires Luo Haitao (Chen Sicheng) to spy on him and discovers that her husband’s ongoing trist is with a man, Jiang Cheng (Qin Hao). "I didn’t film homosexuality," Brooks reported director Ye commenting, "I showed feelings and complex relationships. While evaluating these relationships, I show a complex world.” Reviews for the film have been generally mixed. Screen Daily's Howard Feinstein noted that the film "a poignant note with floral imagery," though admits that while Ye "does delve successfully into more universal subjects such as loyalty, betrayal, and obsession," an "overall triteness undermines their impact." Variety's Derek Elley, meanwhile, calls "Fever" "overlong and very Euro-flavored," though he singles out actress Jiang Jiaqi as "superb," noting her scenes "are among the few authentically emotional and gripping sequences in the movie, which otherwise schematically moves feelings and characters around at the script’s convenience." Utpal Borpujari seems to agree, writing for Dear Cinema.com that he was rather confused as to what exactly the film was trying to say, and that Lou’s "storytelling gets somewhat convoluted with one relationship moving to another."