I M Not What You Want

In the movie, Lam plays Ricky, a gay university student who had just decided to come out of the closet. Hung plays Ricky’s friend Mark. When Ricky decided to announce to his family his sexual orientation he was warned by his fag hag Olivia (played by Carol Chan) not to. He still pushes through with his decision, not wanting to hide his true personality anymore. True to Olivia’s warnings, Ricky’s parents not only were displeased about his being gay. They could not accept having a gay son that they threw him out of the house shortly after his confession.

Ricky decides to stay at Mark’s place while waiting for things to cool down at his home. He moves in with Mark even if Mark’s girlfriend Mabel (played by Joyee Lam) does not approve of the arrangement. She doesn’t trust Ricky and is uncomfortable with his being gay. As the days go by, Ricky and Mark developed a deeper kind of friendship. Unbeknownst to Ricky, Mark is actually gay. At first Mark struggles with confiding to Ricky about his sexual orientation. He didn’t have Ricky’s confidence and self-assurance on being homosexual. After much internal debate, Mark eventually opened up to Ricky and confesses his feelings. That night, they decided to be together despite Mark not having broken up with Mabel yet. The movie’s ending straddles the line between being heartwarming and causing heartbreak as it deals with the feelings of all the characters.

The first thing that viewers will notice is that I Am Not What You Want does not contain any sex scenes that are common with gay movies nowadays. By removing that plot element, the movie pushes off the gay film stereotype. What it focuses on instead is that what matters is only “love” as there should be no distinction between “gay love” versus “straight love”.

This alternative inspection of love and sexuality also challenges the values and points of view taken mostly by heterosexuals especially in Hong Kong and China. Viewers will find the story tender, and the approach taken towards its subject matter as very compassionate. The portrayals of all the characters and their actions are realistic, which is one of the things that the movie is successful with. The only thing perhaps that makes this movie perfectly well made is that the cinematography can get a bit blurry. It is not evident if this effect is intentionally done by the director, so it can get distracting sometimes.

I Am Not What You Want is only 48 minutes long. Released in 2002, this is director’s Kit Hung second short film. It was presented at the International Festival of New Film in Split, Croatia, the Internationaal Speel Film Festival in Gent, Belgium, and other gay festivals in San Francisco, London, Bangkok, Tokyo, Melbourne and New York. I Am Not What You Want also won a Special Jury Award at the Golden Dragon film festival in Belgium.

Songs

• Flower and Glass, by Chet Lam
• Me and Instant Noodles, by Chet Lam
• Come Closer, by Chet Lam
• One vs Two, by Chet Lam, performed by Lam Yee Man