not an easy watch but an illuminating aesthetic and feeling experience〜 not as I expected really a depiction of social attitudes in a homophobic society but an exploration of one man working out his psychological, emotional survival in that society, the fine line between love and hurt 、self-realization and self-disgust、 acceptance and rejection ：who was it who said　”beauty can come out of a dunghill” ? beautiful imagery of nature and the eponymous palace in cinematography and sound ( Chinese opera ) 〜Si Han acted sensitively and convincingly
it is interesting to note that gay love was an accepted part of civilization in China (as in Japan) for hundreds of years ironically persecuted in current supposedly humanitarian times is it really a decaying palace or a decaying society where love is driven into the night and memorials of a past cultured civilization ?