Roberto F. Canuto and Xiaoxi Xu | 浮果 (Fu Goo) (Floating Melon) / 2015

the hiding place

by Douglas Messerli

 

Roberto F. Canuto and Xiaoxi Xu (screenplay and directors) 浮果 (Fu Goo) (Floating Melon) / 2015 [19 minutes]

 

A Chinese and Spanish co-production Floating Melon we are introduced to a sight seldom portrayed in Chinese films, a young man Xiao Cheng (Vincent Chen Xi) having sex with a slightly older man, Kwan Ming. Evidently he and Xiao Cheng have participated in drugs along with their wine, and suddenly in the middle of sexual intercourse, his partner feels dizzy.

     In the very next fame, Cheng sits up in bed, with what appears to him as a very sick man beside him. What can he do? Such an incident would like be looked up with kindness in any society, but in China where homosexuality, although not outlawed, is highly looked down on by the authorities, it would clearly mean for Xiao Cheng a criminal charge and possibly a sentence of death.

     He wanders his apartment trying to think of what he might possibly do, bringing back to the now terrible ill sex partner half of a melon. He rejects it.

      He strokes and kisses the Kwan Ming, and checks his cellphone again, where he has called his best friends, Fiona We (Wen Sirui) and her partner Lola Liu (Celia You Yinmeng) for their help in the matter. But they have not yet answered.

      He mounts his very sick friend and attempts to bring him back into action, without success. As Cheng looks outside his highrise apartment at the streets of Chengu, his phone continues to beep without success in reaching his friends. But now, he gets utterly no response from Kwan Ming, and can only presume that he has died. He begs him to wake up, with it is without success.

       And we soon see him dressed, now wandering through the streets of Chengdu almost like a zombie among the endless activity around him. Certainly, the young gay boy feels doomed in a society where sexual deviation has always been dangerous. He hears police sirens and, in his mind, he now being tried for substance abuse and described as a murderer.

      Finally, his friends arrive, but Lola refuses to participate, and Fiona stays to find out what happened. Here first words are an accusation: “You couldn’t have met him anywhere else?"

      Lola returns, as they discuss what they can possibly do. But Lola continues to blame him for forcing him to take drugs, etc. He tells her to leave, but she becomes even more abusive, as surely the society will be themselves. Finally, Fiona calms her down, as she walks away to grab a beer, obviously completely accusatory without even being willing to hear what truly happened.

     The follow her, waiting outside the bar. She asks where he got the drugs, and he explains from a friend, she arguing it was probably a fake since everything, she claims, is a fake in China. I just wanted him to stay and spend the night with me, Xiao Cheng responds.

      He responds that he shouldn’t have gotten to two of them involved, “But I didn’t know what to do.”

      Lola finally joins them again with two beers, the two sitting sadly on the street contemplating what to do. Ana and Jo Jo, she announces, just got married in the US, a world of paradisical possibilities clearly for them who feel so isolated in their own world.

      Fiona finally determines that they have to get rid of the body. They stop first by a food stand where others are looking at a new game that looks like a Hollywood movie. And suddenly Fiona runs after a truck containing huge vats, while Xiao Cheng again fantasizes about his arrest and prosecution.

      In the next scene we see they all lugging up one of the huge vats on the stairs, obviously afraid to take the elevator. Xiao Cheng now runs again to check out his apartment as they near it, only to discover that the bed is now empty, Kwan Ming having evidently come round again and left.

      The two women leave, as Cheng crawls back into the now empty bed to contemplate the nightmare he has just suffered. A telephone call from Kwan Ming reacts with “You drugged me and left me alone.” Cheng rushes out and jumps into the huge vat they have left in the stairs, while someone, presumably Ming knocks on his door, Cheng peeking out of his hiding place.

 

Los Angeles, August 27, 2026

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (August 2026).