Although the film censorship board has relaxed its guidelines to allow gay movies recently, however its superior - the Home Ministry - remains as conservative as ever.

It has issued a warning letter to popular Chinese political magazine Special Weekly a few days ago for displaying the ‘Happy Together' poster.

This is a 1997 Hong Kong movie directed by renowned director Wong Kar Wai starring famed actors Leslie Cheung and Tony Leung.

Its poster was considered bold at that time as the two famous stars are pictured hugging and kissing each other, half naked.

NONE The poster was used as a picture in an article by Ouyang Wen Feng, a popular columnist based in New York.

He openly revealed that he is gay a few years ago and has championed equal treatment for gays as well as a non-discriminative perspective towards sexuality.

The article, published on April 19, welcomed the recent more liberal stance of the censorship board and the impending release of first ever local gay movie - ‘Dalam Botol' at the end of the year.

‘Dalam Botol', directed by rookie Khir Rahman, describes the tragic fate of a local gay couple and is slated to hit theatres at the end of the year.

The article also included some other gay movie posters but not as bold as ‘Happy Together'.

It's believed that Home Ministry is not happy with the half naked hug that between the two men.

In its letter, the Home Ministry criticised the poster as "immoral" and "would affect the emotions of the public".

This is also the second warning sent by the ministry on Ouyang's column. He received the first for an article on homosexuality in the same column last year.

ou yang wen feng ouyang wen feng Ironically, in this second article to receive a warning, Ouyang ( right ) said he thought that his column would not face harassment from the Home Ministry any more after the censorship board's decision to allow the release of ‘Dalam Botol'.

"It is good... It shouldn't be a problem for me to touch on homosexuality in Special Weekly from now on," he wrote.

The Home Ministry's action has raised questions among media practitioners as other publications had featured the poster many times since the movie's release 13 years ago.

When interviewed by Malaysiakini yesterday, the ministry's publishing and Al-Quran text control unit secretary Zaitun Abd Samad was unable to comment on the warning letter as the relevant information was not with her.

However, she stressed that the media is not allowed to publish any posters of gay movies as it is "against the law".

Whose story is it?

In a related development, the relaxation of regulations by the censorship board to allow gay, Mat Rempit and ‘pondan' (transsexual) movies also didn't receive a positive response from the independent filmmakers.

As the director of award winning independent movie ‘At the End of Daybreak' Ho Yu Hang, put it, there's nothing to be happy about as the characters are required to ‘repent' at the end of the movie.

"This is not a good development, because it is not your story. It becomes their story," he explained.

"What does ‘repent' mean? It means a homosexual becomes a heterosexual," he added.

lelaki komunis 060506 amir muhammad He has some reservations on ‘Dalam Botol' as this first local gay film might need to adhere to this rule and the gay character will be required to ‘repent'.

However, he did not rule out that control by censorship board may be further eased in the future and filmmakers will be able to expand their boundaries.

Another filmmaker, Amir Muhammad ( right ), who directed the controversial film ‘The Last Communist', also opined that it is up to the filmmakers to be creative in handling the guideline.

"They should fight for their works by looking for alternative distribution (if their movie is not allowed to be shown)," said the director.