Film Review: Utopians 同流合烏 (2015) - Hong Kong
Reviewed by Andrew Chan (Film Critic Circle of Australia)
I rated it 7/10
Rating: ★ ★ ★ 1/2
Support my reviews by buying me a Coffee! https://buymeacoffee.com/neofilmblog
Support our reviews by buying from official DVDs / Blu Rays at NeoFilmShop.com
There is a fearless, almost reckless sincerity to Scud’s Utopians (2015) that I found both disarming and occasionally exhausting. This is not a film that politely knocks on the door of your comfort zone; it kicks it open, removes its clothes, and invites you to join a conversation about desire, freedom, and what a truly liberated life might look like. For that audacity alone, it earns respect.
The story follows Hins (Adonis He Fei), a gentle, literature-obsessed university student in Hong Kong who drifts into the orbit of a charismatic philosophy lecturer. What begins as intellectual mentorship quickly evolves into a sensual, hedonistic journey involving art, travel, multiple partners of various genders, and a sustained interrogation of pleasure as a form of philosophy. Scud, who also wrote and produced the film, is working in the tradition of directors like Derek Jarman and Rainer Werner Fassbinder—filmmakers unafraid to treat the body as both temple and battlefield.
Visually, Utopians has a dreamy, sun-drenched quality. Hong Kong and Thailand locations are captured with a lush, tactile intimacy that makes the screen feel alive. The explicit scenes—frequent, lengthy, and unapologetically frontal—are not mere provocations. They are the film’s central language. Scud uses nudity and sex the way other directors use dialogue: to reveal character, expose vulnerability, and challenge societal hypocrisy. In an era of coy mainstream queer cinema, this level of candor is refreshing, even if it occasionally tips into self-indulgence.
Adonis He Fei brings a genuine wide-eyed innocence to Hins that anchors the more outlandish elements. He never feels like a prop in a sexual fantasy; he feels like a young man genuinely awakening. The supporting cast, particularly the magnetic lecturer figure, provides the necessary gravitational pull to keep the film from floating away into pure erotic reverie.
Where Utopians loses a few points for me is in its occasional pretentiousness. The philosophical monologues can feel less like organic discovery and more like the director working through his own manifesto. At times the film mistakes repetition for depth, circling the same ideas about utopian living without always pushing them into fresh territory. It is also, by design, quite plot-light—more tone poem than traditional narrative—which may frustrate viewers looking for conventional dramatic stakes.
Yet I cannot dismiss the film’s fundamental optimism. In a world quick to shame pleasure and police bodies (especially queer bodies in Asian cinema), Scud’s insistence that happiness, sensuality, and intellectual freedom can coexist feels almost radical. Utopians is messy, sincere, and occasionally beautiful. It is the work of an artist who refuses to apologize for his vision.
A solid, provocative recommendation for adventurous viewers. Not for everyone, certainly, but for those willing to surrender to its particular spell, it offers something increasingly rare in modern cinema: genuine freedom of thought and flesh. (Neo, 2026)