#Thousands of lesbians boycott film Run for Love# began to trend on Chinese social network Sina Weibo in the week after the film's release.

The film features five romance stories each directed by a different director. The trailer for the story directed by Gao Qunshu, included erotic clips of female characters in bed together and another shot of the pair leaning on each other.

The trailer has the tag line: "True love is courageous. Love crosses distance, gender and everything. Let's run for love on Valentine's Day."

However, moviegoers quickly discovered that two women are in fact the wife and mistress of a man who has recently died. The pair become close as they grieve the man that they both love.

The erotic scenes were actually of each woman having sex with the man, but they had been cleverly edited for the trailer.

"The promotion team of the film used the fact that lesbians want to see a same-sex romance film in cinemas. This is taking advantage of and fooling the homosexual community," wrote feminist Li Tingting, the netizen who started the hashtag, on her Weibo.

Watch the trailer below: