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Standard Stuff
This series is a dichotomous BL, bordering on being oxymoronic. Sometimes brilliant then slipping into utter banality. Occasionally poignant but mostly filled with mundane trite tediousness. Sporadic displays of serious adult behaviors but mostly overshadowed with adolescent/pubescence behavioral patterns acting like petulant teenage children instead of adults in a serious sexual relationship. Occasional storylines eliciting tears and then in the next dialogue nothing but endless dribble of clichés and platitudes. In other words, not generally reflecting real life but an idealized sanitized world peppered with a whisper of reality and an occasional homage to authenticity. The best word to describe this series is: puffery. I simply had a hard time relating to this story.You can read my full review of this pretty standard BL at BLBliss.com.
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A Mature BL
While the story revolves around the relationship of an older couple, it is so so much more than that. Kakei Shiro (Nishijima Hidetoshi) and Yabuki Kenji (Uchino Seiyou) are both well into their 40s and are steep in Japanese culture. Shiro is an uptight lawyer, rigid in his thinking, terrified of being overtly gay, certainly closeted, although his family knows. He is frugal to the point of being labeled a ‘penny-pincher’ and sticks rigidly to sets of rules and budgets. Kenji, on the other hand, is a bit more extravagant and sort of ‘open’ in his gayness. He is a hairdresser. Never hiding it and yet does try to fit into the societal norms and desperately tries to fit in with what Shiro wants to keep things orderly. Over the course of their relationship, we see that Shiro changes more so. Sometimes, more subtlety but steadily, into how Kenji thinks and behaves. The two begin to mesh and blend and honestly act more like a married couple than most married couples.Was this review helpful to you?
A giant pity party that went nowhere
This series had the earmarks of being an intellectually stimulating exercise in love relationships. The premise was so good, initially. Then it drifted into a giant pity party of self-indulgent behavior that frankly I just did not get. Again, as so often is the theme in BLs, there is NO COMMUNICATION. No one says that they mean. And sometimes, even if they do, I do not understand. These series become so circumvent and I felt nothing for it or its characters. If this was supposed to be a romance story, it failed on every level. It was boring.Was this review helpful to you?
It Is Their Destiny
This is a continuation story of Teh and Oh-aew. While the other two previous stories were phenomenal and profound story, this one just did not hit the mark for me. But I must quality that statement. It is NOT because of poor acting. Quite the contrary. This is one of the finest acted BL series from Thailand in a long time. The story itself is also superb. What left me empty and profoundly sad was the realization that these two loved each other with every fiber of their beings but it just is not enough to sustain a solid relationship. For me, their love is toxic. Their own inner demons stop them from actually becoming real true individuals. Their love is more what is supposed to be than what it really is. For me, that was sad.Was this review helpful to you?
The Boat Left The Island
Frankly, I am not sure how I sat through this miscue. It is an inferior story with pedestrian acting. There I said it and am glad I did. I just do not know when these sappy BLs, will end. This is yet another in a L-O-N-G line of them. What saved this series from being on my Bathos List is the cinematography. The water scenes are exceptional but there are not nearly enough of them. If you are going to have a story about mermen, how about showing more of them and their communion? This whole story is so cliché driven and full of tropey other side-characters that quickly you begin to realize that this will be no different than a whole bunch of other Thai BLs of the same ilk. Dull, lifeless characters with no personalities. Love scenes that are more rehearsed made to feel quite quaffed and polished but not concrete. Couples with little to no screen chemistry and lightweight sexual tension. In other words, a zero-believability factor. While the merman scenes were quite good, there were so few of them that they almost were secondary to the story. This series started out so promising but swam off into the deep end not because of the actions of the mermen but because of the poor script and lifeless characters.Was this review helpful to you?
An Honest & Real BL - Heartfelt
This is one of the more honest BLs to come out of Japan in a very long time. It is also surprisingly sincere and heartfelt. It had a deeply personal grok about it. There was an unawareness of the feelings that the individual protagonists were realizing, and those susceptibilities were projected into their actions and to a degree manifested into who they became and are. This BL is misunderstood. To understand this series, you must take it at its face value. Do not read into it more than is there; on the other hand, do not assume that what you see is all that is there. What is here is a story about two guys who grew up liking each other and were wounded by that. For that was in a stage of life in a culture when that could not be cultivated, and frankly the only acceptable way to display one liking another was by tormenting (bullying) the other. In this way, you fostered a warped sense of connection. This connection was usually expressed by a strange need to be close to and near each other for any reason. Yet, it was because of that unique bond where each just could seem to be able to escape the other. It became a hunger for both. It only brought him nearer to his tormentor. The tormentor could then socially express his love. Provided that expression was not too painful. Unfortunately, in ALL cases, it always ends up being so. Always.Was this review helpful to you?
Silly and Unnecessary
This diminishes and takes away from the story. Perhaps it is just me, but I found the narrative with the spin-off to be a bit too contrived and unnecessary. It slips the story back into banality. It is completely unnecessary. This series is a remarkable study of the character development of two rather asymmetrical individuals who needed each other, found each other, and for lack of a better term and become the epitome redefining the term, soulmates, a term I truly detest using. What is further astonishing is no one else sees it except one – at the end in the spin-off. And all this did was took away from the story; not add to it. Do not bother to watch this. It is unnecessary and takes away from the impact of the story iteself.Was this review helpful to you?
A Visual Guide For Dating
One would have to be completely dead inside to not get a warm cozy feeling from watching this film. It is a joy to behold and drink in. And it is so astonishingly relatable because it is happening to ordinary people under very ordinary situations. It is a pure story of love with its only requirement being someone courageous enough to make the first move. Honestly, one does not need to read manuals, books, or listen to experts on how to find love; all one needs to do is watch this movie. It gives you a step-by-step visual presentation of what to do. This is a complete joy to watch!Was this review helpful to you?
A Series That Spins Its Wheels
This series looks and feels good, superficially. It had all the earmarks of being a very good story but fell so flat as the story progressed. It seemed to lack an ending that wanted to make a definitive statement; so, it chose to go cute. The series is just too short to develop any meaningful characters, which is a serious problem. It tried to be light fluff with a serious matter which I wish they would have treated with solemnity. Also, quit treating gayness with kit gloves. If you are going to show two men trying to be in love, give us something that shows that. It languished so much.Was this review helpful to you?
Raw, Gritty & Intense
This is a movie that lays out in detail all the ugliness of the darker side of Thai society that we do certainly not see in BLs. Since I honestly know little about the political inner working of Thailand, I do not know whether this chronicle is based on some semblance of truth or not. However, as in any premise, I do believe some kernels of truth and honesty are no doubt in this screenplay and part of it must be taken at face value. We tend to not want to think of or perhaps see that a fantasy land of ours (such as Thailand) has a darker side to it, but it does. And this movie presents a very dark, depressing, look at that reality. There is no romance here nor any hint of a BL; but it does present a side of the adult entertainment industry we tend to dismiss or pretend does not exist as we glaze over or gloss over the geo-political strife that might also exist in that part of the world when we watch BLs in the comfort of our homes.You can read my full review of this movie at BLBliss.com.
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A Trilogy Masterpiece
If you had asked me way back when if I would have given this whole trilogy a thumbs-up, I would not have. I dislike intensely exploitive and abusive-themed series, especially gay ones, for entertainment purposes, but this one was so beautifully choreographed and focused. It is a love story defined by them, experienced by them, and simply words are inadequate to identify their relationship. I do not know how to describe their relationship beyond inadequate words like fervent, inseparable, and unending. Their ‘red string’ to borrow a concept is tied inexorably between them. If there is a connection greater than ‘soulmates’ these two share that. This, along with the other two, are masterpieces of artistry and cinematic storytelling.Was this review helpful to you?
Immature and Silly With No Plot
Honestly, I do not think this series was deliberately trying to make itself look bad, but it sure ended up summarily looking that way. There seems to be a whole host of reasons for this. A bad script. Unchallenging acting. Really bad editing. And a story that is so full of stereotypical, overused, trite behavioral patterns that all it seemingly did was repeat itself over and over again. The characters never grew. Never matured. And the plot simply went from one silly scenario to another. Sadly, this series played everything ‘safe’ and therefore went nowhere. The same silly plot and triteness spun around and around.Was this review helpful to you?
Despite the production issues, this one has heart!
I can feel my ears burning now because I liked this series. Why, you might ask, as this series has been panned? Because it had character and guts. Sure, I know what is wrong with this series. It has production issues galore. This was obviously done on a shoe-string budget. It screamed for more rehearsals and an acting coach to guide these young actors/actresses into drawing out more from them than superficialities. When I look at a series like this, I am hoping something captures me to want to make me finish it and the story did just that. It is a good rather solid story. They have heart; they needed direction.Was this review helpful to you?
Beautiful in its simplicity
This mini-movie I know appears to be more like an ‘after-school’ project and perhaps held together with chewing gum and glue. This is never going to win any awards nor be on any top 10 list. However, it did do something for me that so many BLs, especially Thai, do not do for me anymore. And that is, it made me smile. Made my eyes tear up. It also made me reflect. Further, it made me see how so, so many everyday ordinary gay relationships begin. This gem captured the heart and soul of a humanity that is not often portrayed. A humanity of individuals whose beauty lies within, not without, whose goodness is inherent, not extrinsic, and whose fortitude is who they are, not guess at. It is a story of genuineness and strength of character. It is a story of life. And most importantly, it is a simple basic story of love. This is just plain fun and gives us the bright side of humanity and shows us the limitless purity of unconditional love.Was this review helpful to you?
The story captured me from the beginning
This BL series has gotten some bad reviews. I thought it was brilliant. Its message was perhaps lost in the way the story unfolded. That is too bad because its message and meaning is quite significant. For sure, this story twists and turns in sometimes strange ways and does not smoothly transition from beginning to end. But if you understand the intent behind it, it is quite an impactful and moving story. Remember, this is yet another never-ending Thai BL about high school boys. But with this one, I took the time to see it from the perspective of a Thai teenage boy. And guess what? It is messy, uneven, illogical, immature, and chaotic. Just like a teenage boy IS. This was one of the few times that I thought these endless school BLs finally captured the essence of a teenage boy. Silly, impressionable, vulnerable, passionately committed, searching for truth, making mistakes, failing, and falling deeply and hard in love. Have we forgotten?Was this review helpful to you?
