John Master

Excellent review. I enjoyed reading it.

One minor quibble, of the "your mileage may vary" variety. While assessing Peem and Khem as exemplars of the "stern paladin" and "imperiled ingenue" archetypes is entirely fair--and kudos on the word choice of paladin and ingeneue, btw--I actually thought the character of a shaman provided the rare instance which actually warrants a "stern paladin" mien. In most BLs, that archetype is icy because...that accords with tropes and expectations. No better reason usually offered. Here, I felt Peem had "professional" reasons for his implacability. He lives partially in the world of the dead as well as the world of the living. For one so young, his accummulated life experience has made him wary of human motivations and interpersonal connections. In other words, his demeanor has plausible roots in plot and character grounds rather than merely according with genre stereotype.

I also had the sense Peem knew he was whipped for Khem but feared that attachment would diminish his capacity to fight the spiritual battle a shaman needed to fight. Hence, he tried to keep Khem at arm's length even as glimmers of his true feelings leaked out. Keng played that role with a kind of serene detachment I thought was appropriate to that background. I particularly enjoyed a few scenes where Peem thawed a bit, usually when the old lady switched from treating him like a shaman to treating him like a grandchild in need of TLC. He was impressive in this role, and "stern paladin" worked here for story reasons.

As for the other half of the equation, yeah, that was a BL-style iteration of ye olde damsel-in-distress, waiting to be saved. In the finale, literally waiting: sidelined behind a magic bubble to wait and watch as her knight did battle with the evildoers.

Mu guess: they had one rocket. And one camera. And somehow, the camera operator screwed up the moment. I can't imagine it's an editing issue. If a usable shot existed, a competent editor would have found it.

But note both our theories presume less-than-stellar professional performance from the technical crew.

Somewhat to my surprise, because I kept saying "isn't this episode over yet?" while watching, I wish to defend the last episode. Personally, I prefer
--a finale that resolves any tense drama, danger to characters, or villain storylines early in the episode.
--a finale that spends the bulk of its time depicting the characters' lives returning to normal or establishing a new normal
--a finale that feels as if it letting the audience say goodbye to the characters.

Khemjira? ✅️, ✅️, ✅️.

Did it maybe take too long with all three of those things? Maybe. It was drawn out in spots for sure. There was "returning to normal" after the villain was defeated then a second round of that a few years later. But I can't list that as a fault because philosophically the show delivered what I want in a finale.

As for the "family time" at the end. Two reasons to overlook that entirely. (Assuming you refer to the scene with the kids and the ramen.) First, that was a pure epilog. The official story of any series concludes when the "Directed by' title card appears. Anything after that is gravy; extra; a service to the fans--much as a special episode would be (and I find those pointless, most of the time). This one also had (logically at least) a time jump from the main story, so it was further disconnected. Second, it rather clearly doubled as product placement. I am sure that ramen mix paid Domundi a nice "appearance fee" for that scene. And I will not begrudge Thai companies the need to recoup production costs. These commercial moments are a necessary evil in the Thai business model.

As for the cinemotagraphy of the rocket....that shocked me, too. Why include a rocket's launch if you're not going to show the thing soaring into the sky?

I should have been more accurate in my ideas. Clearly it is possible to do it, but it is very hard--or lese we'd see it achieved more frequently than we do. Plus, it is specifically the combination dark + supernatural where I think length works against the TV director, who has to sustain both suspenseful mood and suspension of disbelief far longer than the director of a film. And let's face it: few Japanese or Korean series (of the BL variety anyway) exceed 8 episodes or 30 minutes run time. That's four hours to fill rather than the typical 10 or 12 of a Thai series. We're not comparing apples and apples. The J- and K-BLS are closer to being overlong films than a TV series. So, I stick to my guns on the relevance of running time.

P.S. Note that the most recent J-BL we liked, the yakuza oriented My Journey to Killing You, clocks in at 6 episodes around 25 dark and gloomy minutes long (minus credits). That is less than 3 hours---or about the length of a long feature film.

I came to the comments specifically to offer praise for the roller coaster sentence. But, it's been done already!

Not necessarily. I think movies (short) and novels (existing in reader's head) are best suited for darker themed stories of the supernatural. It may be that no studio can do a supernatural series justice because the longer the story goes, the easier it will become to screw up the world building or the more demands are placed on the viewer to suspend disbelief. Length works well for selling a love story because deep love needs time to develop. But in a series whose very premise requires belief in supernatural beings, the writing must be very intricate indeed for the whole to be cohesive.

I really liked your review. But i would change the sentence in the second paragraph to read "The concept around the funeral inustry subplot (which apparently in Taiwan is famously cuthroat and murderous and rife with kidnappings) was barely integrated into the plot." And I add that parenthetical to your sentence just to highlight another way the writers toss random action into the mix to disguise the fact they do not know how to depict a romance that happens without "danger."

Where I am, the series has done nothing to explain any of that ghost's backstory. So even if not from WWII, she has 8 decades between the war and now to be from. The wardrobe means nothing to me. Because a ghost can wear...whatever. So, 19th C hadnt crossed my mind. But it is true Rampheung did not appear in the WWII timeline. Until just now, i havent bothered to speculate on her point of origin. I am not sure what you consider "obvious."

The Kemjira "early" timeline is set during World War II. 20th century. So either I have missed some other flashback (am still 2 weeks behind) or you misspoke. But I think we agree that other than "locale," the objection doesnt fit Khemjira well.

Start with IQIY.

It's been 12 hours....does no one have an answer?

Actually, Paris in the 1920s would have been among the safest places in the world for queer people. Not necessarily, "safe," as we understand it, but Paris and Berlin had a pretty freewheeling urban gay culture in the 1920s. London and New York did as well, but the 1920s were Parisian. Arguably, in fact, the 1920s is the crucible for modern gay culture in a form that starts to become familiar to us.

The French speaking shattered the illusion for you? Try being a historian watching a series set in 1915, yet spotting Thee drive around in a car from the 1940s. I was, for the sake of cinematography, willing to overlook the electric lights (indoors and outdoors) even though Bangkok wasn't electrified until the 1920s. And the period wardrobe (which i can only trust was faithfully recreated) was so sumptuous that I tended to quit looking for other anachromisms. But as you intimate, the time period should have precluded the happy ending we got. As you nite, gmmtv's BL fantasy machine does not do star-crossed romance.

The comments you focused on do not judge the whole series. That was just one portion of the original review I wished to expand upon. My overall impression is more positive than negative. In responding to this review I chose to amplify a point I deem important. One most other reviews ignored entirely.

Meanwhile, those real life stereotypes about gay men have been used for multiple generations to demean and insult same sex attraction. (Gay men are effeminate. Gay relationships must have a male partner and female partner. Gay sex is gross. Anal sex must he horrible for the receptive partner.) The way this series was written perpetuates those harmful ideas. The writing Others being gay. It plays the harm for comedy. You can say, "BL is just a lark. BL is just for fun. BL doesn't aspire to represent real gay lives because it is just romantic escapism." But, to do so, you must turn a blind eye to the presence of those insulting tropes. Or be ignorant of or indifferent to how these ideas actually affect real people in the real world. Ask yourself whether the story could have been told without resorting to those longstanding stereotypes? Or whether those examples could have been handled in a reflective, thoughtful way that subverts the harm? Might Wu So Wei realize his concerns were unfounded? Or might Chi Cheng realize being the bottom isnt so bad after all?

Of course, you can disengage your brain and go along for the ride. That's your right after all. None of us watch this stuff to think about realism. At the end of the day we consume BL because it is, mostly, escapism. A revenge fantasy plot? Not something most of us would execute in real life...because we are decent people and revenge is not among the noble human emotions. But watching someone else's revenge-based fever dream play out? That's just fun. But my "disengagement from reality" was shattered at the appearance of these familiar old stereotypes. I don't see the humor in jokes that insult me or my way of life. I see a writer injecting humor she knows will work because her audience is aware of the stereotypes. I do not detect an awareness of how those stereotypes relegate gay lives to a second class status rooted in inferiority, disdain, and revulsion.

A secondary reason to resent that cut scene speaks to the scatterbrained plotting that permeated the series. The scene where Wu Suo Wei asks to top serves no function at all unless it exists to set up a later scene where Chi Cheng concedes to the switch. Without such a later payoff, they may as well have cut the first scene, too. Aside from the homophobic attitude i diagnose, that is just generic poor writing and editing.

Regarding your "elephant in the room": I would venture to describe Wu So Wei as the most homophobic lead character of any BL series. And the cliche that "anal sex hurts" is both unfunny and demeaning. They kept that joke running for several episodes. And the way Cheng Chi casually rejects the idea of flipping for Wu So Wei screams that the filmmakers regard the bottom partner in a same sex relationship as "less than." Put another away: the makers of this series uncritically perpetuate the misguided idea that top = masculine and bottom = feminine. Given the priority Chinese culture accords to sons, the undignified "disrespectful" treatment is perhaps unsurprising. But that attitude was hardly limited to the final two episodes, when nephew tosses around "aunt" and no one speaks up. That attitude had been present since the start of the show.

[Ep 5] 12:50 - 13:15 Wait. I know that tune. What is that?

No way! Of all things! That? Backing music for a BL episode?

Shit. 100% chance that earworm from childhood gets stuck in my head all the livelong week.

"The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.."

I dont write reviews to defend things. I write them to apprise others what they might get. I trust they read them with the wisdom to comprehend no review purports to define a genre, merely express a take about them. Your rebuttals seem to contain no space for any other possibilities than the ones you allow. BL has great healing potential, for the reasons you state. It is, by and large, a genre that deals happiness. But your dismissal of more realistic material as forcing you to endure misery undervalues the healing power others may find from having their stories, usually rendered invisible by homophobic society, depicted onscreen. Worse, you again seem to insist that only series that portray queerness in the manner you deem acceptable have any validity. I have no beef with you disliking Heesu, disliking my enthusiasm for it, or disliking series that remind you of the time in life when you crawled in misery. I contest your narrow view of which queerness counts. Happy BL counts. Absolutely. Makes the world a better place. But it is not the only way.

If only, before you subjected yourself to Heesu, you'd read some reviews first. Then, you'd have known to avoid it. (The negative ones absolutely raise the issues you have cited.)

...

That comment does not define the BL genre, any more than you do. It articulates a point of difference between BL and gay genres. One is grounded in reality, the other not so much. There is a reason BL often gets described as "fluff" or as "idealized romance." Indeed, the escapism that goes along with those qualities defines BL's chief selling points. Precisely because the genre leans away from reality. Heesu leans toward realism in its depiction of adolescents in love. That may, in fact, make it poor BL, as you contend. But the fact you seek escapism and didn't get it doesn't mean Heesu is a "pitiful excuse for a drama." Your individual taste doesn't define the drama or the genre. You can absolutely feel let down by what the series turned out to be, but the only one wailing in despair here is you. "Fiction isn't a documentary"? No, fiction is a mirror held to reality. And mirrors can be made to distort. Arguably, idealized, fluffy BL is the true distortion of "homophobic reality." But there is nothing wrong with a series that leans into reality rather than away from it.