Half a star because Boat is very pretty, and another half a star because the final episode had neither wedding nor baby. I was all prepared to simply click-off once the banality of domesticity reared its head but, astonishingly, this series that spent so much time basically blue-balling its fan base with promises of an Enigma baby and a lavish wedding couldn't even manage that. Yes, I find that stuff mindnumbingly tedious, but I'm actually pissed on behalf of everyone else, who had every legitimate reason to expect delivery (pun intended) on that tease.
These poor people endured this trainwreck week after week, white-knuckling it all the way to the end, on the glimmer of a hope that they'd get their big fancy wedding and extra-special Über baby, and they don't even get so much as a scene of Phatsa hobbling on swollen ankles to vomit cinematically into a sun-kissed toilet in one of those ostentatious bathrooms? That's just cruel. Haven't the fans suffered enough? Did they not earn their HEA? Wasn't the finale episode supposed to have been reshot for that specific purpose? How on Earth do you fumble so badly the one easy win this series could've had?
Well, maybe there will be a special episode or two. Keeping my fingers crossed for you folks.
When this series isn't draggy and dull, it's outright hilarious. What a misfire of a show, even for a Thai BL. It's nice Thailand is willing to take chances and expand the genre into whatever Wattpad/AO3 fantasies exist but, whew, they have got to get better (real) writters for these things.
Well, hopefully with just one episode left, they'll skip the pregnancy nonsense. Not only are babies boring, Phatsa really, really doesn't seem to want to get knocked up (and rightfully so; he's barely not a kid himself, and it would be nice for him to achieve and exercise some agency over his body and his future).
But the way this thing is written, we'll spend 40 minutes in an ostentatious bedroom listening to people prattle on, then five harried minutes watching Phatsa do pregnant things, give birth, and pose for family photos with that dude who fell in lust with a coffee cup he touched once.
I once had a root canal where the anaesthesia wore off halfway through the procedure. It was marginally less painful than this series but not nearly as hilarious.
Why, oh why, South Korea, do you give us BLs that are too short as a series &/or not long enough as episodes? Especially when you appear to be rising to your Golden Era of the genre? *sigh*
🤣🤣🤣 Maybe another series. I’d love to watch it, but please not this one. 😭
Honestly, I very much doubt P'Jane did it. Usually, these types of works try to keep the main protagonists redeemable, & I think P'Jane manipulating N'Jane into a contract via that particular method would be entirely unforgivable to most of the audience, thereby spoiling the romantic fantasy.
Yes. Which, as I stated, I have found increasingly less interesting over time. It's entirely possible I have aged out of this particular genre treatment..."morally grey" seems less like a layered character than a cop-out archetype to make HEA happen.
Most importantly give me villain x villain arc where both of them are equally horrible and no one overshadows…
I would so thoroughly enjoy that. Villains (& near-villains) fall in love, too, after all. As well, I think there are an overabundance of BL "bad guys" being pulled up, & not nearly enough BLs about "good guys" being dragged down. Some of my favourite parts of 'toxic' stories like "My Stand-In" were those in which we witnessed our protagonist descend to meet their black-flag lover at their level.
I was intrigued beginning to end by "To My Shore", & I think that has the same author as "Filth"...?
It would be so exciting if P'Jane manipulated that entire situation to force N'Jane into a contract. I find "deeply flawed" characters increasingly, predictably tiresome; give me irredeemably cruel & mercilessly possessive, no apologies & no redemption arcs. Give me the kind of laser-focused villainy that has its prorities sorted & the type of sensual iniquity that enjoys breaking its toys. Make all the menace really mean something. I want to despise P'Jane more than I did Ming and adore him more than I did Vegas. With ambivalent gusto.
I spent a good portion of this movie wondering how it didn't start with all of these characters doing 10-to-20. This is the sloppiest heist work I have ever seen, even for one of these films. Leaving fingerprints and DNA everywhere, getting caught on every CCTV under the damn sun, often mid-crime, constantly shouting one another's names in rooms full of witnesses, spending tons of time with their marks while unmasked and in memorable personas, absolutely unprofessional shenanigans all over the place.
Pepsee and Macao Park seemed the most competent of the lot but that's not saying much. Frankly, those two and their story felt like it was in a whole other movie, one I think I would've enjoyed a lot more than this one. Everything else seemed like so much background noise.
While the flick had an excellent cast, there were too many characters and not enough screen time to go around. And because it never feels like these people are a team, rather than a collection of loosely affiliated reprobates, the stakes were irrelevant. Ultimately, I didn't care what happened to any of them by the end, and I certainly did not care who won or lost.
But speaking of—did I hear correctly? One of these doofuses only got four years after all that? They forged documents to commit a crime with extremely illegal weapons on foreign soil. They took hostages. There was a shoot out. People died. The hell...?
Yes, the story is a bit thin, and most of the NC scenes are laughable (if he's got to keep the briefs on, fine, but then reblock and/or reframe the shot; seriously, what are we doing?), and the dead fish kisses are just so bizarre, but I genuinely liked these characters. I was charmed by how they interacted, I blushed at their sweet inner thoughts, I didn't roll my eyes at the fluff, I saw real tenderness in their physical and psychological gestures toward one another, and I appreciated the humour and that these two grown men behaved, all things considered, like experienced Adults. I enjoyed the brief glimpse into their private world.
I truly wasn't expecting to like this series as much as I ultimately did but, frankly, I'm going to miss these two. I'd watch another season.
Even for a Sammo Hung or Donnie Yen completist, I can't recommend this one. It had some potential but it felt rushed and unfocused, and the few fight scenes aren't worth sitting through the whole movie. The big set piece brawl between Yen's and Hung's characters was suitably big and loud but I thought the technique work in the fight with the assassin was more engaging.
Celebrity 
Why did you rate "Tokyo In April Is" a 2/10?
Half a star because Boat is very pretty, and another half a star because the final episode had neither wedding nor baby. I was all prepared to simply click-off once the banality of domesticity reared its head but, astonishingly, this series that spent so much time basically blue-balling its fan base with promises of an Enigma baby and a lavish wedding couldn't even manage that. Yes, I find that stuff mindnumbingly tedious, but I'm actually pissed on behalf of everyone else, who had every legitimate reason to expect delivery (pun intended) on that tease.
These poor people endured this trainwreck week after week, white-knuckling it all the way to the end, on the glimmer of a hope that they'd get their big fancy wedding and extra-special Über baby, and they don't even get so much as a scene of Phatsa hobbling on swollen ankles to vomit cinematically into a sun-kissed toilet in one of those ostentatious bathrooms? That's just cruel. Haven't the fans suffered enough? Did they not earn their HEA? Wasn't the finale episode supposed to have been reshot for that specific purpose? How on Earth do you fumble so badly the one easy win this series could've had?
Well, maybe there will be a special episode or two. Keeping my fingers crossed for you folks.
Well, hopefully with just one episode left, they'll skip the pregnancy nonsense. Not only are babies boring, Phatsa really, really doesn't seem to want to get knocked up (and rightfully so; he's barely not a kid himself, and it would be nice for him to achieve and exercise some agency over his body and his future).
But the way this thing is written, we'll spend 40 minutes in an ostentatious bedroom listening to people prattle on, then five harried minutes watching Phatsa do pregnant things, give birth, and pose for family photos with that dude who fell in lust with a coffee cup he touched once.
I was intrigued beginning to end by "To My Shore", & I think that has the same author as "Filth"...?
Pepsee and Macao Park seemed the most competent of the lot but that's not saying much. Frankly, those two and their story felt like it was in a whole other movie, one I think I would've enjoyed a lot more than this one. Everything else seemed like so much background noise.
While the flick had an excellent cast, there were too many characters and not enough screen time to go around. And because it never feels like these people are a team, rather than a collection of loosely affiliated reprobates, the stakes were irrelevant. Ultimately, I didn't care what happened to any of them by the end, and I certainly did not care who won or lost.
But speaking of—did I hear correctly? One of these doofuses only got four years after all that? They forged documents to commit a crime with extremely illegal weapons on foreign soil. They took hostages. There was a shoot out. People died. The hell...?
*squints harder*
I truly wasn't expecting to like this series as much as I ultimately did but, frankly, I'm going to miss these two. I'd watch another season.