Flypsyde

Interesting take. It's also a bit much that almost Choke's first move is to put Sat's hand on his throbbing member. That's normally something you do after some heavy making out and nipple-sucking and stuff. But Choke goes, "to hell with all that bullshit, what do you think of THIS?" So that would make more sense if he is somehow messing with Sats head (and hand).

lol You mean you don't think Sat gave his consent to have his hand placed on Choke's junk? I'd say the fact that Sat appeared to grasp said junk firmly and started stroking is a fairly solid sign of consent. lol I love SJWs in the comments.

Yes, I do! :D Do you have it?

Thanks for your lovely reply. I think Asian men are the most beautiful in the world too. Having been raised and spent most of my life in Kansas, I'm pretty sure I saw even fewer of them growing up than you did in Ohio.

Just wanted to quickly say that I believe SOTUS was the first complete BL series I watched, but I found it somehow through youtube, I think. I was enthralled too, until the kissing scenes, then I went "wtf?" with the mannequin kisses and the rotating camera angles to obscure any actual touching. lol Sixteen months or more later I consider SOTUS and SOTUS S to be among the worst BLs of all. That hyper-sanitized, antiseptic, sexless vibe turns me off completely. I like some grit and grease along with my romance. Thankfully I've discovered plenty of other great BLs, along with many, many gay-themed Asian films that I love and connect with in a way I just don't with Western flicks.

Thanks for your kind words. I'll be keeping an eye out for you on here.

You seem desperate for something to get worked up about. The cut scenes had "naked" boys? Do you really think they were anything other than shirtless. I thought those scenes were awkward and poorly done, but they were about as sexual as a loaf of bread.

Hoo boy. Prab and Chol are exceptionally cute. Most of the other actors are also exceptionally cute. It got boring for me that the action was set in some Gay Universe somewhere in which damn near EVERYONE is gay. I wish I could have remained invested, but by the 10th episode I was skipping all scenes not pertaining to PrabChol. Plot was all over the place, lots of dead-ends and wtfs? Tons of cliches and boring tropes. I wish there had been more deviant behavior. Cant believe this is getting a second season, as the to me it didn't really have a first.

5.5 stars.

Nice to make your acquaintance. And I love your screen name. :)

This is the first BL I have continued watching simply because the cuteness overload, both physical and behavioral, has me swooning. Chol coming in to sleep with Prab after he went back to his own room was about the sweetest thing I've ever seen. However, at that age, there is no way I could have contained myself and my piggish urges if I slept with a step-brother that gorgeous and who I was crushing on. In a way, this series presents these guys as partly teenage horn-dogs and partly six year- old innocents. CUTE!

oops! Sorry...I put my foot in my mouth with my teeny bopper comments. I apologize. :P I found the BL Universe as I call it, about 16 months ago. I think I watched Long Time No See early on, but now that you mention steaminess, I'll have to give it a re-watch. :) I haven't watched Word of Honor either. I'm in the middle of watching the series Brothers. It is the first and only time I've kept watching a BL because the cuteness overload has gotten to me. :) Not only are the guys cute but their interactions, at least at this stage, I'm about to start episode7, are extremely cute and adorable as well. Usually that sort of thing bores me. I'm much more attuned to the dark side of things.

I don't think you said but am I correct in assuming you are a woman? I'm always curious: As a gay man, I know what it is about BLs that touch me so deeply, but can you put in words what it is about them that keeps you watching and coming back for more? I even have some Lesbian friends on here who are deeply into it and haven't the foggiest notion exactly why. lol It's kind of fascinating.

lol I hated it. Just couldn't get into it. And the two guys flirting out of the corners of their eyes, but clearly never going to get together, just seemed silly and juvenile to me. It's a sex-free BL tease/fantasy for little girls and teeny boppers. I don't mean that as an insult. I was a teeny-bopper once upon a time myself. I am curious as to how old you are? Lots of girls want BLs and Bromances with hand-holding and maybe even a little kiss, but none of that nasty, boy-on-boy sex stuff. lol

The Untamed. Ugh. I renamed it The Uninteresting. So boring. Made it through almost 2 episodes. I understand about China's puritannical BL-ban, but I don't get the point of taking a book like that, which I read a lot of, and taking all the sexual hotness at its core out of it and making it something completely different. Why not just base your film on some existing fairy tale or wizard-type stories?

This is really quite bad. Thank god most of the actors are extra cute, which makes it bearable for watching. Chol enjoying the competing attentions of Prab and Khun is pretty funny. People get injured with amazing frequency in BL World, and a lightly sprained ankle requires two in-house care-takers.

Since everyone at the high school is gay, I have a new name for it: Homo High. :D Where straight kids live in fear of being outed and sexually predatorial teachers are the norm. lol

I agree, only more so. The horrible over-acting, especially Gene with that endless, wailing, moaning fake crying, drove me crazy. Too bad, there were some nice moments like the outdoor bathtub scene in that blue/black lighting after they met, and the golden light of the massage scene that followed, but after that it went straight down the tubes.

This is really just terrible. There are a few beautiful moments, but the unbelievable over-acting, blubbering, moaning and wailing of Keann Johnson as Mark and whoever played his mom just totally ruined the movie for me; it was so ridiculous that I couldn't take the story seriously. I found myself laughing when I was supposed to be crying.

In the spoiler post below is a running commentary I kept on YT while I watched the movie last night and this afternoon. It's very long, so read or not...whatever grabs you.

omg, this first 8 minutes so far is embarrassing with all the over-the-top acting and Gene's endless whimpering and moaning/pretend crying. Yikes. The kid's as big as his dad. Either punch him in the face or get the hell out of there for good. Also, one minute Gene's voice-overing how happy he is when Papa leaves, then the next minute he's sitting in the back yard whimpering/moaning again. wtf?

Oh, and that gay mag in the bathroom?: Definitely Gene's. lol

Thank god...as soon as Gene ran away from home this got a lot better. He's very handsome when he's not making his fake-crying face. BTW, his crying face and his taking-a-dump face are the same. Also, doesn't diarrhea just sort of run out? Why would you have to sit there and strain like that? That's the best BL meet-and-fall-and-almost-kiss-but-only-stare scene I've seen in a while.

I like how everyone's being careful about Covid, but their masks are down around their chins. "My sons are all at home growing their testicles..." lol

I liked the sex music when Gene took off his clothes to get in the pool but then we didn't get to see anything. damn. Mark certainly went from straight to gay a the drop of a hat...pretty much asked Gene to marry him. Hmmm...

The blue lighting scheme in the pool scene and the gold lighting during the massage were beautiful. So...is Mark bi? Gay? Just horny? He is certainly the most gay-friendly straight guy I've ever seen. :D Either way, whatever, these two are lovely together, a very nice pairing.

Whoa...that was actually the actor playing Mark helping to butcher that pig. That scene was pretty intense, but I'm not sure what the message is supposed to be. And it felt filmed in a style different from the rest of the film. I felt like it was a documentary segment on hog farming stuck into the movie from nowhere.

Nice. The scenes of loving domestic bliss, the swimming pool, making love in the shower and bed were just beautiful. The song on top of it was nice too. My heart is full and I almost cried from the sheer beauty of it all. Why do I feel something terrible is about to happen?

Does Mark have to always do the pedaling on that bike/cart because he's the top? Bitch has the nerve to name the kid "Marky?" Seriously? I'd demand a DNA test on that kid for certain.

omg...Gene's dad shows up again and we're right back to bad over-acting and Gene doing that weeping and wailing/moaning thing. ugh. The acting had improved so much since the guys got together, now we're back to over-the-top hysteria. Mark on the phone with his baby-mama was the the same. This director needs to dial back his actors about 50 percent. It doesn't seem like your first reaction, after establishing a solid, loving relationship with a partner, to news that your asshole father is at it again would be terror and desolation. It seems they'd be upset, but calmly discuss how best to address these two developments.

I'm sorry (actually I'm not) but this whole endless third quarter of the film with Gene and his mom caterwauling like crazy people in abject fear of the father, is so badly acted and excessive that I got bored and have lost some sympathy for the characters. The terrible acting has pulled me out of the story. That moaning/trembling thing Gene does 24/7 now is nerve-wracking. Mark needs to bitch-slap him and tell him to pull himself together.

BTW...moving out to live in the jungle like animals is not the solution to the problem of the dad. I'm not sure what I would do, but that would not be it. The Manila metro area has 21 million people in it. They should move there, change names, dye their hair, work as hard as they can and save up money to get out of the country. Not saying it would be easy. But would it be any harder than living indefinitely in a leaky stick hut with a dirt floor out in the boondocks, calling to beg money from mama? No, it would not be.

Well...wow. This could have been such a compelling, tragic story but it was completely ruined for me by the terrible, overwrought, operatic, over-acting by pretty much everyone in the last third of the film. I got so sick of Gene and that moaning/wailing thing that just never stopped that I completely stopped caring for him or Mark. That level of bad acting just took me right out of the movie. I kept thinking, "where the hell is the director? What the hell is going on? Is no one going to stop this madness?" Gene was just so pathetic I had no respect for him at all by about halfway through. And then all this horrible acting was over-layered with shrieking singers on the soundtrack...this was almost a parody of itself.

And toward the end, I get that Gene had to give up his location to Papa to save Mark, but why not at least TRY to ambush the motherfucker with a heavy log to the head or something, anything but coming up out of the water naked (which, sadly, we didn't get to enjoy) and offering yourself as some sacrificial lamb to the monster who made your life a living hell? Then of course, how the hell did the mom find all of them up in the mountains to finally shoot that bastard like she should have done about 15 years earlier?

Just awful. There were some beautiful scenes of Mark/Gene loving each other as partners and lovers in the latter part of the first half of the flick but after that...forget it. I wouldn't recommend this to anyone, unless maybe other actors who want to get a laugh at Gene's endless blubbering.

Thank you for saying that. It's very kind of you, Max. :) A lot of pain and messiness along the way but all is well now and has been for quite some time.

I like it a lot too. I think its lack of attention stems from the fact that the "messed-up" aspects of this story are all directly tied to gay sex, sexuality and sensuality. Which is why it surprises me that this film succeeded in the heavily-Catholic Phillippines. That church doesn't condone gay sex, though it makes an exception for its priests.

I do think it would do better if they changed the name. Really does sound like a porn film.

Did you know that posting two unoriginal, cliche put-downs as your comment two times in succession does NOT make them sound original or non-cliche?

Now you do. You're welcome.

lol Love your comment as well as this flick. I do enjoy dark, fucked-up plots and themes, so it's no wonder this appealed to me. I'm going to give it a second watch soon before reading comments and leaving my own, but I remember thinking it was very good and wondering why it doesn't get much attention. Probably because the BL teeny-bopper girl fan base is scared to death of stories and content like this. All kinds of wonderfully PROBLEMATIC behaviors! :D

Hi there. Just dropping in to say I really admire your writing style and content. Don't always agree with you but hey, it would be boring if I did. I love that you give BLs a discerning critical eye that many of them deserve alongside any other sort of production/piece. Reading your posts helps me see and feel elements in the plot/story that I otherwise might have missed. You enrich my viewing pleasure significantly in that way.

I accidentally discovered the hidden universe of BL about 16 months ago and it's been a revelation to me. I spent the first few months binge-watching everything I could get my hands on and sobbing like a child when I wasn't laughing like a hyena. Many of these stories speak so strongly to my deepest inner emotions. I often feel I'm experiencing an adolescent period of self-actualization I never had, as I spent my entire life to age 37 in the closet. I was in love with boys who thought of me as a good buddy. I sexually desired friends I played sports with. You know the drill. And I hid myself behind titanium walls that are still being knocked down years later.

Thank you for the extra depth you bring to my BL experience.