Maggi64

OMG, I loved "Just Friends!" That's a classic. I just didn't know what you meant because I have no idea what the series "Taxi Driver " is.

So Soga wanted "some time to process his thoughts" after Sakae's confession? Well, nothing like a hot blond ex arriving on the scene to quicken the thought process!

I saw 5 eps and was debating whether or not to finish it. It started off strong but got weak by ep 5. So based on your comment and others here, I am going to save myself time and not bother finishing it.

I knew that the author of My Beautiful Man won awards for her novel "Wandering." Unfortunately, that is not translated into English, but I saw the movie version of "Wandering" and it was excellent.

Also, I am glad to hear that you also boycotted the sequel to Cherry Magic. I assumed tons of BL fans would boycott it as well. Nope, they all went and watched it and loved it. Ugh. I think it was really hypocritical for anyone claiming to support LGBT rights to watch that movie. The message should have been that the an actor who refuses to do male-on-male kisses gets LOW ratings. Alas, they all watched it and helped give it high ratings.

Lastly, what is the gay movie with the Korean actor from Taxi Driver? Is it a new movie from 2024?

I am shocked that "My Personal Weatherman" broke records. It must be because the guys were so hot and it had lots of sex scenes. Because the plot was super boring. However, "My Beautiful Man" had a great plot. I was genuinely surprised when Kiyoi turned out to be so vulnerable in Season 1. Also, he may not have used the word "gay" but he did tell that actress, "I do not have a girlfriend. I have a boyfriend." That was pretty cool.

In the novel Kiyoi flat out acknowledges himself as gay. Koyama also acknowledged himself as gay -- in both the novel and in the show. Remember the scene when Hira says he liked a boy in high school? Koyama replied, "Oh, if you are that way, well, so am I." Then he asks him if he's busy on his birthday and they go to the play.

I boycotted the sequel to Cherry Magic for this reason. I can't believe anyone would watch it once we knew that the tall pretty boy was an ass who refused to kiss a man.

I mean, he exploited the BL genre to advance his career while being homophobic. A lot of these guys exploit BL's to advance their careers cuz they are still unknown as actors, and BL's are cheap and easy to produce. Therefore, their agents put them in BL's as a good place to start.

That's right! I forgot about that one. That makes 9 J-BLs with characters who acknowledge themselves as gay.

I totally agree that this is how yaoi started 50 years ago. In fact, I have read the history of yaoi because students and professors in Queer Studies Departments write papers on it. They specifically tackle the fact that the BL fandom is primarily female. And females like the concept of "not really gay, just gay for you."

However, even though it historically started this way 50 years ago, we are recently seeing more and more characters identify as flat-out gay. With the exception of "Cherry Magic" from 2020, all 9 BL's with characters who acknowledged themselves as gay came out in the past year. And they are all Japanese!

"Cherry Magic" (2020)
"Perfect Propose"
"Tokyo in April"
"Minato's Laundry"
"The End of the World With You"
"Jack'O Frost"
"Shiny Smile"
"Kimi To Nara Koi Wo Shite Mite Mo"
"Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka"

Yes, he acknowledged himself as gay in "Tokyo in April." But there are more BL's where guys acknowledged themselves as gay.

(1) Minato in "Minato's Laundry" tells Shin that he's gay. (2) In "Cherry Magic" the little UPS delivery boy who's a break dancer openly identifies as gay. (3) In "The End of the World With You," one guy acknowledged himself as gay, while his boyfriend was bi. (4) In "Jack'O Frost" both guys acknowledged themselves as gay. (5) In "Shiny Smile," the manga writer acknowledged himself himself as gay. (6) In "Sukiyanen Kedo Do Yaro ka" the cook acknowledged he was gay to the girl who confessed to him in last week's episode.

Including "Tokyo In April" that's 7 BL's that with characters who use the specific word "gay" to describe themselves. They also all happen to be J-BL's. Basically, the Japanese are not afraid of letting characters be gay. It's the Koreans, Taiwanese, and Thais who typically pull that nonsense with "I'm not really gay, just gay for you." I also think the Japanese happen to do the best BL's in general. After all, they created the genre with yaoi so it makes sense for them to be the best at the genre.

I see the same sort of thing portrayed in Korean work environments. I even see Korean bosses slapping employees as if it were normal. Hell, I also see Korean teachers slap students. The Koreans slap people around in general. Movies reflect a country's culture, and I see Koreans slapping people so often in movies that I must conclude it is part of the culture. And, yes, that means they even slap people around in the workplace.

l haven't seen the show yet. But give me a sarcastic post about a hand job and church ladies and I'm all there! lol

The comment about women "liking it forced" truly was gross. But I don't think he set her up to die. He just wanted to get all of her money. He was greedy, but he was not a violent sadist who wanted her to die or to be in pain. The pornographic uncle was like that, but not him. That's why I didn't think he deserved to be tortured. I figured just denying him all the money was punishment enough.

Nope. I cannot find it anywhere. The review at Korean.org seems in line with FrothyMix's review, so I was interested. In fact, I'll copy/paste a segment of the review from that site below:


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What kind of effect must it have on a person's psyche to live and work in an industry where intimacy and desire are such carelessly traded commodities? Can one learn to trust anyone, or establish any meaningful relationship in such an environment? These are the sorts of questions posed by director Yoon Jong-bin in Beastie Boys (sometimes known by the alternate title The Moonlight of Seoul), and the answers he offers up are far from encouraging.

This is a story very much centered around these two men, although Yoon Jin-seo (Oldboy) also plays an important role as Seung-woo's girlfriend. When we are first introduced to Seung-woo and Jae-hyeon, their charisma is front and center. It's a testament to Ha Jung-woo and Yoon Kye-sang's talent and innate charm that as the plot progresses, and they become steadily more unlikeable (even despicable), there is a part of us that still wants them to be given a second chance. In this way, Beastie Boys pulls our emotions in several directions at once, even as it resorts to some extreme (and in my opinion regrettable) plot developments towards the end.

To what extent are these characters who emerge at night into the streets of Seoul representative of the country as a whole? One might say that this is a special case; that society in general is not so pathogenic as to create such emotionally damaged people. But I think that question especially is meant to linger in the viewer's mind. Is this Yoon Jong-bin's critical take on a specialized underground industry, or a dark allegory about life in contemporary Korea? (Darcy Paquet)

Yo, good to see you here! This movie got a good review at Korean.org so I want to check it out, but I cannot find it. Can you give me a link?

No, he did not get it. He never explicitly said, "No, I don't have it." But it was made clear in the convo he had with the Dr. when the Dr. was confused as to why Seok Jung was remaining loyal to his wife. The Dr. had said to him, "You're fine, so why are you taking the fall for her?" In other words, the Dr. was saying that Seok Jung's tests were negative, and if he just forgot his wife, he could go on and have his own life without controversy. But Seok Jung simply ignored the Dr.'s words -- and rightfully so.

Thank you for bringing this up. Because you are entirely correct that it made no sense for that boy to destroy the life of a teacher who was kind to him. This boy was about 12 and, therefore, more than old enough to know that he was destroying his teacher's life. The movie cannot get away with: "Oh, he was a just kid, so he didn't know better." Because kids that age DO know better.

And what about the rest of the class? Why did they sit back and let the teacher who was kind to them get destroyed? Why didn't they speak up when the faculty questioned them about the teacher? After all, the entire class knew that the teacher did not cause the boy's wounded ear, because they SAW that the 2 boys had fought in the classroom when the teacher was not even present and that it was this fight that caused the injured ear. Yet not one kid out of an entire class speaks up? Even after being questioned multiple times?

The plot was weakly constructed, but this fooled many viewers because the timeline was skewered. I get what you are saying about how viewers are also fooled into thinking a movie is a masterpiece the instant an LGBT theme surfaces, but I don't think that's entirely the case here. I think the audience also missed that the characters' motives made no sense because of the skewered timeline.

Agreed. Most of the dialogue in "Lost" was meaningless dribble. In "My Mister" however, when a character talked about some philosophy of life, the show fleshed it out in the actual plot construction. We saw how the male lead actually lived the ethics that he preached, such as the importance of community. For instance, he truly did help his community and family with money, advice, spending time with them, helping them with their elderly relatives, etc. We even had that great bit at the end with his brother paying for the girl's grandmother's funeral, and how that was all about helping community. In short, the dialogue, characters and plot points each supported the theme of community.

So it drove me crazy when people compared "My Mister" to "Lost," because "Lost" had no theme at all. The writer and director just assumed they could fool viewers into thinking it was a deep show because all the characters were moaning about how miserable life is.

BTW, I just re-watched "My Mister" after LSK's suicide last month, and it's just as good the 2nd time around. It's horrible that he'll never give another performance, so I re-watched things like "My Mister" and "Parasite" and "A Hard Day." He's an amazing actor. And that voice!

A charming, funny, sweet, romantic and original movie that was well received when it came out in Korea 22 years ago. Alas, the only version online is Dramacool, and that has a horrible, fuzzy resolution. If anyone knows where to find a clear print then please let me know.

I love it because we usually get age differences where the woman is the much younger one, and the man is older. It's reflective of society at large where men will commonly dump their middle aged wives for a girl 20 years younger. So how refreshing to see a middle aged woman still rocking it and scoring a boy 20 years younger! Bravo!

Some have commented that the nerdy guy is not cute. But I think he actually is. It's just that his good looks are disguised with glasses and hair hanging over half his face. But this sort of "Hidden Hot Guy Syndrome" is typical of J-BL's. In fact, there's even a joke about it in "The Man Who Defied the World of BL," where Mob says that you know you are in a BL manga when some seemingly average looking guy suddenly removes what's covering his face to reveal a "Hidden Hot Guy!" LOL.