Maggi64

Wow, what a wonderful reply to my comment. Thank you. I must say, I also enjoyed it because it revealed that we have the same taste in movies. You see, I adored Carol and find Cate Blanchet stunning. Another Todd Haynes LGBT film you may have seen is Velvet Goldmine. If not, I highly recommend it. It's about the British Glam Rock scene with Jonathan Rhys Meyers playing a bisexual rock star based on David Bowie.

As for Ang Lee, I adore nearly everything he's ever done -- beginning with The Wedding Banquet, which was the first film of his I'd ever seen. I was still in college in NYC when that came out (yep, I am pretty old, lol), and I recall going for drinks after the movie and discussing how none of us had ever heard of the director before. Flash forward, and he's one the greatest directors of our time.

I think he did an amazing job with Brokeback Mountain. I read the Proulx short story in the New Yorker while sitting in a doctor's waiting room. I rarely read The New Yorker, and if I hadn't been stuck in that waiting room I'd never had read it that day either. Particularly since I do not like Proulx's. In fact, Brokeback is the only work of hers that I've ever enjoyed reading. So I am not really affected by the fact that she hated the movie version. Between Ang Lee and Annie Proulx I'd say that he's the genius. In other words, I am more interested in his opinions than hers.

But if she hated it, I doubt that it was due to the sex scenes because her story also had sex scenes. She did a good job depicting realistic dialogue for men and I even recall the exact sentence Jack Twist uttered when Ennis first had anal sex with him. He panted, "Gun going off" right before climaxing. I thought that sounded just like the sort of thing a gay cowboy would say during sex.

At any rate, I am sure Proulx's grievance with the movie was not due to her being sexaphobic as are so many BL female fans. I have noted that the reason they love "fluffy" so much is that they want to see gay men behaving like, well..... like women. They seem to assume that gay men are more like women and have more estrogen than hetero men or something, because they think that these gay male characters with no sex drive are "realistic."

The fact is, with gay men you not only have testosterone, but testosterone times 2, so there is going to be more sex between a gay couple, not less. Women are notorious for losing a large part of their sex drive after having children. They cannot help it, as the hormones literally change after childbearing. The point is that men exhibit no such change until old age. So it's only natural for men to be more about sex. And in a gay couple, it's compounded by there being two men. That's why these sexless, sterile BL's crack me up. They are utterly unrealistic and, in fact, just male actors behaving like women who are all about emotions and romance rather than sex.

Now, I do not need to see an actual sex scene in a BL, but I do need to see some indication of a sex drive. Old Fashioned Cupcake is one of my fave BL's and it does not have a single sex scene. It is a sexy show without showing the sex because you can tell that Togawa wants to fuck Nozue's brains out every time he looks at him . That show was brimming with sexual longing just below the surface, which is what made it so good.

But I have no patience for BL's that do not depict any sexual yearning. Many are about straight guys who suddenly start spending time with each other and then declare love by the end of the series, while never displaying any sexual desire for each other at all. Yet these are precisely the BL's that fans on MDL favor. Just look at the high ratings for that show about the deaf kid. That is not even a BL, but a Bromance. Many of these supposed BL's are actually Bromances, and the only difference is that they contain a love confession between 2 men.

And you are correct that this is endemic to the fact that most BL's have been written and directed by women. I can always spot the exceptions when it's a male director. For example, I knew a man had directed Doublemints because that rape scene was so freaking brutal. I simply cannot imagine a women depicting that level of raw, violent brutality. It's too foreign to us. I mean, it's a statistical fact that men display a higher incidence of physical violence than women, so it stands to reason that they portray violence more graphically. The violent scene at the end of Night Flight is another excellent example. God, I love that movie.

BTW, have you seen other movies by Night Flight's director? Because he did another favorite of mine called No Regrets.

Nope, that wasn't me. To the contrary, I think Unknown was a typical BL with all the usual tropes, plot lines and character types.

LOL, I had just said the same thing about how different yours and etoks writing styles were in my above comment. Frankly, it is Grooty who is presenting a dishonest identity.

For example, he says he's SouthEast Asian and only knows about South New Jersey and Nebraska because he knows geography. Well, that does not explain how he knows that these places have negative connotations for many Americans. And he immediately indicated having the same negative connotation that only an American would have when he told Etoks to say he was from a better part of America.

I can attest to the fact that they are NOT the same person because I have private friendships with both guys.

Moreover, if your reading skills had the capacity to key into tone and syntax, it would be clear that these are 2 different writers because they use very different tones and syntax. As Etoks himself pointed out, his tone is more bombastic and sarcastic than br85. In terms of syntax, he favors coming up with abbreviated terms such as "LGs"

You are simply assuming they are the same person because they have the same opinion. Well, by that logic 90% of MDL users are the same, one person because nearly everyone on this site expresses the same opinions about vapid, sexless BL's week after week after week.

Lastly, I am a hetero female and also not the "same person" as the 2 aforementioned gay gentlemen. But if you want proof I can send my real name and facebook page in a private message. Or you could simply check my MDL profile. I write a lot of reviews and as a writer, I have a distinctive writing style. Anyone who reads a lot can easily pick up on different writing styles . That is why your accusations of these all being the same person reveals more about your poor reading skills than about someone else's subterfuge.

I have the same pet peeve as etoks regarding excessive use of the term "masterpiece" on BL pages. Indeed, I sometimes flat-out laugh at BL's being called a "masterpiece" because BLs, by definition, do not even qualify to be in the running.

A major qualifier for a masterpiece is longevity. For example, Citizen Kane, The Godfather, and On the Waterfront, are all still internationally acclaimed 50 to 75 years after their debuts. A BL, however, is designed for quick consumption by a tiny, niche audience who won't be talking about it 1 year later, let alone 50 years later.

I could go on with a list of attributes that qualify a work to be called a "masterpiece" but I won't bother because you could just check out the term on Wikepedia. Then you would see how the word is constantly being misused on MDL.

Incidentally, I am an English professor and I never deduct points for spelling or grammar mistakes because that's about rules which one simply does, or does not memorize. However, I commonly deduct points for an incorrect word choice, because word choice is about communicating actual meaning. Accordingly, I'd slash 5 points from any paper calling a BL a "masterpiece" because it is an egregiously incorrect word choice. Remember, precision in language matters if we want language itself to matter.

Why did Kieto care so much about finding that club membership card? He beat up a guy, nearly killing him to get it. The card could not get him in trouble, so why would he want it back that badly?

I agree that both terms could be used simultaneously for most gay romances. Nevertheless, the term "BL" is used for only specific shows by the entertainment industry, and it's a distinctly Asian term. So when somebody discovered I was a BL fan and asked me how BL was different from LGBT, I really thought about it.

Funny, but the best way to sum it up is that BL's are identified by having all the same tropes that Mob makes fun of in "The Man Who Defied World of BL" LOL. I mean, you won't see any of those tropes in Brokeback Mountain or Night Flight, right?

But if you could only choose one term -- BL or LGBT -- which term would you use to describe this show? As for Cronenberg, wow, he's out there, but I like some of his stuff.

BL or LGBT?

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My niece recently asked what the difference was between the BL and LGBT genres. Based on my answer, I must conclude that this show does not qualify as a BL, but as the more serious genre of LGBT. To begin, BL's never feature impoverished characters, never mind characters who are homeless and hungry as well. We sure as hell do not see characters so desperately hungry that they'd steal a hamburger from a 7 year old. True poverty produces this sort of ethical gray zone while BL's, of course, are not designed to reflect reality. They are designed to be light, escapist, romantic fantasies.

It's why BL's rarely portray Asian society as homophobic, which this show uniequivocally does (the blonde's family even disowns him). Instead, BL's present an idealized world where society utterly accepts gay teens. They even present a fantasy where heteros are so chill about male-on-male sex that they'll have it while declaring: "I'm not really gay, just gay for you." There's no such nonsense in "Happy of the End." The leads in this show were introduced as flat out gay in the opening scene. Oh, and they are also not teens but, thankfully, in their early 20's. Lastly, it is directed by a man, rather than by a woman whipping up a frothy bit of fluff.

Given all these facts, plus the show's gritty sensibility and dark backstories, it does not qualify as a "BL." Rather, I'd put it in the LGBT category -- and that would be a compliment.

This was made on such a low budget that the sound's a mess, the editing a disaster and, ultimately, it feels like it was filmed on a cell phone. But even if it was, I still give this director credit because the most important thing in movies like this is whether or not you believe the 2 leads are in love. And I absolutely believed in their love.

I could see it in little things, such as the scene where the 2 of them are sitting on a stone wall (ie, the scene used in the promo poster), and Hoa Fan subtly inches closer to his beloved. It's such a subtle gesture that you could easily miss it. In fact, I had to rewind at the 25 min mark and, yep, the dude secretly shifted his ass closer when Ling Ze wasn't looking.

Finally, I give high scores to any film makers brave enough to tell gay love stories in China. All in all, I gave it an 8 for Effort.

Thank you for this explanation! It is the same with the number 13 in America. We consider it so unlucky that many buildings will skip it and elevator buttons go from number 12 to number 14.

We also regard the day, Friday the 13th, to be unlucky, and even have a horror movie series with the title "Friday the 13th."

Thank you. You are the first person on this thread to have defended the film with specific examples and explanations that were not culled from a Film Theory 101 college textbook. Indeed, your examples and explanations are pretty good -- meaning, they made me think and reconsider some of my original opinions (especially regarding the significance of the song "California Dreaming).

That is what constructive criticism is supposed to do. Alas, the other person on this thread responded like a teenage fangirl with nothing to say other than that they love the film, and were upset that someone dared to criticize a film they regard as iconic and, therefore, untouchable.

So thank you for your constructive criticism of my review.

Thank you!

Me, after reading this puritan's comment: "Wait, there was a cum splash and I missed it? Thanks for the info! Now I'm gonna go rewatch cuz I hella wanna see that."

I watched a 47 minute version of Ep 3. Is that the uncut version? Or is the uncut version longer than 47 min?

Good point. It could be Crystal Meth, which is just as destructive to addicts.

Either way, I think it is brave of the director to depict drug consumption because we never see this in BL's.

Thank you for mentioning the drugs! It was starting to drive me crazy that nobody else was acknowledging this, since it's a significant detail in how the writers are characterizing Tankla.

As for it possibly being pot, go back to the scene where the cop looked into Tankla's drawer. There is a plastic baggie holding small, white, crystal rocks. That ain't pot, lol. It's either crack or crystal meth.

BTW, when I say BL's only give sanitized, fake depictions of gangsters, I must be fair and add that "Double Mints" is an exception. But that was a feature film directed by a man with major credits outside the BL industry, whereas all the BL series are directed by women with few to no credits outside the BL industry.

If you look closely in the scene where the cop peers into Tonkla's drawer, there is a little plastic baggie holding white, crystal rocks. That is not pot. That is crack.

But, hey, it would be still be radical even if Tankla was just smoking pot because BL's simply never show characters imbibing any kind of drugs at all. That's why I think it was brave of the director/writer to have this scene. It gives the show a gritty, dirty sense of realism. Which is kind of cool, given that the show's premise is the supernatural -- ie, the precise opposite of realism.

Holy shit, Tonkla just smoked crack!

The dude took a hit right before the cop came, which explains why he was so hyped up for sex. Crack and coke both increase the libido, but crack is condensed coke that does so at 10 times the strength. It's one reason why the Crack Epidemic and the Aids Epidemic went hand-in-hand in America in the late 1980's to late 1990's. Crackheads wanted sex immediately after smoking a hit, and were too high to give a shit about "safe sex." This would explain why Tonkla wants it raw. He wants it fast and hard right after smoking a hit of crack and he's too high to care about safe-sex.

This is the first & only time I've seen hard drugs portrayed in a BL. They not only showed Tonkla smoking crack, but also showed the cop peering into Tonkla's drawer where there is a small plastic baggie holding white, crystal crack rocks. Of course, I've seen BL's portray gangsters who talk about importing drugs, but it's always some sanitized portrayal of gangsters who behave comedically and/or sympathetically (eg, Kinn/Porsche and Trapped), rather than as true gangsters -- who are scumbags happy to slice off your fingers for the smallest infraction.

Yet this show just gave us an un-sanitized portrayal a man not only doing drugs, but doing hardcore drugs! I am impressed the director had the balls to do this in a BL. Most BL directors/writers just manufacture some fluffy, contrived situation (restaurant, corporate office, college campus, sanitized gangsters, etc), because they know the BL fandom will be satisfied just seeing 2 cute boys fall in love and then share an open-mouthed kiss.

So here's the question: why are none of you commenting on this? If Tonkla's a drug addict, then it's a pretty massive plot-point.