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Just some trivia that maybe not everybody got a chance to read about:

Did you guys know that what Sheng Wang says in the scene when him and Jiang Tian take an evening walk and talk about the moon (right before Sheng Wang sees the teachers kissing) was written by Dong Qin himself?

Just a cool fact :)

Aww, that was so wholesome and lovely.

I liked how the participants of this project appreciated the work of Patrick and other cast members, aside from Dong Qin and Benjamin.

Yeah... that is a very valid and down to earth point. I kinda assumed optimistically that since they were surveying about it, they might be more or less prepared, the venue might have necessary infrastructure etc.

But to your point, we don't really know if they have any experience... And now I'm thinking that them just even considering this option almost a month before the event doesn't really scream: well-prepared.

Plus, ofc, as you mentioned, the additional costs...

I'm hoping that maybe *if* the organizers did provide online streaming, then more people from different countries would be willing to pay for the tickets (I mean, I assume they'd be cheaper).

I just hope that *if* they decide to go through with it, they'll enable some more globally popular payment options like e.g. paypal.

At this point I so desperately want season 2,the entire crew can be wearing potato sacks and be using cardboard boxes as props as far as I'm concerned 😭

Well, I've only read bits of the book *after* watching the drama, so I had no prior image of how SW and JT should look like.

However, in my eyes Liu Dong Qin and Benjamin Tsang are perfect as Sheng Wand and Jiang Tian. I can't imagine anyone else. Appearance-wise, performance-wise etc. they're perfection as their respective characters.

Apparently the organizers are now considering online live streaming as well...

Oh, people complain about the finale? I'm surprised, I thought it was very well executed...

In fact I really enjoyed how one could feel the story going a symbolic full circle, not just with them visiting their hometown, but also e.g. with how they were now waiting on a train together and boarding it together as well (as opposed to what happened in the past).

It all really gave off the feeling like the writers knew what they wanted to tell the audience and how they wanted to do it, from beginning to an end. That ending just felt so... complete. This drama to me really felt like a complete, well thought-out body of work. And I appreciated it a lot.

Just scrolling down in here you will notice the opinions about whether this is a BL, a bromance or yet something else are quite divided.

I'm not sure what do you mean by "is there someone between the guys who likes the other guy?". Do you mean like a triangle? No, there's no love triangle in here.

P.S. To me it's quite evident both men develop feelings for each other.

Yeah, I feel you. I wanna vent, too. Even if, admittedly, I am not someone who really gets the allure of fan meetings. I'm definitely the type of audience who's perfectly fine just watching the actors on screen (or listening to singers sing etc.). I don't really need the whole para-social aspect to enjoy the artwork and someone's skill. If I like an actor, I will just hype them up, recommend them to others etc., but I never even feel like I'd have anything of value to tell them, so I feel no need to meet them 😋 Maybe I'm too old and too much of a buzz-kill for that 🙃

But still, I acknowledge FMs are a standard nowadays, especially in Asia, and seeing how so many entertainers have their own fan meets that are successful, it really sucks these two extremely talented actors who starred in this beautiful drama (that quality-wise really outdid most of everything else within the same genre) struggle to fill a venue. I mean, it's not like the capacity is 5 thousand people, it's 5 hundred... I don't know. It is super sad.

On the other hand, from what I hear, the organizers didn't really help the situation. From what I read, first international fans had problems acquiring tickets, the sales got paused, then the problem got fixed with a new platform for international fans, but the price is like 15% higher than if bought via Chinese platform. I read some people already got discouraged, even if they were planning on going originally...

Maybe, just maybe, this was supposed to be a movie about an unfulfilled love between two men. The love that just started, but had no chance to really blossom yet? They make "straight movies" based on such premise all the time, I'm sure they do 🤨

And even if Balloon's Landing was a movie about unrequited love (which I actually disagree with), if that's the case - then why it's no longer a BL? Are gay characters allowed to be portrayed only in a certain way and in a certain context? So there's no way they could develop feelings for each other slowly or suffer from unrequited love?

This reminds me of this Japanese coming of age drama My Strawberry Film that had so many people complain on Viki how it wasn't a BL (to the point the genre was changed). The thing is, it actually featured a gay boy who's had a very serious crush on his best friend and was very aware of his feelings. He actually even confesses in the end. So the "gay experience" is there. But I guess it's no longer worthy of a BL label if it's one-sided? How to categorize such work then? It's not a bromance, if one person wants something more, or is it?

Not that I think Balloon's Landing is even a story of unrequited love. I've seen this mentioned in some other comment as well, so you're not alone in that assessment - maybe there is something to it. I just don't understand where it comes from - can you tell me who is supposed to be the one in love, then? And why do you think it's unrequited? Unfulfilled, sure, I can get behind that - but unrequited?

I'm asking unironically and am genuinely curious.

Also, I just want to add that H2: Crossing the Line was released in 2018. Since then Fandy portrayed many different characters, from a boy with terminal leukemia in More than Blue to a criminal with a disturbing past in Copycat Killer (and doing a great job at both of these performances, may I add). But I guess he can't play a role in a movie next to another male protagonist without audience having *expectations* of them kissing etc. 🙄 Terrance Lau, on the other hand, is a brilliant actor with many awards under his belt. But I guess these facts were not good enough to promote the movie, huh.

Well, if that was truly the case, then the marketing team did this movie a disfavour because it got accused of (in my opinion undeservedly) queerbaiting etc. and review-bombed even here on MDL, where its rating was still around 5 some not long ago (it improved since the movie got released on Netflix and people actually started watching it).

Frankly, I fail to understand why would a Taiwanese movie even beat around the bush and sell a non BL as a BL, if they can just openly make a BL. I mean "Your Name Engraved Herein" was a commercial and critical success, wasn't it? Not to mention multiple BL dramas released in Taiwan every year plus other dramas that aren't even strictly BL that feature a gay or a lesbian couple, which are pretty common as well.

To me it really looks like the audience, for whatever reason, can't accept a movie about romantic love between two men, if it doesn't check the typical BL tropes boxes.

It's doing quite poorly. There is this account on X, I think the owner is from HK, and they're following this thing pretty closely. According to what they reported, it seem like the sales are pretty much stuck, I don't think they even sold half of the available tickets...

Perhaps... I can't really counter anything you said with a definite "you're wrong", because you are referring to the very specific events from the story. However, I just can't help to see their relationship differently.

But as for Go Young wanting Yongsoo to meet his mom, I think it was more GY deciding on coming out to his mom than anything else and that decision was prompted by Yongsoo's closeted behaviour more than anything else, so I didn't see it as a particularly strong indicator of how strong was their relationship... More a sign of frustration.

What you're referring to their "little world" to me was a result of Yongsoo not wanting to partake in activities Go Young wanted to share with him (lest someone sees them and puts two and two together and figures out that they're dating), so it was no sweeter than a cheating couple meeting secretly in a motel room.

But as I said, that is how I see their relationship, maybe I'm too cynical to see the beauty of it that you clearly saw :)

That's ok, I didn't really feel offended. I assumed I wrote is not particularly clearly 😋

Sadly, that's not the case. They have the script ready, but haven't started filming yet (and if it was decided on, the news was not communicated officially anywhere).

What we have is director Patrick Liu alluding to season 2 every now and then (but he's testing my poor nerves, because he'd say sth sounding super optimistic and then mention sth else that makes me feel there's no way season 2 will ever happen, so here's where I am on everything he says 😋).

So far the most recent glimmer of hope I'm clinging to is Liu Dong Qin (Sheng Wang) saying "See you in season 2" to the fans watching his most recent live. But that's still nothing official.

Not exactly :) Fandy is the guy from Crossing the Line. The other dude is an actor from Hong Kong called Terrance Lau. I don't think he ever played a gay part before, as far as I know (but he is a really really good actor, one of my top faves).

This is on a totally different note and I might be wrong, but I think you might like this:
https://kisskh.at/764539-wo-tsai-che-li-teng-ni

I think them choosing Macau was one way to try and cater to international audiences as well, since it's easier to get there visa-wise plus it's fairly close from there to e.g. Vietnam...
But in the end maybe they overestimated the interest, who knows. Regardless whether we get season 2 or not, I'd feel sad for actors if the fan meet flops.

I'm curious if sales went up after the issues with ticket platforms were fixed.. .

Don't worry, no terminal illnesses, sudden deaths or anything of that sort. Just regular heart-break over beloved characters being hurt 🙃

I think after you click on the actor's name you go into "Edit Biography", then click on the "Cover Image" and there you go to "Choose File". I've never edited anything myself on MDL, but seems like the way to do it (?)