After looking at the cast and reading comments below, I want to thank everyone for helping me to not lose even one brain cell by watching this drama, yet another POS out of Thailand. How do directors who make vomitously bad dramas obtain jobs directing yet another POS? Are shows like this successful on TV in Thailand?
It's really too bad how Thailand BLs have become a joke/punch line. I got my BL start with Lovesick, Make It Right, Together With Me and other Thai BLs that touched me deeply. But now it seems every f**king show out of Thailand is just awful and embarrassing. I still try at least the first episode of each drama before I trash it and drop. Haven't watched a Thai BL in full since Moonlight Chicken.
I want a bl with both of them as the main characters or a part 2 of the movie where maybe they become a couple…
Me too! Except I didn't cry at Titanic AT ALL, which is weird because I cry easily at movies that touch me. But something about DeCaprio's performance left me cold. He seemed like Kate Winslet's little brother, not her lover.
A friend and I saw Titanic in an opening day matinee where we were almost the only people in the seats. After it ended, I turned to him and said "well, that's going to bomb." oops! lol
A message to an MDL friend after finishing this flick:
Went back and finished "Marry My Dead Body" just now and am very glad I did. Not sure I would have without a nudge from you.
Cried like a child for at least the last 20 minutes. The writers/director did a great job of combining comedy, both emotional and physical, with tragic drama here and the actors made it all work beautifully. What happened before was that I got to just short of midway and it felt like the focus was turning from the gay/straight/ghost marriage stuff, which I found hilarious, to another lame "who dunnit?" exercise during which the hot detective would solve the crime with the help of the ghost, but I didn't feel anything compelling about that, which is when I took a break. When I came back I discovered that only for about ten minutes while that transition was made did the film spin its wheels a bit. I was laughing my ass off again soon and loving the interaction of the dead guy and the hot detective. The way he came around to gay-friendly felt plausible, especially since he wasn't like a raging, spittle-flinging fag-hater to begin with.
I would rate this as one of my favorite cops and robbers comedy/sad drama with nice endings I've seen, especially among the gay ones.
ALL the acting was good. Especially impressed with Greg Hsu as the detective. I know I've seen him elsewhere and am going to check his bio/filmography after leaving this message to find out where. Turns out the other actor who played the dead guy, Austin Lin, co-stars in the film below, Anywhere, Somehwere, ,Nowhere, which I dropped. I spent the entirety of the half of that film I watched wondering where I'd seen that guy too, but didn't expect it to be that I'd just seen him the night before in MMDB, lol. But his face has changed enough in 9 years that I wouldn't have put the two together.
I think we can all thank Greg Hsu and the director for the gratuitous and mouth-watering butt shot during the scene where he had just settled in to watch porn and jerk off when he started hearing weird noises and got up to investigate. lol WHAT a butt! Afterwards, I was thinking they may have missed an opportunity there...it would have been hysterically funny and also pervy-hot to somehow have the ghost-husband make his presence known in that same room where Detective was masturbating, in a slow-reveal kind of way where he slowly somehow becomes the object of the Detective's masturbatory fantasy onscreen without the cop realizing it at first. OR...he could have just appeared over his shoulder and handed him a few tissues right after he came. :D Regardless, I thought sure Detective's computer was going to revert somehow to gay porn while he was beating off, as some side-connection to the ghost having been there. That would have been funny too.
The near-last scene in the hospital room where Detective reconciled ghost-son and father as intermediary by asking the dad questions so ghost boy could hear the answers. So moving. The dad and the cop were excellent in that scene.
I'm like you: I enjoy the English first names most Taiwanese entertainers give themselves, with an alternated Sino first name for their gigs on the mainland.
And I keep forgetting to say how much I love Taipei Tower, which I believe is the name of that tallest-by-far skyscraper on the Taipei skyline. So very Asian and distinctive without being cheesy.
This massively inflated MDL rating is a mind-blower. Anyone rating this above a 5/10 is fangirling.
One of the most incoherent, unnecesarily bizarre, full of BS storylines in BL history. I get to say this because I liked Season 1 a lot a rated it highly. Then they followed up with this trash. The plot holes, improbabilties, impossibilities, nonsensibilities and general stupidity is more than readily apparent, thus I will not bother to list them. That's why only a fangirl/boy would rate this thing above a 5/10 for the handsome/pretty men and the good acting from Ray Chang. The plot is so absurd I had to double-check to make sure this wasn't made in Thailand.
Meh...at 50 minutes, I've had it with waiting for ANY sort of coherent thru-line to hang onto through this thing but that's apparently not something that is going to be happening, so I'm out. Don't appreciate the gay-tease BS that is obviously going nowhere either. Sad waste of two very good actors in the lead roles. I don't mind heavily symbolic/abstract films if I feel I'm being led toward something. I don't feel that here so dropping.
I'm liking this one a lot. Great, fun, sexy, slightly-Japanese-twisted plot going on. Exceptional sexual energy between the leads as well as them both being charismatic on their own. They both look like Manga drawings come to life, one breathtakingly beautiful, the other sex on a stick. The new weathergirl looks like a blow-up sex doll and I'm pretty sure that's not by accident either, nor is the fact that her boobs are pushed up to her chin. The management of the weather channel knows what it's doing too. :) The post-masturbation/Manga-drawing scene was hilarious. "Masturbating while drawing gives the artist good inspiration..." hahaha All the sticky tissues laying around, empty beer cans, etc. Excellent set dressing! :D The overall setup of the artist being in love with the guy he lives with, but unable to fully act or express it on his own is nothing new, but it is so well-presented and acted that it feels fresh. I was a little surprised to see so much come out in the open in this second episode, since there are six more to go and I thought the build-up to today's scene would be longer. Kind of hoping Manga-Boy would go crazy with jealousy while Weatherboy was banging the sex doll on "cloudy days." lol
This show is a wonderful corrective to all the usual Thai garbage airing right now, which I watched one episode of each, then dropped. More REAL heat in this one episode of Taikan Yoho than the last 500 Thai abortions put together.
I'm wondering, is this what his character in Zenra Meshi alludes to??🤔
I watched all of Zenra Meshi, as bad as it was. This guy played the veggie store owner, right? What are you referring to in that his chararcter "alludes to" something. I think we just saw Wei go into the room and do what Shih had done a year before, so how would he be around as the same character in Zenra Meshi to allude to anything?
It's frustrating to have no idea why Shih did what he did in the first place. He didn't seem distraught at the film's beginning when we saw him calmly come home, sip some beer, then go into the bedroom carrying some...things. We were shown nothing to indicate discord between the two halves of the MC. It's also frustrating that it seems Wei's friends had allowed him to become very isolated, not that you can always do much if someone is determined to isolate themselves.
Figaro Tseng's acting here was quite good. The other guy too, for the bit we got to see him on screen.
The bit with the duct tape at the beginning and again at the end was quietly horrifying and sad.
That bastard landlord is going to have an EXTRA hell of a time selling the house now, eh?
Kim Hae Sook is spectacular as the ML's mother in this deeply moving film. Son Ho Jun is just as good as the "diamond" his mother always knew him to be.
The Koreans almost always get this type of story right, and they did so again here. They seem to have a direct channel to the center of my heart.
This movie has a very good storyline…The romance plot was good and I liked their chemistry ..If only they cut…
The sex was totally necessary to the story, and much of it was as beautiful and moving as many of the film's other scenes. MDL is a roiling nest of prudes.
Shin Ha Kyun moves higher up my list of best mainstream feature film actors with every additional movie of his I see. He absolutely owns this flick. There is nothing and no one the man cannot do or portray.
Kang Han Na is excellent as the wronged, lowly, peasant girl bent on revenge.
Every actor in this flick does a spectacular job. I was hooked from beginning to end. Haven't cried this hard at the end of a straight romance in a very long time.
Ignore the Puritans in comments pretending this is nothing but sex. Total BS. Yes, there is sex but it is NOT at all overwhelming in frequency or explicitness. There are simply a LOT of prudish MDLers with hangups about sex as a part of life, who clutch their pearls with desperate, pretended astonishment that men and women, women and women, and men and men, have, you know, sex.
I do believe it a mistake to give this film the English title "Empire of Lust," which sounds vaguely like a soft-core porn film. It is NOT that. It is a historical, romantic epic with lots of palace intrigue and stunning battle scenes, and excellent chemistry between the romantic leads.
It's an oldie but very good. Joo Jin Mo, who I discovered first in "A Frozen Flower," is sensational in it. It's…
God, A Frozen Flower is epic. One of the first gay-themed, Asian films I watched about three years ago, after stumbling across the Asian cinema universe. I was practically blown out of my living room chair as I watched it on my laptop. Gasping, sobbing, the whole bit. Wow, what a film.
oo hvnt hrd of sad temptation b4- might prioritise for later
It's an oldie but very good. Joo Jin Mo, who I discovered first in "A Frozen Flower," is sensational in it. It's very daring for its time and helped set the stage for future gay films.
What Maggi said! Along with a few thoughts of my own under the spoiler tag below:
Anyone showing skin in a well-produced tv or film production is wearing makeup on that skin. If you disagree, I don't care. Unless you have met Kiyoi/actor in person and fondled his abs how do you know whether or not they "need" makeup in a scene? If they were shown in a scene, they got makeup, or should have gotten makeup.
1 
1 
How do directors who make vomitously bad dramas obtain jobs directing yet another POS? Are shows like this successful on TV in Thailand?
It's really too bad how Thailand BLs have become a joke/punch line. I got my BL start with Lovesick, Make It Right, Together With Me and other Thai BLs that touched me deeply. But now it seems every f**king show out of Thailand is just awful and embarrassing. I still try at least the first episode of each drama before I trash it and drop. Haven't watched a Thai BL in full since Moonlight Chicken.
Dropped
1/10
Thanks for the explanations.
Except I didn't cry at Titanic AT ALL, which is weird because I cry easily at movies that touch me. But something about DeCaprio's performance left me cold. He seemed like Kate Winslet's little brother, not her lover.
A friend and I saw Titanic in an opening day matinee where we were almost the only people in the seats. After it ended, I turned to him and said "well, that's going to bomb." oops! lol
Went back and finished "Marry My Dead Body" just now and am very glad I did. Not sure I would have without a nudge from you.
Cried like a child for at least the last 20 minutes. The writers/director did a great job of combining comedy, both emotional and physical, with tragic drama here and the actors made it all work beautifully.
What happened before was that I got to just short of midway and it felt like the focus was turning from the gay/straight/ghost marriage stuff, which I found hilarious, to another lame "who dunnit?" exercise during which the hot detective would solve the crime with the help of the ghost, but I didn't feel anything compelling about that, which is when I took a break. When I came back I discovered that only for about ten minutes while that transition was made did the film spin its wheels a bit. I was laughing my ass off again soon and loving the interaction of the dead guy and the hot detective. The way he came around to gay-friendly felt plausible, especially since he wasn't like a raging, spittle-flinging fag-hater to begin with.
I would rate this as one of my favorite cops and robbers comedy/sad drama with nice endings I've seen, especially among the gay ones.
ALL the acting was good.
Especially impressed with Greg Hsu as the detective. I know I've seen him elsewhere and am going to check his bio/filmography after leaving this message to find out where.
Turns out the other actor who played the dead guy, Austin Lin, co-stars in the film below, Anywhere, Somehwere, ,Nowhere, which I dropped. I spent the entirety of the half of that film I watched wondering where I'd seen that guy too, but didn't expect it to be that I'd just seen him the night before in MMDB, lol. But his face has changed enough in 9 years that I wouldn't have put the two together.
I think we can all thank Greg Hsu and the director for the gratuitous and mouth-watering butt shot during the scene where he had just settled in to watch porn and jerk off when he started hearing weird noises and got up to investigate. lol WHAT a butt! Afterwards, I was thinking they may have missed an opportunity there...it would have been hysterically funny and also pervy-hot to somehow have the ghost-husband make his presence known in that same room where Detective was masturbating, in a slow-reveal kind of way where he slowly somehow becomes the object of the Detective's masturbatory fantasy onscreen without the cop realizing it at first. OR...he could have just appeared over his shoulder and handed him a few tissues right after he came. :D Regardless, I thought sure Detective's computer was going to revert somehow to gay porn while he was beating off, as some side-connection to the ghost having been there. That would have been funny too.
The near-last scene in the hospital room where Detective reconciled ghost-son and father as intermediary by asking the dad questions so ghost boy could hear the answers. So moving. The dad and the cop were excellent in that scene.
I'm like you: I enjoy the English first names most Taiwanese entertainers give themselves, with an alternated Sino first name for their gigs on the mainland.
And I keep forgetting to say how much I love Taipei Tower, which I believe is the name of that tallest-by-far skyscraper on the Taipei skyline. So very Asian and distinctive without being cheesy.
"CP?"
Anyone rating this above a 5/10 is fangirling.
One of the most incoherent, unnecesarily bizarre, full of BS storylines in BL history. I get to say this because I liked Season 1 a lot a rated it highly. Then they followed up with this trash. The plot holes, improbabilties, impossibilities, nonsensibilities and general stupidity is more than readily apparent, thus I will not bother to list them. That's why only a fangirl/boy would rate this thing above a 5/10 for the handsome/pretty men and the good acting from Ray Chang. The plot is so absurd I had to double-check to make sure this wasn't made in Thailand.
Absolutely, terrifyingly bad.
1/10
Don't appreciate the gay-tease BS that is obviously going nowhere either.
Sad waste of two very good actors in the lead roles.
I don't mind heavily symbolic/abstract films if I feel I'm being led toward something. I don't feel that here so dropping.
1/10
Great, fun, sexy, slightly-Japanese-twisted plot going on.
Exceptional sexual energy between the leads as well as them both being charismatic on their own.
They both look like Manga drawings come to life, one breathtakingly beautiful, the other sex on a stick.
The new weathergirl looks like a blow-up sex doll and I'm pretty sure that's not by accident either, nor is the fact that her boobs are pushed up to her chin. The management of the weather channel knows what it's doing too. :)
The post-masturbation/Manga-drawing scene was hilarious. "Masturbating while drawing gives the artist good inspiration..." hahaha All the sticky tissues laying around, empty beer cans, etc. Excellent set dressing! :D
The overall setup of the artist being in love with the guy he lives with, but unable to fully act or express it on his own is nothing new, but it is so well-presented and acted that it feels fresh.
I was a little surprised to see so much come out in the open in this second episode, since there are six more to go and I thought the build-up to today's scene would be longer. Kind of hoping Manga-Boy would go crazy with jealousy while Weatherboy was banging the sex doll on "cloudy days." lol
This show is a wonderful corrective to all the usual Thai garbage airing right now, which I watched one episode of each, then dropped. More REAL heat in this one episode of Taikan Yoho than the last 500 Thai abortions put together.
Bravo so far!
Two main actors are cute/hot.
Worst job of poster-hanging ever seen.
2/10
I think we just saw Wei go into the room and do what Shih had done a year before, so how would he be around as the same character in Zenra Meshi to allude to anything?
Figaro Tseng's acting here was quite good. The other guy too, for the bit we got to see him on screen.
The bit with the duct tape at the beginning and again at the end was quietly horrifying and sad.
That bastard landlord is going to have an EXTRA hell of a time selling the house now, eh?
Son Ho Jun is just as good as the "diamond" his mother always knew him to be.
The Koreans almost always get this type of story right, and they did so again here. They seem to have a direct channel to the center of my heart.
Highly recommended.
9/10
Shin Ha Kyun moves higher up my list of best mainstream feature film actors with every additional movie of his I see. He absolutely owns this flick. There is nothing and no one the man cannot do or portray.
Kang Han Na is excellent as the wronged, lowly, peasant girl bent on revenge.
Every actor in this flick does a spectacular job. I was hooked from beginning to end. Haven't cried this hard at the end of a straight romance in a very long time.
Ignore the Puritans in comments pretending this is nothing but sex. Total BS. Yes, there is sex but it is NOT at all overwhelming in frequency or explicitness. There are simply a LOT of prudish MDLers with hangups about sex as a part of life, who clutch their pearls with desperate, pretended astonishment that men and women, women and women, and men and men, have, you know, sex.
I do believe it a mistake to give this film the English title "Empire of Lust," which sounds vaguely like a soft-core porn film. It is NOT that. It is a historical, romantic epic with lots of palace intrigue and stunning battle scenes, and excellent chemistry between the romantic leads.
BRAVO!
9.5/10
Unless you have met Kiyoi/actor in person and fondled his abs how do you know whether or not they "need" makeup in a scene? If they were shown in a scene, they got makeup, or should have gotten makeup.
But anyway, whatever you say.