The actors faking straight sex in the first scene and pretending to smoke cigs and drink booze seemed to have…
Actually, and especially for one with so little time onscreen in the prologue, I thought his interaction with the other actor was quite good, as in realistic and natural. I'm mostly talking about their quiet dialogue after the bed stuff. He was unhurried and relaxed with the few lines he had. Whatever it was that made it so, I noticed it, as there is often so much bad acting in BLs.
As for the budget, I noted too that they were likely working on a shoestring, and yet the apartment settings and the cinematography were very well done. In comments below, an MDL friend and I discussed what a nice contrast that is to the sterile, unnatural, furniture store-like look of so many BL sets out of Thailand and to a lesser degree depending on the show, Korea. Maybe it's a case where having almost no budget was a PLUS for the show as a whole. You don't need much money to set up realistically spare dwellings for impoverished characters.
But even so, the dwellings we saw were filled with objects and things on the wall, just as real people would decorate and accumulate objects/things over time, in whatever space they had. The young man who just moved in took the time to hang vinyl records and album covers on his walls, which tells us he loves music, perhaps is a musician, and is creative in making the most of what little he does have. The wall decor and the fresh sunflower told me that wherever he lives he likes to make it feel like home.
I grew up in the state of Kansas USA, known as the "Sunflower State" because so many of them are grown for their seeds there. Perhaps the character is also from Kansas. 😁😁😁
I'm wondering if one of the gay guys is the dude the smoker-chick has to marry. It's an arranged marriage so it's…
Oh, don't worry about the tiny spoiler from the trailer. No biggie. Did we just have our first little tiff? 😉😉😉😉😉
Actually, the smoker-chick said it was an arranged marriage herself, and it indicates in the synopsis above that the gay guy Kelvin was married, so I thought that's how I put that together, but whatever. It doesn't matter, my dear. 😁😍😍
Assuming this story is pretty accurate as to what actually took place, these people were self-delusional, nearly psychotic losers. From student to protestor to "army" member to murder-cult to suicide-cult, it was play-acting all the way.
The silliness of what they were up to all along was their "military training" during which, instead of firing ammunition they actually yelled "bang" at each other. Jesus.
I'm wondering if one of the gay guys is the dude the smoker-chick has to marry. It's an arranged marriage so it's…
We're not talking about the same kind of information here, Maggi. A skilled critic knows how to write a review without detailed plot spoilers. To me, what you are talking about is general background information and I totally agree about having more of that enriching the first viewing experience. A big reason I get so much enjoyment out of good WW2, WW1, Korean War and Vietnam War movies is that I know so much about the history of those conflicts, which is vastly different from me knowing specific details of the plot of a film and what happens to its characters as a film unfolds while SET WITHIN one of those conflicts.
Perhaps I overstated my position on going into a movie knowing as little about the SPECIFIC PLOT of that film, but I don't think so. Knowing that generally speaking, a lot of closeted gay men marry straight women, have kids and then divorce is background/context information. Knowing going in that a specific character in a specific plot in a specific film has already married, had kids and divorced, when that information is not presented in, for instance, this prologue we just watched is something else.
I don't understand people's desire to predict and assume major plot points before they encounter them on the screen during the film itself. Setting, time frame, historical context, etc. is one thing. Specific character attributes and what is going to happen to those characters is another. It's like MDL commenters constantly announcing in comments what is "going to happen next" because it's in the Manga or Manhwa or or novel or whatever they read. They even tend to throw hissy fits if a writer/director/etc. dares to change something in an adaptation. How DARE they?!
Even if the basic events in the plot and the characters are basically the same in an adaptation as in the source material, there is no way they are going to be IDENTICAL to what the individual reader of a novel or Manga has pictured in their mind as they encountered the story the first time around. No two readers/viewers perceive a story in exactly the same way, even if they're looking at pics along with text.
So yeah, background on time/place/context/overall setting, I'm OK with knowing. Specific plot elements, not so much. No reason for me to want or need to know that ahead of time. To me, it's the equivalent of insisting on reading a novel's outline before reading the novel.
Finally, I don't get the purpose of spilling in a trailer for a second ep. information we weren't provided in the preceding ep. or as here, in a prologue. I have never thought of trailers or god forbid, Youtube interview and fan-service videos as PART OF the content of a film or series, but that's me.
I'm wondering if one of the gay guys is the dude the smoker-chick has to marry. It's an arranged marriage so it's…
Can I call him "Mr. Chips?" :D
Maggi, you know I shy away from trailers. I will never understand why some trailers give away major plot points. Even if a show basically starts with a situation like you say, what is gained by giving out that information ahead of time? I'm sure there's enough intriguing action in other scenes/episodes that could be used as bait in a trailer without conceding plot points.
I like to sit down to a new BL show knowing as little about what I'm going to see as possible. Which is interesting, as when I used to go to big-screen movie theatres I always liked seeing as many trailers as they would dish out before the film started. However, perhaps Hollywood is better than BL World at whetting one's appetite without spoiling one's dinner. The best trailers make me think "wait...what?" not "oh, OK, so THAT'S what's going to happen and when."
It seemed as if he'd been out drinking, and slipped and fell while drunkenly searching for his keys or something.…
Yes, it was a real, intentional kiss, that is true. But the script found it necessary that one of them be in a black-out drunk or a hallucinatory delirium. lol
I don't care much though, this looks to have promise at least, and I noticed the realistic set decoration just as you did. God, all the Thai BLs are peopled by characters who live in floodlight-bright furniture store showrooms with nary a phot or painting on the walls. And those weird overhead ceiling lights NEVER go out, even at 3am. :)
The one that always comes to mind is My Bromance 2, in which one or both of the brothers live in a house as uninhabited-looking as the moon. No pictures, no books, no tchotchkes, no nothing. Well, OK, maybe ONE tchotchke. Downright creepy.
It seemed as if he'd been out drinking, and slipped and fell while drunkenly searching for his keys or something.…
I'm holding out that it's a "fever," from which he has fallen to the floor in a delirious state of hallucination, lol Whether that or a drunken fall, it's an unfortunate sign that so many BL tropes are being employed in the first 15 minutes.
That said, the episode had a nice look and feel to it and I'm hopeful. Also, I enjoy hearing the Hong Kong speech patterns again. I like the way they hold out the last words of some sentences in a kind of sing-songy manner.
I'm wondering if one of the gay guys is the dude the smoker-chick has to marry. It's an arranged marriage so it's…
Well...I was thinking she was telling the story of her groom-to-be's life in the past, as it was leading up to the present in which she is sharing the story with "Shawn," the guy in bed. So my theory would be that she is GOING TO marry one of the gay guys in the story she is telling, sadly enough. She is fully aware her soon-to-be husband is gay but she and he feel there's no way out.
Yes, I'd agree with your second paragraph about Asia/Kansas and gay men marrying women. However, don't kid yourself that every day, in every state in this country, there aren't still lots of closeted gay men marrying straight women in the hopes they can pull it off. Unfortunately, in most cases they are headed for a lot of pain all-round.
Plenty of those women will eventually discover their husband is gay, but there will be children involved and they'll choose to stay together, both for appearances and to raise the kids. LOTS of those women will suspect but never ask. And LOTS of those men will have either a steady male lover on the side or be involved in a never-ending string of one-night stands. Keep in mind how easy it is to live a double life now with the Internet as a factor.
I went through my own story in this regard just before online social media became a thing. Actually, I'm glad it wasn't around yet as it would have been very tempting to just hookup on the sly a lot instead of facing the truth and setting myself and my ex-wife free. My guess is that we would have come to the same end but social media would have drawn things out significantly before I broke.
This shows promise. I like the writing and the look of the first episode.
Notes to director: In her first scene grandma's "gray" hair looks as though she was at the beach and a gigantic seagull shit on her head. In her next scene that problem has been fixed but please pay attention going forward. You can't just pour white-streak liquid on an actor's head and expect it to look realistic.
The actors faking straight sex in the first scene and pretending to smoke cigs and drink booze seemed to have stumbled in out of a middle school play. Consider casting grownups.
If one of your characters is going to smoke a cig please insist the actor learn to actually inhale. Nothing more amusing or distracting than watching an actor in closeup pretend to smoke without inhaling. lol Her sex partner appeared to be drinking urine. Whiskey is much darker than that. Or maybe it was Mountain Dew.
It's unfortunate we already had a main character mysteriously passing out for no apparent reason, this time lolling about deliriously on the filthy stairwell floor of the tenement apartment. Can it be the next ep will reveal he came down with a "fever" from the brutal heat in his apartment as he cleaned and decorated it? It's true, we did see him sweating. But sweating is OK and does not cause catatonic delirium. This fainting thing is known as a BL TROPE. Please avoid more of the same going forward.
Closeups of actors' hands clutching sheets as an indication they are having penetrative sex is also a trope.
The prologue managed to do lot in a mere 15 minutes. It established strong acting, directing and writing. I noted…
I'm wondering if one of the gay guys is the dude the smoker-chick has to marry. It's an arranged marriage so it's entirely possible a gay dude is being forced to marry her and she is aware of his sexuality. Either the parents know and think they can force him to be straight or they are ignorant of his sexuality. Just a theory.
As I already stated, I saw the first episode just before I posted my comment. No, I won't share the link and no I don't care if you believe me. If you like the show watch it.
You stopped watching episode 3 at the wrong time, if you had finished watching the episode you would have seen…
If they did a "good job of that" I and so many other people wouldn't have dropped this show. They have dragged things out in a circular fashion for multiple episodes beginning last season. If you like what you see, watch it. I won't be. It's boring.
This show should be called "Minato's Doormat," featuring Shin as the thing on the floor.
It's really sad: I just dropped halfway thru the third episode. This is nothing more than the same boring, inexplicable emotional cruelty ladled out by Minato onto Shin and by that horrid, dull, lifeless Funeral Director onto the adorable Asuka.
At least in the case of Minato you can see attractive qualities. With Shu, there is NOTHING about him that makes Asuka's fixation on him believable. He is repulsive. flat of affect, rude and not the least bit good-looking.
So we have two darling characters being psychologically mistreated by the unworthy objects of their affections over and over and over again. That's it, that's the plot.
It is sad that three charming and talented young actors, Takuya, Sho and Tomoya, are being wasted in service to this POS series. Oh well...perhaps the show will lead to bigger things for all three and they can pretend this never happened.
I will likely wait until all episodes have aired, then come back for a speed-watch to see if by some miracle this mess becomes interesting at some future point. It's doubtful that will happen though.
The only good thing about it is the opening title sequence. I always get a kick out of that.
What exactly do you respect? These struggling actors probably need the cash or being sold by their parents. Do…
Your supercilious style of writing is off-putting. I don't need your "assistance," thank you.
Everything you said about what comes with the territory of being an actor, young, old or in-between is true. So what? So they kissed like normal 14 year-olds do. Hopefully, these young actors have agents, parents and others around them who are there to help them understand how to ignore criticism from people like you, if they are exposed to it online or elsewhere.
What you don't get is that YOU and others who think like you, are the problem. There IS no problem with 14 year-olds kissing, as millions do around the world every day. You are projecting your own sexual hangups onto these teen actors and then proclaiming what you imagine to be the case as a big crisis.
It's not a crisis. It's annoying. In a nutshell, you and your type create a controversy, criticize the actors and then claim the criticism and the controversy to be a problem. Cuts no ice with me and hopefully these teen actors know how to ignore people like you on the Internet.
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As for the budget, I noted too that they were likely working on a shoestring, and yet the apartment settings and the cinematography were very well done. In comments below, an MDL friend and I discussed what a nice contrast that is to the sterile, unnatural, furniture store-like look of so many BL sets out of Thailand and to a lesser degree depending on the show, Korea. Maybe it's a case where having almost no budget was a PLUS for the show as a whole. You don't need much money to set up realistically spare dwellings for impoverished characters.
But even so, the dwellings we saw were filled with objects and things on the wall, just as real people would decorate and accumulate objects/things over time, in whatever space they had. The young man who just moved in took the time to hang vinyl records and album covers on his walls, which tells us he loves music, perhaps is a musician, and is creative in making the most of what little he does have. The wall decor and the fresh sunflower told me that wherever he lives he likes to make it feel like home.
I grew up in the state of Kansas USA, known as the "Sunflower State" because so many of them are grown for their seeds there. Perhaps the character is also from Kansas. 😁😁😁
Actually, the smoker-chick said it was an arranged marriage herself, and it indicates in the synopsis above that the gay guy Kelvin was married, so I thought that's how I put that together, but whatever. It doesn't matter, my dear. 😁😍😍
The silliness of what they were up to all along was their "military training" during which, instead of firing ammunition they actually yelled "bang" at each other. Jesus.
Human nature is a scary thing.
Perhaps I overstated my position on going into a movie knowing as little about the SPECIFIC PLOT of that film, but I don't think so. Knowing that generally speaking, a lot of closeted gay men marry straight women, have kids and then divorce is background/context information. Knowing going in that a specific character in a specific plot in a specific film has already married, had kids and divorced, when that information is not presented in, for instance, this prologue we just watched is something else.
I don't understand people's desire to predict and assume major plot points before they encounter them on the screen during the film itself. Setting, time frame, historical context, etc. is one thing. Specific character attributes and what is going to happen to those characters is another. It's like MDL commenters constantly announcing in comments what is "going to happen next" because it's in the Manga or Manhwa or or novel or whatever they read. They even tend to throw hissy fits if a writer/director/etc. dares to change something in an adaptation. How DARE they?!
Even if the basic events in the plot and the characters are basically the same in an adaptation as in the source material, there is no way they are going to be IDENTICAL to what the individual reader of a novel or Manga has pictured in their mind as they encountered the story the first time around. No two readers/viewers perceive a story in exactly the same way, even if they're looking at pics along with text.
So yeah, background on time/place/context/overall setting, I'm OK with knowing. Specific plot elements, not so much. No reason for me to want or need to know that ahead of time. To me, it's the equivalent of insisting on reading a novel's outline before reading the novel.
Finally, I don't get the purpose of spilling in a trailer for a second ep. information we weren't provided in the preceding ep. or as here, in a prologue. I have never thought of trailers or god forbid, Youtube interview and fan-service videos as PART OF the content of a film or series, but that's me.
Maggi, you know I shy away from trailers. I will never understand why some trailers give away major plot points. Even if a show basically starts with a situation like you say, what is gained by giving out that information ahead of time? I'm sure there's enough intriguing action in other scenes/episodes that could be used as bait in a trailer without conceding plot points.
I like to sit down to a new BL show knowing as little about what I'm going to see as possible. Which is interesting, as when I used to go to big-screen movie theatres I always liked seeing as many trailers as they would dish out before the film started. However, perhaps Hollywood is better than BL World at whetting one's appetite without spoiling one's dinner. The best trailers make me think "wait...what?" not "oh, OK, so THAT'S what's going to happen and when."
Just my measly, little opinion.
I don't care much though, this looks to have promise at least, and I noticed the realistic set decoration just as you did. God, all the Thai BLs are peopled by characters who live in floodlight-bright furniture store showrooms with nary a phot or painting on the walls. And those weird overhead ceiling lights NEVER go out, even at 3am. :)
The one that always comes to mind is My Bromance 2, in which one or both of the brothers live in a house as uninhabited-looking as the moon. No pictures, no books, no tchotchkes, no nothing. Well, OK, maybe ONE tchotchke. Downright creepy.
That said, the episode had a nice look and feel to it and I'm hopeful. Also, I enjoy hearing the Hong Kong speech patterns again. I like the way they hold out the last words of some sentences in a kind of sing-songy manner.
Yes, I'd agree with your second paragraph about Asia/Kansas and gay men marrying women. However, don't kid yourself that every day, in every state in this country, there aren't still lots of closeted gay men marrying straight women in the hopes they can pull it off. Unfortunately, in most cases they are headed for a lot of pain all-round.
Plenty of those women will eventually discover their husband is gay, but there will be children involved and they'll choose to stay together, both for appearances and to raise the kids. LOTS of those women will suspect but never ask. And LOTS of those men will have either a steady male lover on the side or be involved in a never-ending string of one-night stands. Keep in mind how easy it is to live a double life now with the Internet as a factor.
I went through my own story in this regard just before online social media became a thing. Actually, I'm glad it wasn't around yet as it would have been very tempting to just hookup on the sly a lot instead of facing the truth and setting myself and my ex-wife free. My guess is that we would have come to the same end but social media would have drawn things out significantly before I broke.
Actually, it seemed to me the person she called "Shawn" is the guy who just boffed her in bed. She said "Shawn. Do you have time for a cigarette?"
Notes to director:
In her first scene grandma's "gray" hair looks as though she was at the beach and a gigantic seagull shit on her head. In her next scene that problem has been fixed but please pay attention going forward. You can't just pour white-streak liquid on an actor's head and expect it to look realistic.
The actors faking straight sex in the first scene and pretending to smoke cigs and drink booze seemed to have stumbled in out of a middle school play. Consider casting grownups.
If one of your characters is going to smoke a cig please insist the actor learn to actually inhale. Nothing more amusing or distracting than watching an actor in closeup pretend to smoke without inhaling. lol Her sex partner appeared to be drinking urine. Whiskey is much darker than that. Or maybe it was Mountain Dew.
It's unfortunate we already had a main character mysteriously passing out for no apparent reason, this time lolling about deliriously on the filthy stairwell floor of the tenement apartment. Can it be the next ep will reveal he came down with a "fever" from the brutal heat in his apartment as he cleaned and decorated it? It's true, we did see him sweating. But sweating is OK and does not cause catatonic delirium. This fainting thing is known as a BL TROPE. Please avoid more of the same going forward.
Closeups of actors' hands clutching sheets as an indication they are having penetrative sex is also a trope.
OK, I'm done. Other than that, great start!
It's really sad: I just dropped halfway thru the third episode. This is nothing more than the same boring, inexplicable emotional cruelty ladled out by Minato onto Shin and by that horrid, dull, lifeless Funeral Director onto the adorable Asuka.
At least in the case of Minato you can see attractive qualities. With Shu, there is NOTHING about him that makes Asuka's fixation on him believable. He is repulsive. flat of affect, rude and not the least bit good-looking.
So we have two darling characters being psychologically mistreated by the unworthy objects of their affections over and over and over again. That's it, that's the plot.
It is sad that three charming and talented young actors, Takuya, Sho and Tomoya, are being wasted in service to this POS series. Oh well...perhaps the show will lead to bigger things for all three and they can pretend this never happened.
I will likely wait until all episodes have aired, then come back for a speed-watch to see if by some miracle this mess becomes interesting at some future point. It's doubtful that will happen though.
The only good thing about it is the opening title sequence. I always get a kick out of that.
Everything you said about what comes with the territory of being an actor, young, old or in-between is true. So what? So they kissed like normal 14 year-olds do. Hopefully, these young actors have agents, parents and others around them who are there to help them understand how to ignore criticism from people like you, if they are exposed to it online or elsewhere.
What you don't get is that YOU and others who think like you, are the problem. There IS no problem with 14 year-olds kissing, as millions do around the world every day. You are projecting your own sexual hangups onto these teen actors and then proclaiming what you imagine to be the case as a big crisis.
It's not a crisis. It's annoying. In a nutshell, you and your type create a controversy, criticize the actors and then claim the criticism and the controversy to be a problem. Cuts no ice with me and hopefully these teen actors know how to ignore people like you on the Internet.