jarabaa

I'm thoroughly puzzled by this series ... I need some help! Is there any genuine "BL" theme or content here at all? We seem to have a female personality in a male body - there is no real "Kim", he's been killed off, and his body is occupied by a woman, Pan. Or is Kim in Pan's body? At any rate, basically we have two straight couples, Pan (in Kim's body) + Way and Way + PhingPhing. There's no storyline about any two males here who are attracted to each other, let alone falling in love with each other. And Kim in Pan's body - goodness knows where that's going to lead, but not in the direction of any thing that could be called gay, m/m, orr BL - as Pan is a girl (whichever personality is in her body!) and she can therefore only end up in a straight or lesbian relationship. At any rate, all chance of something happening between two real male human beings has been wiped out. It's odd when the whole thing starts with the fujoshi girls who are keen on matching up boy + boy. The director seems to be telling us there is no such thing as real m/m love, no true erotic attraction possible between two guys - instead it's all this weird theme of transmigration of souls into opposite-sex bodies. As I say, I'm too puzzled to follow this. Plus I want something that is genuinely and honestly gay, same-sex, homosexual, m/m, BL, call it what you will. Two guys together. And that doesn't seem to be on the cards here.

As Frong in My Engineer: so beautiful ... quite breathtaking. A perfect heart-shaped face, enchanting smile. He does modesty, shyness, embarrassment and disappointment so exquisitely. We know that Dr Thara will soon be forgetting that woefully misguided "brothers" stuff - and following up the necklace with a ring for this gorgeous young man's finger. Shane, thanks for unpacking the charming, utterly beguiling character of Frong. Longing to see him happily married to the Doc!

Yep. 100%. Mesmerising.

Nott is definitely My Gay Hero. Unaffected and natural, gentle and low-key, open and honest, a wonderful character, beautifully played by Yoon in the midst of the craziness that is YYY. A great role, and a great performance by this sweet, engaging actor.

It totally IS the story of a gay relationship. But we just don't see any sex. We see them gaze into each other's eyes passionately and lovingly, time and again, we see them touch tenderly, we see one hold the other in his arms, staring at him intensely, shedding tears of love, we see them care for each other when hurt or ill. We do not see any girlfriends or any hint of any potential interest in heterosexual relationships. And in the novel, which the series adheres to pretty scrupulously, we do have (very hot!) sex scenes - they even get married. But not on the screen.

I am baffled by the idea of "bromance". The "bro" means brother, for goodness' sake. The love of Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian is absolutely not "brotherly". Good grief, they both have brothers. We're able to examine those genuine brotherly relationships in both cases, as the brothers are very important characters. But Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian are two men who are deeply, passionately in love with each other. No, we do not see them kiss or have sex. I don't think we see anyone do those things in The Untamed. But we see them look at each other so lovingly that it's shocking. They're lovers. Come on, brothers simply don't relate to each other that way. Nor do close male friends. I'm a man; I have a brother; I have close male friends. This is not what's going on here - that is perfectly obvious.

Indeed, none other than Lan Zhan's actual brother, Lan Xichen, spells it out for us. He does not compare Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian to brothers. He compares them to his (and Lan Zhan's) parents - and describes how their father loved their mother - an excluded, essentially forbidden character - and violated all the conventions of the clan by bringing her back to Cloud Recesses and building a special dwelling for her there. A house which has been empty since her death. Until Lan Zhan brings Wei Wuxian - an excluded, forbidden figure - back to that same house. Lan Xichen states absolutely unambiguously that the love of Lan Zhan and Wei Wuxian is the same as that great romance of the past. There's no twaddle about being like brothers, or bosom buddies, or pals or chums or whatever. The two men are a couple; they're lovers.

But 'BL' is maybe not the best expression in this context. They aren't boys. In the novel, which the series follows very faithfully, the two men most certainly express their love sexually. But this dimension is not shown explicitly in the series - of course not. Chinese dramas also show us countless male/female couples who are just as in love - yet we likewise see no sex. Depicting the sex is sort of irrelevant. The convention in China, because of powerful standards of modesty AND homophobic censorship policy, is not to show it. But we see endless extraordinary, powerful love scenes in The Untamed.

This is a very engaging and highly original series which plays with your mind. There are dimensions that are pure reality - Nott and Pun in a tiny chaotic flat, discovering love, slowly, naturally, painfully - and other dimensions which are obviously pure fantasy: swimming into a mysterious underground ocean via a washing machine, for heaven's sake. The challenge is: there are yet other scenes where the boundaries between real and unreal are quite unclear. Plus: sometimes the fantasy looks like the characters' dreams and imagination, but sometimes it's more obviously the writers' dreams and imagination. Personally, I like to focus on the story of Nott, Pun, Om, Arm and Yuri as the very plausible top layer of pure everyday reality - because the emotional landscape here is rendered in very realistic, absorbing scenes - and I just try to enjoy the rest of it as a wild imaginary sequence of rather lurid ... dreams, reveries, hallucinations, visions. But I find that I keep watching. It works. Above all because of the solid mainland of reality which is that household, in particular the Nott/Pun relationship.

Very curious as to where this is going. Devoutly hoping it doesn't stumble down the sad route of bizarre plot & character collapse which overtook 2gether. But immediately before that disaster, we had four winning, high-quality, and yet quite different Thai series - Dark Blue Kiss, TharnType, Until We Meet Again, Why R U - which showed us diverse male couples who got together, made the screen sizzle, weathered interesting dramas and upheavals, and ended up older and wiser and more deeply in love. A pattern that is not unknown in real life. Then 2gether came along, kept us interested and focused and entertained for several episodes, and nevertheless pulled it all to pieces, leaving us with a dismal mess which I'm trying to forget. So what will happen here? I'm hoping: Bohn and Duen get past this pothole in the road and really give each other their full, loving attention; Thara finds Frong's necklace and feels him melt into his arms as he puts it round his beautiful neck; King, having given Bohn sage advice, applies it to himself and decides to let go and accept his feelings for Ram; and Boss sweetly explains to Fon that she must pursue her career to stardom while he gives his all to his beloved HUSBAND Mek.

So true. You hit the nail on the head. No kisses, no sex, but the relationship of Lan Zhan and Wei Ying is INCANDESCENT with erotic energy compared with this dismal would-be bromance. I hope Mr Sarawat and Mrs Pam live happily ever after. Tine should move to Gusu and find himself a nice cultivator boy.

I'm surprised by the depth of dismay which episode 12 prompted in me. I've been trying to gain a bit of perspective, distance myself from the series, reflect on why I found ep 12 so ... appalling. Hmmmmm.

It seems we can pretty much all agree on two things. The series got off to a very promising start - and Win reveals himself as a rather outstanding actor. So, that's something. For a while, the writing was good, the characters were compelling. I tuned in every week with a sense of pleasure and eagerness. I took my time. I was fairly ready to accept the idea that Sarawat conceived a rather involved scheme - which we see unfold over several episodes - to win Tine's heart. It's not a new story. But it worked well. Sarawat seemed to be a powerful, quirky guy, as far as I could guess 100% gay in orientation, who already at school fell for Tine in a big way, and then set about pursuing him with determination - and some originality. And along the way we met some other entertaining characters. And I at least could easily identify with Sarawat. His passion made sense - because Tine is such an engaging character, so brilliantly played by Win. Sweet, guilelessly charming, breathtakingly innocent and unaffected - with such a dazzling smile. It's easy to understand how strong, silent Sarawat could fall for him.

But the writing got weaker, the plot meandered in strange ways, and all passion, every erotic spark, seemed to fade. Many people have noticed this. Some trace it from ep 7, others felt it more from ep 10. But it was as though these two at some level lost interest in each other. Even as Tine bravely moved forward in declaring his commitment to another guy openly. All of that was impressive, but it was not matched by anything behind closed doors resembling a love scene. As we all know from "The Untamed", the most devoted, ardent love between two men can be expressed in a thoroughly spellbinding way without any recourse to kissing or sex. When Tine joined Sarawat on the sofa during his brother's visit there was a flicker of warm (if not hot) man-to-man loving, but then ... it flickered out.

And finally - the catastrophe of ep 12. We're almost at the end of the series. Pam is someone we have absolutely never heard of. No reference has been made to the existence of a "Pam". And suddenly there she is, engaging in all kinds of intimacies with ... Sarawat! It makes no sense. He has been so single-mindedly in love with Tine, and now an unknown female character from his past is catapulted from nowhere into the storyline and all of a sudden it looks as though he's a straight guy who doesn't even quite understand what his connection to Tine is. In real life, it would be devastating for a boy in Tine's situation, and at least that is acted very truthfully and powerfully by Win - everyone can agree that his crying scene at the end of ep 12 is very affecting, almost overpowering. The viewer really feels that sense of heartbreaking loss, accompanied by intense feelings of despair and humiliation. As many have pointed out, though, this has been invented by the scriptwriters and/or director - it's not in the novel. So it's anyone's guess why this shocking re-direction of the plot was contrived in ep 12. Is it just to make a bit of drama before Sarawat and Tine somehow patch things up and are re-united in ep 13? That seems almost impossible to imagine - mainly because of Win's impressive acting. Tine is heartbroken, devastated. It isn't a little misunderstanding that can be put right. And in several scenes in ep 12 Sarawat is abruptly portrayed as cold, uncaring, seemingly not very interested in Tine - his affectionate attentions directed fully towards the unknown Pam. It quite simply makes no sense. And because we have never met Pam before, it is also impossible to begin to appreciate her as some sort of multi-dimensional human being who might mean something to Sarawat. She comes across as a pure invention who has been chucked into ep 12 for reasons that remain obscure.

Finally - why a girlfriend? As in some other BL series, we find a rather implausible female character conjured up out of thin air to endanger a male/male love story. Another boy I could understand. That would make sense. Sarawat might have at some point been pursued by another guy; something might have happened. But still, he's madly in love with Tine - and so he would send the other guy packing. So - why Pam?? It's as though the writers have jumped in at the last moment to proclaim the superiority of heterosexual love. They seem to want to say: Sarawat and Tine may be crazy about each other, but they're two guys, and real love only exists between a man and woman - as we'll now show you by drafting in an unknown female character. And that makes me very uneasy, as it almost reveals a sadistic streak on the part of the production team: as though the story is really about a hapless young gay man, Tine, who is made to fall in love with the irresistible, sexy Sarawat - and then abandoned by the same Sarawat in favour of the siren call of straight bliss with a woman (any woman, indeed, even one who is fabricated out of thin air from nowhere) - leaving our hero Tine ripped to pieces, ruined, despairing, crying his eyes out. What a horrible story, one can only say - poor Tine.

At any rate, I have little or no interest in sticking around for ep 13. Either it'll be more of the same, and I don't want to gloat over a sweet character like Tine being left high and dry; or it'll be a ludicrous, rushed reconciliation of some sort, too implausible to take seriously, absolutely Too Little Too Late.

Such a beautiful man. Unbelievable. In "My Engineer", I often stop the video to admire a particular shot of King. How mesmerising it would be in real life to be in the presence of Lay Talay Sanguadikun ... I think I would be rather transfixed. Tongue-tied. I'm adding him to my list of Most Beautiful Men in the World. (And King is also a sweet, interesting character. Appealing and quirky. When he looks at Ram ... )

There are plenty of gay men in Thailand. Some of them are even actors in these "BL" series. But you are perfectly right. A lot of what we see here "has nothing to do with reality". That's because hardly any of these stories are written by gay men, and there are very few openly gay actors in BL roles. Some of the actors are straight men who like to make a big point of drawing attention to their heterosexual credentials in "real life" and constantly refer to the challenges they face in portraying a homosexual character - for whatever reason, they choose to stress that a gay man's life is something quite alien to them. And so what we get in these BL series is pretty ... unique! It's other people's imaginings of what a gay male relationship might feel like. Meaning we get all these basically straight characters who out of the blue fall for another guy. Additionally, we have a huge number of women in the menacing roles of ex-girlfriend or aggressive would-be future girlfriend. Sometimes the writing is really off - as in the character of Pam.

It's true that in terms of acting and cinematography and yes, even plot and characterisation, this is better than Tossara. But is it "BL"? So far, we're halfway through and this story is actually "SL", Straight Love. It is all about about a boy-girl couple and their relationship, Vee and Ploy. Mark, a very sweet gay boy, is a side-interest for Vee, who in the cold light of day is treating Mark more abusively than lovingly. I'm uncomfortable with the idea that this is being presented as some sort of m/m love story. The two good things are that Mark seems to have some aware and supportive gay friends who want to protect him - plus the milieu that these characters are all part of seems to be a world in which same-sex love and relationships are accepted as more or less equal to heterosexuality. That's good. But the story of a vulnerable gay guy being exploited by a straight guy is not good.

The complaints, as anyone can see who has read this far, continue.

The latest accusation is one of "defamation", a strong legal term throughout the English-speaking word. I have indeed edited my original comment and deleted much of it, including all the original words that caused contention, though in the above complaint these are quoted - and those are now someone else's words, so I cannot touch the quotation.

This was my response:

"No. No. No. And yes, that is exactly what I wrote. And which I have commented on and revised at length. Sorry, there has never been any 'defamation' here, not by an standard or definition of 'defamation' known by anyone in the world. For goodness' sake, remember what I originally wrote, which you yourself quote:

First, 'I was disconcerted and saddened' - well, I was;

Secondly, he 'seems to say' - indeed, he seemed to say something along these lines - it's not a fabrication, instead this is a fair and accurate account of my impression, qualifed by 'seems';

Third, 'it's always depressing' - this is my opinion, which cannot possibly be construed as a defamatory comment by any stretch of the imagination.

Nor was it in any way 'irresponsible' to write what I wrote.

Meanwhile, let us see what has been written here about me - without any qualification, no ownership of personal opinions or subjective impressions, no attempt at qualification. No, instead one person writes publicly 'you're ruining his reputation' and another accuses me of 'defamation'. This has gone quite far enough. No one has ruined anyone's reputation, or attempted to do so. No one has engaged in anything remotely resembling 'defamation'."

My favourite too. He has a special charm as Zon which I find totally ... enchanting.

Sounds like filming of '2gether' was completed a while ago. So we can look forward to watching it to the last episode (in mid-May?) A big comfort for those of us around the world who are locked in at home isolating from coronavirus. I'm sure others in this situation are especially grateful for the pleasure this series brings us every week. Meanwhile, filming of 'Why R U' has been halted - unfinished. We are all facing this emergency. (Here in London I know people who've died, who are sick, and who are out of work because of coronavirus.) The virus is present in the Thai population, and there have been deaths. Many or maybe most actors around the world, including our beloved BL stars in Thailand, have now suddenly lost work, income, security. And although they may be young and fit and unlikely to get sick, they face a very uncertain future right now, and no doubt they're all worried about their parents and grandparents. We should be letting "our boys in Bangkok" know we care about them.

You're so right. Thanks for raising this. Sounds like they DID finish filming. But Why R U has been halted before its conclusion. We are all facing this crisis around the world. (Here in London I know people who've died, who are sick, and who are out of work because of coronavirus.) The virus is present in the Thai population, and there have been deaths. Many or maybe most actors around the world, including in Thailand, have now suudenly lost work - and income. We should be letting "our boys" know we care about them.

Now, of course, my heart cries out for similar scenes of Zon and Saifah. Please, please, please. I would never get "bored" of them lavishing sweetness on each other, never skip ahead a few seconds! Never.

Meanwhile, many messages here report that filming in Thailand is at a standstill and Why R U is being left - unfinished? or wrapped up by means of some rag-bag episode of scenes as yet unshown? I agree that I would rather see it left unfinished - with a commitment to resuming the story + filming as soon as feasible, or creating a series 2 - please, as a matter of some urgency.

But what about the plight of our beloved hot young "BL" actors right now? Filming - their livelihood - is at a halt already, or stopping. How are they faring? They have brought us so much pleasure. Even pleasurable moments of quasi-boredom. How are they managing? For them as for millions, billions, of us everywhere, around the world, the present Covid-19 catastrophe means no work, no money. And it's going to get worse. Here in Britain I've been in total self-isolation for 2 weeks, one of my colleagues died of the virus two days ago, several people I know are infected and sick, one has just lost her elderly mother. And huge numbers are suddenly without work. So I'm thinking of these young men in Thailand who bring so much ... delight, entertainment, emotional energy, interesting debate (e.g. here on kisskh) and other enjoyable stimulus into our lives. They are young and talented and have everything before them, but now their work is at a standstill. They may be well and fit and in some respects invulnerable, but they all have older family members they'll be concerned about. They're coping with a global catastrophe which we're all struggling with. I want all our Thai BL stars to know that we, their fans around the world, are thinking about them. They and their work are important to us. We're going to miss them, e.g. right now, imminently, in the case of Why R U. My suggestion: let's try to think of ways to let them know that we care about them and want to support them through this crisis. Any ideas, friends?

Well, episodes 9 and 10 add up to something rather unique. Nearly two whole hours devoted to two guys making love and being romantic together. I've been around a while and I cannot remember anything like it. There is plenty of gay male porn in existence, and it's been present and available for a good 50 years, including longer films. But that's porn - meaning as a rule nothing but hardcore sex. There's rarely a lot of "story" or "characterisation". So many of us who have grown up gay have had exposure to that - but only that: pure pornography. We did not have any access to love stories, romance, scenes of men holding hands, kissing, walking along the beach. Yet we saw men and women doing that everywhere, not just in films and on TV, but also in ads, commercials etc. Instead, we all were raised on a diet of scenes of men fighting each other, killing each other, beating each other up, on and on. Which is still the almost universal format of male-male relations we encounter - through all cultures. Of course, in the past few decades we have had a few films, a few television dramas, that have featured gay male characters and gay relationships, and a few likewise depicting lesbian characters and relationships. But my guess is that all lgbt content is less than 1% of overall "cultural output". And many of those "gay films" show precious little male/male intimacy - often only a few amibiguous seconds here and there. So episodes 9 and 10 of Why R U constitute something historic. Honestly, I enjoy seeing two beautiful young men all loved-up, playing in the sea, kissing, cuddling, embracing, getting hot and ardent with each other, falling into bed, whispering sweet nothings to each other - I really do. And nearly two hours, two whole episodes of it. On the beach, in a sauna, snorkeling, on a motorcyce etc. I've never seen anything like it before. But I have to admit that a few times my mind wandered and I skipped ahead a few seconds. Nevertheless, it was a unique pleasure to get "bored" by a surfeit of sweet guy-on-guy lovemaking and hot romantic togetherness.

EDIT ( = no edit) ... As is clear above, I have very substantially edited my original comment and deleted much of it. However, I leave my reply to @roseen here exactly as it appeared:

"I haven't ruined his reputation. His reputation is utterly unaffected by anything I could ever think or write on kisskh - or anywhere else. I said nothing at all about the lgbt community or gay marriage in Thailand or Bright's views on such matters. I'm only interested in his work: he's an actor. That's what is important to me, and it is clearly important to him. I said originally that I had the impression that he 'seems' to have found playing a gay man uncomfortable. I have just looked at numerous interviews with Bright and Win - and yes, Bright does say things which indicate that the role of Sarawat was unfamiliar and unexpected, he came to it not knowing he was going to play a man who likes men, and he found the task a challenge. But not bizarre or disageeable, no: I over-interpreted the negativity, as I've already explicitly acknowledged. Otherwise, I said in my first post that we receive the clear message that he's heterosexual; and we do - in many items on YouTube and elsewhere. There are plenty of videos telling us he is straight and has a girlfriend. And the simple reality is that being thought of as straight cannot possibly 'ruin' his reputation."

"I wish I could see things as you do. Nowhere in the world, including Thailand, would it 'ruin' a man's reputation to be thought of as heterosexual, or to be seen as a straight male actor who's uncomfortable with gay characters. Nowhere. Indeed, I have come across many examples of fans of his who seem very keen to prove that Bright is straight - they see this as enhancing his reputation, not 'ruining' it. There are also plenty of interesting contributions on YouTube and here on kisskh reporting that being known to be an out gay man might well (sadly!) genuinely 'ruin' an actor's reputation in Thailand, whereas being seen as straight only brings advantages."

"Bright is a professional actor. I said above that he's a 'fine actor', his character of Sarawat is 'very convincing' and 'powerful', his performance is 'impressive', 'moving', 'rich and nuanced', and 'awesome'. That's what counts. That's not 'ruining his reputation'."