jpny01

I liked The Shipper, but reading your review I sort of agree with you that there was no narrative necessity to kill Kim , which I admit in retrospect never sat well with me- but I don't agree that this made the story regressive and unenlightened. Killing the gays in the 50s was a moral judgment that was part of an overall virulent homophobia - that isn't the case here at all. The m/m relationship was portrayed as a very high form of love that transcended death, not something sinful that had to be punished. A 50's show would certainly not had the teaser at the end, either, unless it was to show the gay wandering in hell rather than the opposite.

As to the question of whether or not this is a BL, I would say yes, it is, in a meta sort of way. The m/m pairing was front and center to the plot, and the fact that they truly loved each other makes it BL, even if one of them was inhabited by the spirit of a woman for most of the series.

But it was also a critique of BL culture and how shipping can become an obsession divorced from reality and taken to extremes, like when fans ship the actual actors and react with hostility when they do anything to indicate they are straight and/or not actually together with their co-actor, and this is taken to the extreme of the shipper actually inhabiting the body of one of the pair and trying to force her ship together.

The destructiveness of this behavior is directly underscored by her being so obsessed with her ship that she was missing out on one of the hottest boys alive right beside her and interested in her, and also her setting in motion the chain of events that caused her ship's destruction. Maybe Kim's death was to symbolize this.

I still don't think it was necessary, because Pan ending up with Ohm was enough to make the point, but I don't think it's the same as MODC's horrible ending, and at least the narrative and the characters in The Shipper is coherent and consistent, unlike 2gether, which started out in such a promising way, then descended into a mish-mash of every negative overused trope they could possibly have stuffed into the second half of the series.

Anyway, thanks for the thought-provoking review.

To answer your "survey question", the thing I most remember about the shipper is being strangely turned on by the kinkiness of Ohm's physical attraction to his own brother. If there's one scene I remember most, it's Ohm's expression of of exhausted despair when Kim climbed into his bed because his A/C was broken. Sorry my answer is so prurient, but being truthful and all.

Totally agree about FL being replaced with a guy. There's not really a point to mixing genres - BL fans are here for BL, and the FL character lacks any qualities that make her compelling. If they'd cast a trans actress for the role, or someone over-the-top bitchy it might have worked better. Why not Jennie as the sister? It would have been refreshing to see a couple with a younger man and an older woman for once.

What did everybody think of the serious turn? I didn't love it, TBH. I feel as if even Thai BL has moved past that sort of thinking. It would have been better if sister's objections were based solely on age rather than societal reaction, which seems out of place in someone of her generation. I get that they want to insert drama, but maybe it would have been better to leave this as a comedy.

Bargain-basement Zon is growing on me, and little brother is so f$$%ing adorable I can't stand it. I agree with the commenter below, this should have been just a straight BL, with BB Zon and little brother's big brother replacing the FL. I'll bet it would be rated higher if that were the case, because this show does have some charm. Unfortunately, the FL is not part of that charm, and after this ep, that's even more the case.

Whatever you do, do not watch Amore. Of if you can't help it, drop it when the epsidoes stop being 3-parters. That's when the production just gave up and tossed all the remaining footage they had on the screen in chunks and called it a series.

I'm actually learning to just read "I'm going first" as "I'm going now" - it's a survival mechanism. "Irregarless" doesn't just annoy me, it makes me want to hit people with a dictionary.

But over time things end up becoming normal and you have to deal. For example, it used to irritate me to see a truck with the warning "flammable". which is not a word. The word is "inflammable", but because of the in- prefix, people thought that meant "non-inflammable" so they started just saying "flammable". Now I don't even notice it.

But I will never, until my dying day, accept "gonna". Not in writing. Not ever. I know that people say it (but actually it really depend s on regional accent and the words before and after - but when spoken consciously - or read in subtitles - it sounds like an illiterate Texan. For example, if I'm speaking fast, it would sound like 'goyn'teh' becasue I'm Californian). It's also terrible grammar. "I'm gonna go to school now" is literally "I'm going to go to school", when you should just say "I'm going to school now" (Or is that "I'm going to school first"?)

You're absolutely right - I mixed them up. How coluld I forget? Wasn't he in one of the surprising love scenes? Anyway, there are worse ways to waste time. I should know, I watched Amore.

This was a bit uneven. The cinematographer is quite talented, but needs to turn it down a notch - if every shot attempts to be "arty", it's a little like eating too much chocolate.

The sound was quite bad, which seems to be a theme with indie Filipino BL - even Quarantings had bad sound. I can understand that - it's one of the harder things to get right when you're on a budget.

The acting is decent so far - we'll see. It's too early to tell because the sister is central and she's an overdramatic character by design. In any case it's a challenging role for the main actor.

The concept appears to be beyond the capabilities of the editor - this seems to be potentially the largest problem with the series, and I hope it's overcome, because this I really like the the idea for this show, and I'm looking forward to seeing where it goes. The scenes from next ep looked promising.

Trying new things, not new team. I guess ghost possession isn't exactly "new", but I haven't seen it in BL before. Anyway, I agree with you completely on this show.

We rip on So Much In Love (it's free on LineTV), but it's so bad that it's good. There's eye candy, a couple of legit love scenes, and in the sea of awfulness there are a handful of inexplicably beautiful scenes, as if the kidnapped Francis Ford Coppola every once in a while for a minute here and there. And you quickly learn what you want to fast-forward through, so it's not that time consuming.

My description above sounds like an exaggeration, but it's not. The main conflict is that the evil school adminstator wants to destroy a volleyball team for no apparent reason. Or maybe the main conflict is that a vengeful ghost keeps possessing her ex for no apparent reason. Wait, I think it might actually be overcoming the challenges involved in dating a dead person.

I feel like "hot mess" implies so bad in a way that there's something entertaining about it. Like My Day was a hot mess, but was fun at times and at least had energy to it. This was more like watching a 20-hour documentary about warts.

That was a spectacular ending! Everything I could have hope for and more - it made the whole experience of watching this worth every minute! #sarcasm.

WTF was that? I get that low-budget productions will have technical issues, but shouldn't they improve rather than get worse and worse? I had my volume turned all the way up and I could barely hear anything - I'll bet even native speakers had to rely on the subtitles.

And after over 20 hours of this, and they didn't even get together until the second to last episode, then apparently separated, then met again it what I guess was a walkway but looked like either a prison or an abandoned slaughterhouse.

And who wrote the script? The story was totally incoherent and seems to have completely forgotten this is a visual medium and you can do things other than have everyone sit around having boring conversations throught 99% of screen time. And what happened to all the other characters? They seem to have evaporated. Or maybe Plantie was really Audrey II and ate everyone?

Why is Kenji even in the credits? He had way less screentime than even bit characters. And what a waste of Jules Indiola (incidentally, you can't show a glimpse of him shirtless in the credits and then never have him take off his shirt. That's abusive.) and Drei Arias.

All this had going for it is acting ability - I hope the cast can find a better vehicles for their talents. My Day was a trainwreck too, but at least it was entertaining and had a couple of spectacular love scenes.

Ugh, it's like they had to make this to balance out the spectacular year Filipino BL had so that Thailand didn't loose hope and jump off a cliff or something.

And do they think anyone is going to buy the 10/10 reviews? Seriously? If you're going to make a steaming pile of sh$%, own up to it and do better next time - don't try to trick people into stepping in it.

I totally agree. I guess they should get a few points for trying new things. I just wish they'd tried a few less. And arranged them to make sense.

I am exactly the same age! We may have had similar experiences given what the world was like way back when.

OMG, serious LOL! He probably saved the profile "for future use in the shower" and was shocked when his fanstasy boy showed up in the middle of nowhere. Great, now you've killed my inner romantic too!

Hey, I watched every episode, so it did something right!

There's a scene in the second ep that was so beautiful it was like someone found a really good show somewhere and pasted a clip of it in - it's probably what got me to stay long enough to be watching the series by habit, or the hopes there would be more:

https://tv.line.me/v/15355426_%E0%B8%99%E0%B8%B4%E0%B8%A2%E0%B8%B2%E0%B8%A1%E0%B8%A3%E0%B8%B1%E0%B8%81-so-much-in-love-ep2-4-5

Everything about this is right - from the music, to the unearthly way the ghost is walking. I watched this scene over and over. Of course they later ruined it by his not really being a ghost, but whatever.

An attraction for someone can be balanced out by other factors, like "Damn this boy is beautiful, but the last thing we need around here is some spolied city boy who's going to faint all the time".

I was in a job situation where I had a guy working for me that I wasn't comfortable with for professional reasons but was the most gorgeous man I've seen in ages (Korean, of course). The first time I saw him was like a sledgehammer to the chest. An outside observer would probably have thought I was cold to him when really my heart was pounding whenver he was in the room.

Anyway, I don't get the impression that Phupha is un-selfaware - but he's in the middle of nowhere in a traditional society, so he may just have to bury his feelings. Although Drake is in his unit, so I'm sure he "does things" when he's alone in the shower to relieve the tension.

Hey! Where's your inner romantic? It's Love at First Sight, I tell you! :)

Nobody told me Royce Cabrera was in this. They could have charged $100 in that case.

So Ron Angeles - he's kind of cute-handsome, not extraordinarily so, but he has what I like to call "it", and I would kick a puppy for 5 minutes with him. Heck, I'd kick TWO puppies. They need to give him a leading role - he would kill it.

For me this was OK. I like all the characters, but that's mostly because Ben wasn't in it, which leads to my biggest problem - I just don't like him, and it makes me not care about the central couple. I think the actor is not as strong as the others, and he comes off as phoney to me. Hopefully he's better in this than last season. Jerome was strong this episode.

Wait, they're not going to pair up Ron Angeles and Royce, are they? If they do I might burst into flame and then my death will be on their hands.

Right - I meant the party, I think I confused them in my mind. I went back to watch it again, and I'm 100% sure Phupha didn't even look at or notice Tian as they passed. Tian didn't see him either - their hands brushed and Tian had a vision of him, but he got a phone call before he could go back to investigate.

When Tian arrived at the village, I'm 100% sure it was love at first sight for the chief - the way Phu held Tian when he fainted was way more than just stopping someone from falling. It's a little unfortunate that they had to introduce that pure Victorian-era plot device because we didn't really get to see their rections develop.

How is it possible that Earth is not a big star? He's so expressive in a subtle and natural way.

I forgot the smirk. He manages a smirk that isn't mean-spirited or snarky which is just... ugh, the man is hot.