Honglou Meng

Lol. Glad to be of service! I’m very sorry to hear that you had a bad week though!

Fair warning: The rating is so high because I’m so shallow. I’m in love with Muto Jun and would trade my left limb to be with him. (Fair enough, says my husband in the background.) Also, there is a very hot kiss in the first episode, and, the dialogue in the show is so crisp that I can learn Japanese from it. More of those desiderative particles, please! :)

https://kisskh.at/profile/sasameyuki1950/review/423112

I'm really enjoying it too. I said this to Maggi on a different thread:

"I don’t know whether I like it because the dialogue is so crisp that it even helps me learn Japanese, or because I fancy one of the leads to the point of wanting to sacrifice a limb to be with him, or because the first episode included a very hot kiss and I want more. (The bloke I fancy is, alas, an idol, and I fear I won’t get to see him take his kit off, or lock lips with another man. But, one can hope!)"

Lol. I just came back from a walk along the Hudson, where the incoming tides were carrying huge sheets of ice. When the Hudson freezes over, you know that's cold!

I tried to revisit KinnPorsche recently, and I just couldn't. I then realised that I don't remember much of what happens anymore, apart from the fact that Kinn is a very bad mafia boss, Porsche is a very bad bodyguard, Kinn's dad is a very bad dad, Bible is gorgeous, and that I generously skipped the other storyline involving the young brother. They did use the word 'gay', for which I was infinitely grateful. And the sex was often hot.

You were lucky to start with Utsukushii Kare. It is a very good show, and JBL hasn't made good ones like that of late. Mood Indigo is one of the best. I was astonished by it, and to a lesser extent by The Pornographer, but the whole franchise was brilliant. There was also Dangerous Drugs of Sex and Cornered Mouse, both of which I liked very much. How far has JBL fallen that it felt it had to remake a Thai BL , and do a terrible job at that (on which, my thoughts here: https://kisskh.at/profile/sasameyuki1950/review/408784).

The problem with Richardson is that he is actually a good writer. If he weren't, I wouldn't keep going with Clarissa. But the prose is spectacular, and the characters genuinely brilliant. I feel epistolary novels do not lend themselves well to good characterisation, but Laclos and Richardson managed to do it.

I'm flattered that you're going through my lists, when I discovered a lot, including Gonin and Teiichi, from you. Cure is in my Top 10 of all Japanese films, as is Rashomon. (You should read the short story by Akutagawa, by the way. It's amazing.) If you're in the mood for something twisted, you can always go to Miike Takashi. Audition has to be the biggest bait-and-switch in the history of cinema (though if you haven't seen it, please don't google anything, and go in blind). But he's also done a lot of Yakuza movies with gay (sub)text, including the unjustly forgotten Blues Harp. I saw Merry Christmas, Mr Lawrence on your list, in which case you should definitely add two more films by Oshima Nagisa to it: In The Realm of the Senses (a genuinely shocking & subversive film), and Gohatto (Taboo), his last, troubling film.

You see, you raise a very interesting point. I notice that, in much of the BL universe, homophobia does not exist. Parents and friends are invariably supportive, and why, they even play wingmen and wingwomen. (Isn't there that old restaurant owner in WYEL who stans the couple?) This is of course fine by me, because most TV shows have always pretended that gay people don't exist. I can get on board with the fantasy where every hot guy in my class is gay. (If only!) What infuriates me, however, is that BL uses homophobia *only* when it is convenient to do so. In other words, as a plot device, usually at the last minute, and usually to separate the protagonists -- often replete with a time jump and a trip abroad. (Again, I submit WYEL as a prime example, but there is no shortage of others.) I find this cheap, and even grotesque: gay people's suffering used as a plot device. It's one of the reasons I can't stand ITSAY. One only realises how homophobic all of this is when you realise that, even when homophobia is used as a plot device, they "don't say gay". Florida has nothing on this. Love has no name, but hatred does.

I have pointed this out a couple of times before on MDL, but it did not go down well.

But you do make a very good point about the acceptance that comes with knowing more and more gay people. If only that spread around the world, and included other marginalised communities...

Oh, and no, I'm afraid I don't do BL manga. I've only read one manga in my whole life, and that's Uzumaki. Not for the faint of heart, I add.

Hi there! You don't need to apologise at all. And you are always welcome to write to me, whether privately, or in the comments section, especially of reviews. I don't come on the comments section of individual shows anymore -- this page put me off that for good -- but I will always reply to messages, as long as they are not ad hominem attacks, which, I hasten to add, is not what I think you would do.

I'm glad you like my reviews. I write in order to make people laugh, and if possible, think. Nothing would give me greater pleasure than people engaging with them, whether approvingly or not.

I'm afraid I no longer remember what comments I made about BL as a genre or its viewership at the time -- it has been a few months, and this whole thread is too painful for me to revisit. However, I want to make it clear that I hold neither the genre nor the viewership in any form of contempt. I love BL. Otherwise I wouldn't be here. Nor does it bother me in the slightest that it is primarily written and viewed by straight women. More power to them. Pleasure is pleasure. My beef with the genre is that it hasn't moved on from the sexual politics and gender dynamics of the 80s and 90s (sometimes 60s), and my beef with the audience is the desexualisation of gay men, and the praise of such desexualisation as somehow realistic and beautiful -- both of which, in my view, is a tacit form of homophobia. Sometimes, the homophobia becomes more overt, such as when straight girls here tell off gay men for daring to talk about same-sex intimacy. Go watch porn, they say. That hurts people like me. (Isn't the censorship of gay people at the hands of straight people the definition of homophobia?) When I point this out, people get upset, and this in turn made me very disillusioned with the genre and the audience. That disillusionment, I'm afraid, has not gone away. This show was an exception to this -- whether one calls it BL or LGBT -- and that's why it meant much to me. And that's what I wished to convey.

Also, I might have said this above, but I generally don't review things I love, without even considering the question of whether or not it could be made fun of. (In general, it is hard to make fun of a good show, though I did try with Smells Like Green Spirit.) When I do review a show I like, such as I did for this one, I risk having to deal with horrible people who almost cost me my love for it. (You can see some of the comments below my review for this show yourself. Many more had to be removed.)

All of which is to say, you might have caught me and my comments at a particularly vulnerable time, and at a particularly painful time. Now that I am not on the comments section anymore, I'm much happier, and would be delighted to engage with people below my reviews, or through private messages. Both of which, from you, I would most welcome.

Thank you for the recommendations! I’ll be checking out Silent Sparks and Surely Someday sometime over the next couple of days.

I’m afraid I have reached the point of exhaustion with BLs and even LGBT films from Asia. I think I might need a long break from it all. However, the one show I *am* watching is ‘Futtara Doshaburi’. I don’t know whether I like it because the dialogue is so clear that it helps me learn Japanese, or because I fancy one of them to the point of wanting to sacrifice a limb to be with him, or because the first episode did include a very hot kiss. (The bloke I fancy is, alas, an idol, and I fear I won’t get to see him take his kit off, or lock lips with another man. Sigh.) Check it out!

Otherwise, I’ve just been going through films from Taiwan and Japan on the Criterion Channel, and on BFI Player. I just rewatched Rashomon, Ran, and Onibaba, all of which have stood the test of time, and plan to rewatch the one LGBT masterpiece from Japan: Funeral Parade of Roses. Have you seen that? Also, given your literary interests, I wonder if you’ll love the films of Hsou Hsiao Hsien. City of Sadness is a masterpiece, and The Assassin is one of my all time favourite films.

You know, I have been reading Clarissa for nearly 2 years now. Not because I can’t finish it or anything, nor because I’m not interested. But because, like Proust, I can only take so much of him at a time. I am, however, at the point where the “deed” has been done, so, I just have to let the tragedy unfold.

Lol. Your comment made me laugh multiple times. And since your raise so many interesting points, I’ll have to at least split my answer into two comments.

Firstly, far be it from me to malign Thailand and Thai BL on the very day same-sex marriage came into legal effect. Yet, if that doesn’t grant you the license to make interesting gay film and television (apart from Apichatpong Weerasethakul, who’s not my cup of tea), what does? Alas, Thai BLs have become more streamlined than a denim factory in a sweatshop run by H&M. To be fair, they do try, the poor darlings, what with the reincarnation dramas and the police procedurals. But then, they end up neither camp enough to be gay, nor gay enough to be camp. I’d rather watch lakorns.

I’ll admit — and I am generally not ashamed of admitting to anything in my life except my body — KinnPorsche was the first ever BL I saw. Back then, it was new, exciting, bemusing, and therefore enjoyable. It had the factor of: “what the fuck is this?” which made me ignore its many sillinesses, not the least of which was Mr Monobrow, who thought people would think him a good actor if he went around with a shirt unbuttoned down to his navel. Bless. I will say, however, that Thai BL can be charming, something I cannot say of most KBLs and JBLs. You ask how I know about Earth & Mix. I know them because of Moonlight Chicken, in which they are the lead couple, and whose storyline is painfully dull, and who, between them, have all the chemistry of mildew on damp cloth. But the other couple is truly charming, they have amazing chemistry between them even without a kiss, and the show handles disability with more grace than the sledgehammer approach of Hidamari. Also, the men in Thai BL are less afraid to show physical intimacy, and certain shows, such as House of Stars — which I’m sure is not for you — are camp classics for me. Can you think of a non-Thai BL that is *truly* camp? Perhaps Ossan’s Love, but I’m not sure even that’s camp.

However, all said, I can no longer watch Thai BLs. I occasionally check things out when a friend asks me to -- I'm doing that with ThamePo -- but I can safely say, I’m done. I can’t do it anymore. I watched the first three episodes of this one to see what they have done with the original, and to get a reaction out of my friend Chat, but he, I know, won’t be watching anymore of this. He also strongly advises you against wasting even a minute of your life on this particular excrescence.

Funny you should say that. I did a review of a JBL called Doku Koi (Love is Poison), in which I wrote the following lines:

“PROSECUTION: Your Honour, we don’t ask for realism from BLs. That would be an oxymoron. We just think that many of the conventions, as the Defence calls them, or tropes, as we call them, are backwards and regressive. They are exclusionary, even discriminatory. We would also enjoy LIP a lot more if it did not resort to these tropes in 2024, when the majority of Japanese are in support of gay marriage, and when Japan, as a society, seems apt to move on.
JUDGE: What does the Defence say?

DEFENCE: We don’t believe in telling people what to make, your Honour. We just enjoy what is given.
PROSECUTION: But not telling people what to make is to tacitly endorse what they are already making. By claiming to enjoy it for what it is, you are voting for more of the same. For stasis and mediocrity. And it shows.“

This is of course an excerpt, and I discuss the issue at greater length in the review, but you can see my thinking on the points you raise in the first paragraph.

On rooftops at school: I don’t know! It does not happen in the UK or Europe either, though that does not prevent it from Bob Netflix from making it a trope in his shows either. I suppose it’s just another wish-fulfillment fantasy, no different from falling accidentally into each other’s mouths, which, if it were to happen in real life, would result in a trip to the A&E…

Oh! That did not occur to me at all. The shade!!!

Haha, yes!

'Kabedon' is an onomatopoeic word, derived from the sound of a locker-room door banging. It's such a TV trope that of course Japan has come up with a word for it.

'Free Space' is always the central square in a Bingo! game, at least the way I played it in England.

'Ikemen' means a "hot" or "handsome" boy/man, but only uttered by schoolgirls and fujoshis. 'Ikemen ne', means 'he's soooo hot, isn't he?'

'Hendayo' is a Japanese specialty. It's usually translated as 'You're weird', or worse, until a few years ago, 'You're a pervert!' ('Hen' is 'weird', as in 'hentai' porn.)

Maggi!!! How good to hear from you again! It's been so long! Yes, it's me, and I'm very touched & flattered that you divined who I was just through my writing. That, coming from you, means a lot! I did change my display name back in October, but haven't changed it since. However, I *have* been reading a lot of Pu Songling of late, hence the new profile pic. I've also not been on the site much since mid-November, due to one family or personal emergency after another. But I'm around a bit more now, though with precious little to watch. How've you been? Do shoot me a line and let me know! I've missed you.

Lol. I'm glad you agree with me. I'm bewildered by the reception for this show, and bewildered even more that people find anything in it that is original or revelatory. Budgetary constraints notwithstanding, I feel they should at least stop casting idols in BLs. I'm sick of these young people who use BLs to advance their careers, and yet would not snog another man. I'm used to the sepia-tinted cinematography and the bad editing, the same bowl-cuts, the same dull dialogue, and the same high-school rooftop used in every other JBL, but I cannot wince at the sight of another awful, awful kiss. I would have found it more sexy if the two men just bit each other's face. Nor can I condone, in 2024, the stupid expression "but we are both men". Really? I would have never guessed, what with 75% of Japanese people approving of gay marriage, and Tokyo & Sapporo both having civil partnerships. I suppose anything looks better compared to some of the recent runs we've had with JBL: Takara no Vidro, Mitsuya Sensei, and Hidamari. Yet I can't help but feel that we are regressing towards a new era of sexual prurience and abject moralism in BLs that might put the Edwardians to shame. To think that Japan also gave us Mood Indigo and The Pornographer...

I haven't seen 'Silent Sparks', but will go check it out now!

Meanwhile, I wrote a review this morning, and have dedicated it to you: https://kisskh.at/profile/sasameyuki1950/reviews/422478
Hope it makes you smile!

Lol. Maybe I will. It has every TBL cliché in the book. The blokes are indeed quite attractive, but man, the show is a slog.

Japanese humour is an acquired taste. For some, it’s not worth the effort, and I think that’s perfectly fine. (I can’t stand most wines from California.) While it is always good to be culturally curious, I do take exception to this idea that the goodness or badness of a show ought to be arbitrated, or worse, excused, by cultural differences. As if empathy weren’t the foundation of art.

On GMMTV: I dare not say more than what Chat already has in the review. But I can attest to the fact that show such as this has cost the goodwill of a lot of Thai BL fans, including mine. That might not mean much to the fans, but it does make me sad.

Do! I hope my friend didn’t oversell it for you. A lot of people can’t stand it, and the acting & humour are as Japanese as they get, but that’s a virtue in my book, not a flaw.

Meanwhile, there’s a new TBL in town. Should I go armed with a checklist? Or write down a 10 commandments of TBL?

Always welcome! And yes, I'm sure there are more where they came from. I'm guessing at least some towelling, seat-belt choreography, and a beach trip. We shall see!

I think with Unknown, we reached peak Taiwanese BL. Step-brothers AND mafia, time jump, trip abroad, seatbelt choreography, fishing trip, sex scene ruined by music and editing. -5% body fat… But in two aspects at least, it was revolutionary: (1) muted Japanese colour palette, and (2) the older brother was the bottom, which was sexy. Yet, how many people thought it the second coming of Christ!

I have my theories, but I’ll send you a private message about it than expose us in public. :)

No step brothers in love, eh? Tell me though, is it at least about the mafia or about criminal gangs? That’s the other pillar on which the foundation of Taiwanese BL rests. I’m also guessing there are multiple gay couples, sassy assistants, 0% body fat, oversaturated colour palette, and very, very loud background music? Or have I become too cynical?

I suppose 2024 is the year of the hard-of-hearing in BL, with Hidamari, Blue Canvas, and now this. Good. They deserve bad representation too. :)

You make me want to give TT another visit. Maybe I will.

Awww... that's a lovely thing to say!