SPOILERS I can probably count on one hand the number of recent dramas that acknowledge HIV, one of them being Love in the Big City. It's not a distant past in queer history, but a struggle that many people around the world live with day-to-day (and NOT just gay men, HIV can affect anyone).
Needless to say, the atmosphere of this show has started to grow on me more and more. The show inside of the show mirrors Zhen Xin and Zhang Zhun themselves. Even Gao Zhun's rapist taking photos of his face (like how Zhen Xin took photos of Zhang Zhun after they slept together) uncomfortably mirrors their reality. And both of them seem to be painfully aware of it. It reminds me a bit of The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese.
I don’t think his looks matter. His talent is more important but since you want to talk about this, his face…
Beauty standards are subjective and the subjectiveness of such matters differs greatly from country to country. Against your will, you have been subjected to these ideas of beauty and even if you refute them outwardly, they'll still stay in the back of your mind. Either way, it doesn't really matter that Min is Thai. I find him more beautiful when he looks like a thug. If he was sweatier and greasier, I think his beauty would shine through even more. Maybe he is beautiful because he's "ordinary" looking... but it's the sort of ordinary that stands out from ordinary.... a quiet blue collar worker with outstanding features. Maybe he's only subject to being "ordinary" because that's how the upper class sees his entire life. So what I'm saying is, once they cut his hair, I'm going to start mourning. Because then he's really going to start looking truly ordinary.
Everyone is calling Min "ordinary" charm in this show....very funny, meanwhile, I think he's one of the most beautiful Thai actors I've ever laid my eyes on. If we want fictive extended belief, this is surely it lol.
Jens can you run commentary on all the episodes please. I understand your take on it better than the actual series.…
Haha, I'm glad you understood some of my ramble. I guess by "vuglar" I meant, to a common society, its an act that can be considered vulgar. Quite often erotic acts are erotic because they are indeed vulgar, I think. Thank you!
Just finished episode 3, I like this show even more now. It's strange... it's fast, flighty, and somewhat awkward. I saw someone on tumblr call Intha a manic pixie dream boy and they couldn't be more right (is he going to have to defeat Oeng's 7 evil exes.....? lol). Perhaps this: everything feels so sudden because it is sudden. It's a summer daydream fling, Intha is running away from his old job, afterall, and Oeng is running away from past relationships. The most realistic form of this relationship is using eachother, making up fantastical futures with absolutely no value. But of course it'll stretch farther than that, but that's what this relationship is at this moment. And just MAYBE the reason we haven't seen the two of them kiss yet (but have seen them sucking on eachother's fingers, an act I would argue is more 'vulgar' than just kissing) is because that is how their relationship currently stands. It's not secure, they aren't dating, and Oeng hasn't found it in himself yet to give up a pure, vulnerable kiss... the kiss that says, ok, you can be the one to take care of me for real.
Strong slice-of-life anime/manga feel to this one. When I look at it that way, it doesn't feel as disjointed. I like it, it's warm. And the lighting is a blessing.
I finally decided to finish watching this thing (from start to finish, I only ever watched the first episode...), and honestly, I kind of liked it more than the Thai version (I never even finished the Thai version). What you first have to get past is this: is the story, from original to different versions, even spectacular in the first place? No. It's absurd with a bunch of MAME tropes and stereotypes. But did it make me laugh? Yeah. Was I laughing at not only the actual meant comedy but also the story in general? Hell yeah I was. And it's not really any different than the Thai version (other than like, I don't know, they fuck longer and the lighting is better in the Japanese version). We're comparing two things that aren't really objectively good in the first place.
Also, the Kai and Rei plotline difference is so funny to me LOL. Rei is in a classic tropey BL romance and Kai is going through mobster psychological warfare.
i am sorry, but i don't give two shits that "...Kanda is also a victim..." he - as the adult - didn't…
It's wrong to analyze taboo topics? Also, I said exactly what you said in your last paragraph already in my post. What Kanda did was wrong, but there is also a reason he did what he did. A society that condemns can make otherwise well-ordered people do gross things. It's not lifeless evil. I'm trying to say that the directive choices taken clearly shows that. Kanda gets nervous when Akira says he's going to tell Kanata about their relationship; Kanda clearly knows what position he holds, and its not a good one. Usually in BL, there's not much regard to the "sleeping with older guy" trope by the characters in the story themselves, but they show it here. They SHOW that everyone surrounding them knows something just isn't right between Kanda and Akira.
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I can probably count on one hand the number of recent dramas that acknowledge HIV, one of them being Love in the Big City. It's not a distant past in queer history, but a struggle that many people around the world live with day-to-day (and NOT just gay men, HIV can affect anyone).
Needless to say, the atmosphere of this show has started to grow on me more and more. The show inside of the show mirrors Zhen Xin and Zhang Zhun themselves. Even Gao Zhun's rapist taking photos of his face (like how Zhen Xin took photos of Zhang Zhun after they slept together) uncomfortably mirrors their reality. And both of them seem to be painfully aware of it. It reminds me a bit of The Cornered Mouse Dreams of Cheese.
Also, the Kai and Rei plotline difference is so funny to me LOL. Rei is in a classic tropey BL romance and Kai is going through mobster psychological warfare.