etoks21

lol

You kill me. Over the last five years, ie. during the time since I discovered Asian cinema and BL, I've come to a much greater recognition of my yearning for the most angsty, painful, dramatic, excruciating, even horrifying developments in the fiction I partake of, from novels to plays to movies; no matter the medium. The more suffering I experience as an audience member, the happier I am. Which of course, reveals me to be a masochist. I'm OK with that. :)

But I'm also OK with happy endings. It's simply that those happy endings are all the more intensely joyous and bright because the story took me to the darkest of places first.

Asian cinema has made me MUCH more comfortable with tragic and open endings, as long as they are coherent and well-presented. There are at least two well-known BLs I downgraded from what might have been a 10/10 to a 1/10 because of the most sadistically homophobic, bait-and-switch endings I have ever seen in any medium I can recall. I later learned this was a "thing" among Asian BL writers; they were OK with telling gay stories as long as any happiness the boys experienced was crushed by sorrow in the end.

Regarding another BL I left on the list despite its horrific and absurd ending, I allowed it to make the cut because there is a perfect spot near the end where the story SHOULD have wrapped things up. The last two times I watched it, I stop it right there and refuse to acknowledge the messy last 20 minutes exist. :D

This is likewise true of many older gay Asian films, well hell, American gay films too: Gay happiness could be presented as long as it was obliterated by the movie's conclusion. There is one such film I have kept on my 30 Best Gay Films list despite its soul-murdering ending, because the rest of the film was just so fucking good. The conclusion comes out of nowhere, relates to nothing that went before, was foreshadowed in no way whatsoever, and is slammed down on the audience out of spite, I guess. If you ever meander over to my custom lists and are bored, see if you can pick the one I'm talking about. In this case I do watch the devastating ending because it is so well-acted and of course, feeds my need for agonizing emotional pain. :P

Another reason I left it there was because it's 23 years old, and just the fact that a film with an explicit, non-coded gay love story at its center out of 2001 Asia exists is quite a marvelous thing.

The On1y One has no excuse however; it was made in 2023.

Apparently, I heard the word "moving" and made the leap to assuming this was in reference to moving out of the dorm. It's just a hiccup of my life experience I suppose: To me "moving" denotes moving from one's current living situation to another. I missed Tian' second question "when are you moving to class B?"

Anyway, I posted an unqualified mea culpa to my misunderstanding of that scene somewhere in this thread, addressed to the commenter who called me on it.

I was fascinated by Tian insisting on not only helping Wang move to the new classroom, but taking the lead on it; being in charge. I loved the way he kept his eyes on Wang's the entire time, with that observant poker face of his, as if daring him to admit what he was really up to; that he had failed the test on purpose to cowardly distance himself from Tian. And also making it plain that he KNEW what Wang had done.

I'm not challenging this tic of Tian's personality or character, but his near-immediate "I will wait for you..." regarding Wang after the move was made, because who of us is not weak in some way? However, it came awfully quickly after the heart-rending stairway scene where Tian was alone and dealing with the reality of what Wang had just done. I had felt that in that scene he was accepting what had happened as the new reality, but I thought he'd come to the conclusion this was a bridge too far, that Wang had put up a wall and that was it.

But all of a sudden Tian was proclaiming his willingness to "wait." To wait for something that had not been promised, nor showed any sign of becoming a reality, feels like an exceedingly codependent thing to do, and I perceived Tian as stronger than that. To me, he's a person who would think "I have done all I could and I have been rejected emphatically. This is over. I will degrade myself no further. I will close this chapter of my life and move on." Instead, he proclaims his fealty to permanent victimhood.

Thoughts?

Such a botched ending.

On edit: Benjamin's acting in the lunch scene where he asked Wang when he was moving and got express confirmation there would be no last-minute reprieve, that Wang would no longer be always in front of him in class, and worse, that Wang was set on playing out this ridiculous pretense to its heartbreaking conclusion; was masterful and excruciating. To see the tears in his eyes as he fought to control himself was soul-rending. I had tears running down my cheeks and snot running down my upper lip.

That sort of acting is very difficult and rare: To be able to convey so great a level of torment using only one's eyes, perhaps a slight change in the set of the lips, and angle of the head, is remarkable. Lesser actors, which means MOST actors, would resort to facial contortions and quivering lips to do what Benjamin did almost motionlessly. I can't overstate the respect I have for his talent and hard work as an actor.

I think its budget was insufficient to portray what they intended at a professional level of excellence. I dropped out somewhere in the third episode, so maybe it became fantastic after that.

For me, that is one of those Thai shows that came off like a community theatre production centered on subject matter it simply didn't have the resources to pull off convincingly. But that's me.

How about "a series that moved me deeply despite its many shortcomings?"

I sure do wish we'd have gotten to see LDQ's chest. It was easy to see he has a very nice one.

I found Wang the more handsome on first sight, but within the first hour, Tian's overwhelming screen presence, charisma, and sexual aura had me seeing Wang as bland-looking. Plus, his acting is a couple of levels above that of the Wang actor.

I'd have to say Wang is the more conventionally handsome one, but Tian is the far hotter of the two.

I agree with that. I didn't pick up on Tian trying to tease Wang (I've been trying not to giggle over his name thru the entire series. Second only as an Asian dick-like name to "Dong." I know; I'm excessively immature.) with his shirtlessness. He seemed oblivious to what Wang was feeling...and seeing in his head. :)

Which reminds me...how weird was it that we got that boner-in-the-morning scene, which I found hilarious and refreshingly raunchy, especially in the context of the rest of this show, and then NOTHING else along those lines the rest of the show? l. I don't count the bare butts on sports day (lamest episode of all!) because while they were nice to view, there was nothing erotic going on there, just standard boys-bare-butts humor.

This series could have benefited from more boner-type frivolity.

Oh, I fully acknowledge what I wrote.

OK...truce?! :D

"And I will say that fix your shitty mentality! Have a broader perspective! I don't want to waste my energy on people like you who just talk shit without using their brain! Hope your hating job pays you well! 🥰
Hope to never meet you again! 💖
Hope to never meet you again!"

How respectful.

Thanks.

Beautifully-stated. Up until about episode 7, I was all-aboard with this thing, despite already-apparent pacing issues and filler all over the place. "Squandered potential" indeed.

I guess you've never heard of "internalized homophobia" then, a condition that raised its head mightily in the last 30 minutes of this show. LOTS of gay people suffer from internalized homophobia, me being one of them, though it has improved a lot since coming out and getting real many years ago. You are exhibiting many of the symptoms I used to experience (without the bad writing part, though).

Who asked for a BL with "no plot or emotions or feelings, but just filled with the SEX scenes!?" Certainly not me. (Your inability to spell out the word S-E-X is a hilarious indication of your fear and loathing of S-E-X, especially that nasty gay kind).

But that's how it is with people like you: You pretend that a live-action adaptation can only be TWO things: ALL longing glances/furtive stares/nervous giggles and NO SEX or ALL butt-f**king, BJs, and hand jobs. There is a universe of gay gray between the black/white extremes in which you think, if one can call it thinking. You seem more emotional than rational.

"fyi, Tian experienced that incident in his "childhood" in which his father was having s*x with another person while he was already married to Tian's Mom! You call this irrelevant..? Ofc He has feelings for Sheng...And he do want to confess his feelings but his fear of what he saw in his childhood is pulling him back! And Sheng realised his feelings for Tian in ep 11..And Tian came to know about Sheng's feelings in "episode 11". He was not waiting for Sheng to admit his feelings! They both were not just ready to admit it! There were things that were pulling them back from confessing which is completely understandable! Are you even watching the same drama..? At least try to give some logical criticism, even if you just want to hate the drama. "

WRONG. The effects you imagine Tian's childhood experience to have had on him may indeed be part of the novel, I have no idea, but they are not ever shown in this adaptation. He resents his dad for cheating on his mom, not because he cheated with a man. So of what relevance is his dad's gay sex?

"And I will say that fix your shitty mentality! Have a broader perspective! I don't want to waste my energy on people like you who just talk shit without using their brain! Hope your hating job pays you well! 🥰
Hope to never meet you again! 💖
Hope to never meet you again!"

Now that I know you're 12 years old, I have a better understanding of your childish style of ranting/writing.
My hate job pays extremely well.
You'll be seeing me everywhere.
You'll be seeing me everywhere.

Thanks for the giggles.

Well, divergence and differences of interpretation and nuance can be enlightening when shared coherently, which you do well. I'm not here to read my opinion reflected back at me word-for-word. How boring would that be?

It's good that we're in the same patch of "weediness" though. :)

"This is simply hate!"
You poor, sensitive thing who likes exclamation points. So she wrote her opinion with a bit of snark. This is the Internet. Get used to it.

You: "Hate! Hate! Hate! You spread hate and make me have bad fee-fees! You are a moron! Hate! Hate! You don't care about feeling and emotions like I do! Hate! Hate! Hate!

"satisfy your THRUST...?" lol You know nothing about how I really like to satisfy my "THRUST."

I do enjoy my time with our Bad BL Hater Club. DM me if you get a brain cell and would like to join.

Also you: "I love exclamation points most of all, even more than the word "hate!" !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I tried reading one of Mame's novels, but the English translation was so bad and childish, I dropped it.

Hate "bromances."
NEVER watch censored bromance trash out of China.

A lot of people here call a lot of things "crimes" that are actually just human behaviors they like to pretend don't exist. I love toxic, angst, drama, distress, anger in my live-action dramas; give me the darkness, because any light that comes after is all the brighter for what went before.

Max and Tul's BL is on my Best 30 BLs list. People make mistakes in life, especially when they're drunk. There are a million levels of "betrayal," from Max's 15-minute, drunken mistake to another person having a secret affair for 15 years and never being caught. And Max's character suffered mightily for what he did.

WAY too many MDLers seem to believe that if a negative behavior is portrayed in a movie or drama, that automatically means the behavior is being CONDONED, which is absurd, and that everyone who sees it will run out and re-enact the same behavior because...something.

Ridiculous.

Its first season is on my Top 30 BLs list. The second is on my worst list. :)

EXACTLY. I have made this point a number of times since watching episode 12 last night: What was the purpose of the well-done but ultimately meaningless, last scene of episode 11?

I never saw Tian struggle with his sexuality in any way. He seemed throughout to be very accepting of what he felt for Wang and in my view was waiting for Wang to admit to himself what he already knew, suck it up, and get it on. To grow a pair, in other words. No indication from Tian of internalized homophobia at all, least of all stemming from what we saw at the end of ep. 11.

What the child Tian saw could just as easily have been a scene involving his dad and a woman, but either way, the WHY of his resentment toward his dad was never explored, and WHAT a missed opportunity! Instead, the show-makers gave over half the screen time to nonsense about school sports days, villains sneaking into the dorm and forcing all the guys and girls to share beds, and a slew of other absurdities that did nothing of interest to move the plot. Oh, I musn't forget the horrendous kidnap-and-rescue-of-Jin-or-Jane-or-whatever-her-name-was. WTF was that?

The powerful scene at the end of 11 turned out to be of no importance. How can it not be relevant that Tian saw what he saw? And yet it wasn't.

Interesting. You are a good read. :)

As a gay BL-watcher, I actually do not care for the fantasy BLs where everyone is gay or gay-friendly, and all the hot, straight athletes are in love with the most feminine of the slew of fem gay boys available on campus, and damn proud of it. (See: Secret Crush On You. I watched this abomination to the end because I could not believe what I was seeing.)

All my fave BLs center on some form of struggle with self-realization, self-hatred, self-acceptance, and hopefully self-love which leads to romance with another. This is not surprising as all of my fave films, gay or straight, are filled with angst, struggle, pain, suffering, and even sometimes great joy. :) The darkness before the light makes the light all the brighter.

A major part of this preference is that it so powerfully reflects back to me the pain I went through related to all this IRL. When I first found BL about five years ago, I was astonished and deeply moved; I felt I was seeing my own adolescence played back at me in many ways, but usually with a different outcome. It was a revelation.

For months, as I binged all the classics which had completed their run long before, I sat sobbing in my living room chair, watching on my laptop as young Asian actors touched me as I hadn't been touched before. In most of those, I got to feel a lot of good feelings too. That too, was a revelation for me.

And thus began my appreciation and continued interest in watching BLs. Ironically, all the first BLs I watched and which deeply effected me were Thai. Beginning a bit over two years ago, I barely watch Thai BLs at all. Thailand has become a BL Assembly Line, producing defective product after defective product. The most affecting BLs for me come out of Korea, Japan, and Taiwan. There have been almost no Fillipino BLs I could stomach. There have been a couple nice ones out of Vietnam though.

MDL, for whatever secretive reasons, still refuses to recognize the existence of BLs from Vietnam or Cambodia. I've written the head honchos here asking why that is, but am always ignored. MDL also continues to refuse to publish articles on its front page relating to gay films or BL. NEVER. Not once. This is obviously an editorial choice but they refuse to acknowledge it. Again, multiple inquiries on my part have been ignored.