It’s back, it scared me when they said they weren’t going to do another one because of all the illegal uploads of the drama, but here we are. I can’t stress enough please try to watch the content on the streaming platform, its easy to see that GagaOOlala is getting more traction and they believe in bringing the best of LGBTIQ+ content to an international audience, so let’s support them if we can
Dangerous Drugs of Sex (2020) I really admire actors who played the main roles. (I wanna read the manga)
So, in my opinion it is very well done. I enjoyed the sex scenes. Like THESE SCENES WERE ALMOST THE WHOLE MOVIE. And I love that even it was explicit as fuck you couldn’t see anything.
As for the story, it was weaker but I didn’t mind. It was a nice break.
So 7/10
Method (2017)
Okay this is EXACTLY what I need more in movies where are two male characters together or not but actually they have something between them. (Not only stupid queer bating right?) And it’s drama thriller and some similar genre.
But THIS movie is a gold. I really love it and I’m gonna watch it again and again and again.
I really recommend. (And I love the age gap between them)
9,5/10 ✨
A Round Trip to Love (2016)
It’s toxic, sad but good. (Almost every series/movie what I have here is more less toxic :’)))
Idk why but a version what I downloaded hasn’t got some scenes what were in version on YouTube.
7/10
Another toxic movie
Double Mints
First time when I saw it was in 2018 I was 18 y.o. And I remembered that I saw it and I wanted to repeat it so, I watched it again and it’s still good. My taste in movies didn’t change at all. But I would love to know how their ,something like relationship, continue.
7,5/10
HIStory 3: Trapped
What I started doing was that I stopped promising from BL series so much. Then I’m not disappointed when it’s not that good. Or when it’s filmed according to some BL “pattern”. (You know what I mean right :’) but damn girl…this was really good.
And the plotwist surprised me too. It was really good and I love the pairing and I would love to see another series with them. Or to see these two actors to play a couple together again. Please. Please???
9,2/10
Manner of death
The statement I wrote about History 3 Trapped fits into this Thai series. Dude, here the actors are hot af. And the plot I would say that is a little bit better than in the mentioned HIStory. I know that the two actors have played together a couple already, but I would like to see them again. in some other project. Again, pretty please.
9,5/10 ✨
Innocent
Oh well, I’m not sure by this one. I just watched it for two good looking actors. I’m sorry. Don’t get me wrong. It wasn’t bad but I think I don’t need to watch it again. But I like the aesthetic of the serie.
5,7/10
Long time no see
Uhhh, yeah this one, was good. It has simple plot. It wasn’t bad, it was average. 6/10
The night beyond the tricornered window (2021)
I have to say that it was good and I really like aesthetic of the movie. Again. And here it comes the ‘but’ BUT it has lot of dead spots, sometimes I had problems with behavior of Erika Hiura. Mainly in the end of the movie. Some parts of movie should be described a little bit more and some of them shouldn’t be there.
I think it needs another movie. Maybe they could do it better than this one. So my rating is:
6,5/10 ✨
Color Rush (2020 - 2022)
I’ve seen only first season but I have to say I was a little bit disappointed. It’s really good idea but there are a lot of dead spots and sometimes it was a little bit boring. But I’ll watch the second season. Maybe it will be better this time.
The Taiwanese BL industry casually flexing Taiwan’s marriage equality muscles.
Taiwan is the only country in Asia where same sex marriage is legal.
Taiwanese BL would like you to know about it. And so would I, frankly. So here’s a chronicling of them flexing these well deserved (and hard earned) muscles.
History 2: Right or Wrong (2017) flexed first. At the time the courts had just put into effect that same sex marriages would be legal in two years, so the main characters plan to marry in two years. Then there is a flash forward scene of the two of them wearing wedding rings. This is the first example of two gay characters being legally married in an Asian BL drama.
Predictive flexing.
HIStory 3: Make Our Days Count (2019) the bridge proposal.
Craving You (2020) is half about a gay wedding and that wedding is depicted in the last episode.
We Best Love (2021) Flexes in season one and two, including an engagement.
History 4: Close to You (2021) has two couples flex in sequence and depicted the couple who got engaged in HIStory 3 getting married.
Papa & Daddy (2021) is much less BL and tunnels into being gay in Taiwan (rose tinted spectacles, of course). It showcases Pride* but also how the power of legalization and positive coverage by the mainstream media can broaden minds and guide culture from tolerance to acceptance. Legalization isn’t just so people have the same basic human rights and social protections, it’s so that non-queers realize that marriage equality is humane, decent, and good.
Be Loved In House: I Do (2021) a pretty near pitch perfect ultra soft BL that had the side dishes get engaged and it was so cute.
Love Is Science? (2021) ground breaking het romance where the main couple ends up sort of engaged but it’s the BL side couple who get the ultra romantic proposal in the end. Brilliant! Mark & OuWen will live on forever as my favorite disaster bi + confident gay pairing.
Meanwhile, in Vietnam…
Thailand
And Japan
ALSO Korea 2022 gave us, I think, their first depiction of gay marriage in any Kdrama at all in Cherry Blossoms After Winter.
*** Quick note about Papa & Daddy’s Taipei Pride footage because I think it’s super important:
Taipei 2020 - March for the World
in 2020 Taiwan’s Pride in Taipei was called March for the World. Why? Because initially Taiwan managed to control C19 better than any other country, they were the only place able to hold pride safely, so they did it for all of us.
I don’t feel like they got enough recognition for this.
Oh, that was a painful confession. Because it’s so obvious that Ze Shou has some feelings for Li Gong. But he’s also in deep, deep denial of those feelings. He wants to be at his side, He needs to be at his side. But he doesn’t know how to handle anything more than just being friends.
And he’s scaring Li Gong so much. Because Ze Shou loves him, he does, he loves him so much that it hurts and that he can’t handle it and that he’s afraid of it, so afraid.
But he’s also afraid of losing everythng. He’s terrified of losing everything.
He’s a divorce lawyer. Everything he sees around him is love stories ending badly. Love stories ending in pain. Love stories ending in leaving each other. Love stories that don’t end with love.
So of course he doesn’t trust love, he doesn’t trust the idea that if they fall in love they’ll be together forever.
But he still trusts friendship.
The problem is that he’s afraid of love and that all he wants is to stay with Li Gong forever platonically not understanding that Li Gong does want more and Li Gong isn’t going to let this go forever, can’t let this go forever.
Ze Shou doesn’t understand that the most powerful part of their friendship is that they love each other and that the love itself, revealed, could be more powerful than the friendship itself.
It’s so well done. We can see that he’s in love and see him deny it again and again and again because he doesn’t want that, he’s so scared of the loss that love implies to him, the end that love implies to him, because all he sees is love ending.
Ze Shou’s agony, wandering the city alone and still in love and remembering what it felt like to be loved back and what it felt like to know he wouldn’t be alone and then seeing the man who promised to love him embracing a shared friend and leaving him… it’s the agony of someone who knows that he had everything in the world and he just lost it, he just lost his everything and he doesn’t know how to keep going without it.
And then Nikita yells at him? Nikita tells him he has no right to love Li Going even though Li Gong is the one that broke up with Ze Shou is the one who would have stayed through anything and begged him to stay?
That’s a breaking moment, right there. To have her tell him that he’s the one doing this to Li Gong?
You know how there’s always one moment that just gets you in a show? And sometimes it doesn’t make any sense?
Here’s one of mine.
When Shao Yi-Chen pops out from behind the door at the little request and he’s just so happy and so eager and he’s seriously nothing but joy and I love it so much. It’s the first sign we truly get not just of how much he still cares but also how he cares and the kind of life they might have had in the other timeline.
There’s so much bounce in his step and the little swing is so perfect and I just love it, okay? It’s hard to explain except that this is such a perfect example of showing happiness, unintentional happiness, of how to show comfort and the want to do something and the way a person responds naturally when the rest of the time he’s constantly controlling himself.
I just… I love it, damnit. And I love this little show. It’s not perfect but it’s probably my favorite trash rewatch and one of the very few that I do, actively, rewatch (I am not @absolutebl and prone to rewatching) because of how much I love it. Deeply old-school yaoi roots here.
(Yes, this drama is highly problematic and I do not deny that and I absolutely get why people might not like this show and have no arguments to make about that.)
