All posts by PPBongi

Vietnamese Reviews

“My Sweet Brother-in-law” Series Review (Ep.1 to 5)

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There is so much to unpack in this short series. It is a prodigious tale as well. Initially, the way it was presented felt as if it might be a light, even comedic tongue-in-cheek story. Full of fun. But true to the nature of Vietnamese BLs, it emerges into realness. The human drama becomes honest, sincere, and relatable especially because of what happens when we simply are unable to truly be ourselves. It is a story of gayness and the inability to be free and open about who you are and the person you love. The Vietnamese have mastered the perfection of being able to portray these emotions with such intensity.

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Taiwanese Reviews

“Fight for You” Series Review (Ep.1 to 12)

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Once I completed this series, I asked myself what was the premise of this series? And I honestly could not figure one out. It is your standard formulaic BL, full of tropes, cliches, customary setups, and unremarkable contrived crisis. But through at least some portions of this series, I found myself being avidly entertained chiefly because of the charming effect of the two main leads. The remainder, however, not so much because it was your standard flat setup.

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Chinese Reviews

“The Sparkle in Your Eye” Series Review (Ep.1 to 12)

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This is a surprisingly effective series that is deeply rooted in the realms of movie making and BL specifically. The more light that is shed on whom represent characters in movies, specifically in the BL genre, fans will hopefully gain a better appreciation not only of the work that is involved in the making of a movie but also understand the complexities of the underlying production to a movie. And a lot of it is ugly. I do think the story is a relevant one to tell because it represents the ills that go on in this industry. It can be a brutal, impersonal, and cut-throat industry and make no mistake, it is an industry.

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Thai Reviews

“I Promise I Will Come Back” Series Review (Ep.1 to 8)

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Every once in a while, something comes along that touches your soul in a way that you were not expecting. I am quite old, and I have buried many experiences in my life, but this small gem helped me to recall lost memories that were uncannily close to the content of this story. Perhaps I am alone here, but I simply loved this story for its romance. It portrays romance in its purest form – carefree, youthful, deciduous. In a way that only happens once, if ever, in one’s lifetime. If you are fortuitous enough, it is serendipitous, intense, fervid, and fills your life with a burst of joy that you will never ever experience again. It is your first love. But your first love is with a person who is everything you dreamt that paragon would be, wanted to be. He was your knight in shining armor, your Prince Charming. Your Romeo. Your Adonis. Everything you imagined a fairytale love experience would be. I remembered mine and my experience was such ecstasy and therefore, I understood this BL series at its core. While my ending was certainly not as dramatic, my fervor was. Despite the diegesis’s many flaws, I only saw its beauty and the passion for the underlying message of its storybook love. I wish others would see it in this light as well.

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Chinese Reviews

“Moon and Dust” Series Review (Ep.1 to 6)

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Just plain weird. Honestly, there are not many instances that give me the ‘willies’, but watching this series frankly did. Everything about this story left me disquiet. And the way the narrative was fashioned felt like what the two protagonists were somehow involved in, between the two of them, was ‘dirty’. Therefore, the whole drama felt – unclean. Sadly, it did not need to go down that road.

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Thai Reviews

“Loy Kaew First Love” Series Review (Ep.1 to 6)

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This series can best be described by a quote from Charles Dickens, “A Tale of Two Cities” – “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.” It had an exceptional storyline only to slip into banality and nonsensical story arcs. Here is yet again another Thai series that simply had no idea what a great diegesis it actually had. If only they had followed through with their main title.

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Chinese Reviews

“Jian Hun” Series Review (Ep.1 to 25)

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I downright fall under the spell of certain themes in either movies or series. This series had two of my favorites. Time travel and swashbuckling epic times full of exotic and romantic lore, legends, and traditions. And especially given my naïve Western upbringing, I am heart and soul smitten by Chinese fable and mythology. This series transported me back into time, like with the character, where I too could imagine myself beside them. Perhaps I have always secretly harbored a desire to be a valiant hero from another culture in the past.

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Interview

Aichaku The Movie: An Affinity Towards Dreams And Love

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Recently, a connection was made quite surreptitiously between The BL Xpress and Cowboys Tokyo, the producer of the recent gay independent film called AICHAKU. Aichaku, in Japanese means, literally ‘attachment’. Specifically, an attachment to an object that is more like a feeling of affinity – what the object means. It takes on an emotional attachment.

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Chinese Reviews

“Infidelity: It’s A Disease” Series Review (Ep.1 to 4)

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Colorful, creative, and comical. This is the best way to describe this short BL series from China. It most assuredly will make you smile. This is a series that feels ordinary in the sense that I can see this happening in real life as the story does have an air of plausibility about it.

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