I've always had kind of a love hate relationship with Chinese historical BLs. Some are genuinely excellent, but then there are others that cram in so much plot that keeping track of all the layers of betrayal and scheming gets exhausting, and I end up checking out mentally. Part of the issue is also just how much content is out there in this space, so something really has to stand out to keep me hooked. In this case, the production value is genuinely impressive, top tier stuff, but story wise, I just couldn't bring myself to actually care about these characters. There's a ton of political scheming and backstage manipulation running throughout. Somewhere in the middle of all that chaos, a hostage ends up falling for his own Prince Charming. The show runs eight episodes, each around 50 to 60 minutes long. After spending three years guarding the border, Fifth Prince Yin Qi gets called back to the capital because of a secret letter, only to end up walking straight into a deadly...
Lesbian filmmakers from Berlin were asked to make a short film about their idea of male gay love and sexuality and, vice-versa, gay men were given the task of making a short film about lesbian sexuality and eroticism. All genres were allowed and it could be erotic, experimental or simple but within a 3 to 7 minute range.
The result is a mish-mash of several (I think its 15) odd films that tried so hard to be different that it was so difficult to sustain interest in any one of them. The highly diverse films, primarily concerned with the pinpointing, questioning and deconstruction of clichés -- clichés which, in spite of the proximity of gays and lesbians during the past ten years, appear to persist to a shocking extent in the minds of many in the opposite group. The diversity of the various contributions provides good reason to hope for a thoughtful and informative expansion of our perceptions of certain roles and gender-specific patterns. Because, after all, we are not just fucking differently, we are fucking different. And that's just fine the way it is.
Fucking Different is highly scattershot in its approach, to its credit and to its detriment in equal measure. The only one worth watching was when gay men talk about what they think lesbian sex is. It also had all the cliches but it was still funny to a certain extent.
Highly experimental. I don't think I am ready for this yet. (0.5/10)
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