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Stop! That! Train!

By Golu
Coming out of the same studio that gave us RuPaul's Drag Race, and stacked with a whole crew of former contestants, Stop! That! Train! plays like RuPaul basically taking a bow for the entire franchise she's built. It's not really a gay film in the traditional sense, but with so many drag stars from Ru's shows popping up alongside a few cameos from well known out gay actors, I figured it earns a spot on this blog anyway. The whole thing is completely over the top, packed with GenZ slang, loud flashy visuals, and humor that's constantly winking at you knowing how ridiculous it is. Going in you'd assume it's meant to be a laugh riot, and a lot of critics online seem to be eating it up, but I just couldn't get into it at all. I've never really been someone who vibes with campy silly stuff like this, so honestly my reaction doesn't surprise me one bit. The setup follows Tess and DeeDee, two low level stewardesses who sneak onto the fancy Glamazonian E...
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Speechless (Mandarin)

By Golu
The story of this film is interesting yet dumb at the same time. The characters seemed a bit unbelievable and awkward. The story is told via some flashback sequences , which just add a bit to the confusion. Thankfully the movie is not too long and ends after a decent time.

A foreigner is found naked by the police by the side of river. Unable to extract any information out of him, he is sent to the hospital. The male nurse, Jiang, forms a bond with this foreigner (Luke). When hospital decides to send this guy to mental asylum since he refuses to speak anything, Jiang decides to take matters in his own hands and smuggles him to his uncle’s village. When the foreigner one night calls a random number on Jiang phone, he tracks the number and meets a girl Ning, who is not helpful at all. But later Jiang finds out the real truth. It turns out that Luke had met Ning and her boyfriend Han at the college campus and they strike a friendship. Unaware to Ning, Han and Luke start an affair. When she finds out about this, she publicly outs Han, which leaves him mentally in a very bad condition and he tries to commit suicide and is hospitalized in coma. and This is the reason Luke has lost his speech. The final fate of the characters was somewhat confusing to me at least.

The story is novel but not completely thought through. Also thankfully this film shows the rural side of China/HongKong that I have not seen before. This was quite refreshing for me. Sadly the film execution felt a bit underwhelming. The whole reason for losing the speech and all was ok, but at least Luke could have written down things and explained himself. Rather than making the people driving him to mental asylum. We learn via flashback as to why Luke lost his speech but the problem with this is that the flashback is long enough that it changes the flow of the movie, and the transition back to the current story feels awkward. Was Jiang also physically attracted to Luke or not is still a  question that wasn’t answered. Interestingly the movie was apparently shot in secret because of the  stigma associated with homosexuality in the region. The acting by the characters was all good.

It may seem that I did not like the film, but it was strictly average. There are many better films out there. (5/10)

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