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Chained To My Bully Stepbrother (AI Vertical BL Drama)

By Golu
This is the second vertical AI BL drama I've sat through, and honestly I went in knowing better. I had it on while I was doing cardio at the gym, and what struck me was just how much the plot echoed the last one I watched. Same step brother romance angle, same mystery girlfriend showing up near the end, same extra guy pining after one of the leads. Genuinely the only thing going for it was the runtime, the whole thing wrapped up in forty five minutes flat.  The setup kicks off with Finn moving schools because his mom just married into money. He finds out his new step brother Aiden goes to the same place, and he's warned to keep his distance from him. Their first run in at school is rocky, just like you'd expect, but there's this odd pull between them neither can shake off. Finn keeps telling himself not to read into it because Aiden's straight and openly homophobic. Things shift when some kids start bullying Finn and the student council president, Ryan, steps in to ...
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The Lawyer (Lithuanian/English)

By Golu
To be honest, I am not very sure what was the basic theme that the film maker was trying to show and focus on. There seemed multiple themes going on, or you can see it was sort of like episodic events that happening with hour main protagonist. Sure, enough in the second half, he gets a purpose and the film focuses on immigration and LGBT issues but it takes forever to reach that point.

Marius is a corporate lawyer in Vilnius. He is a player who spends time with friends and chasing young lovers for sex. The death of his estranged father shakes him and he finds himself striking up an unexpected relationship with a sex-cam worker, Ali, a Syrian man stuck in the refugee camp in Belgrade. Marius decides to take a trip a trip to Belgrade to meet Ali. The polar-opposite pairing ignites unexpected passion, with Marius using Ali’s unfortunate circumstances to uncover his own sense of purpose. Ali asks for Marius' help in moving to other part of Europe, which he initially refuses saying he is not an immigration lawyer, but eventually decides to help and manages to get him out of Belgrade.

As mentioned above, the story takes forever to come to the point. In between there is this side story of a very popular female artist, with whom Marius makes an unexpected friendship with. None of their scenes add any value whatsoever in the film. Even the scenes between Marius and Ali, they take forever to come to a point. They speak so slow that you feel like fast forwarding it. Its the troubled love story between Ali and Marius. interestingly Serbia doesn't have a special refugee program for LGBT individuals and neither is being gay legal in Lithuania. The film eventually becomes a metaphor for their isolation and marginalization in a time and a place (today’s Serbia) where “being different” is still problematic. This movie itself had lack of consistency and depth, feels like some characters play unnecessary roles. On a positive side, the leads actors really did a commendable job, but besides that I feel the issues of being gay, refugee and being in a country which doesn't support these were very lightly handled.

This film could have been so much better, shorter and very meaningful. Sadly, in my opinion, it misses the opportunity it had on its hands. (4/10)
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