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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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Mermaid's Jade (Mandarin)

By Golu
This film was so confusing. There were a lot of scenarios and scenes put together without much of an explanation in between and the interactions and connections didn't make much sense at many places. I think I understood the basic plot but I am very sure there was a lot somewhere in between that just went above my head. Thankfully the whole Chinese fantasy genre is usually a delight to watch.

We are told that there are two kingdoms: one with prince and all whatever and the other ones with mermaids (or merman's.. whatever). The regular kingdom keeps mermaids as slaves to make silk from their body among which Jade (the color of their blood) is most popular. The people, ethically, are not allowed to keep mermaids. When Yuanshan, the chief military guy of the kingdom and friend of crown prince encounters the mermaid Yixia, things change. Ideally he should have killed him but he decides to save him since Yixia saved the military guys life. Before you know the two are having a roaring affair, thereby pissing the wife of military guy, who takes help of her brother, the prince. Some fights happen and I am not really sure what happens but then Yuanshan abandons Yixia for his own safety. A few years pass, things are getting better between the two kingdoms and the two men reunite for. Meeting. Yixia says he can never forget Yuanshan and decides to be his guard for life. He enters as soul inside Yuanshan's body which gives him almost an eternal life.

As I mentioned before, this film was very confusing. And I really don't think it has anything to do with cultural references or anything. The story and the characters were just not fleshed out properly. The film was just over an hour long. Unless this story is a common fable tale in Chinese culture that many people are aware of, this film is not easy to make sense of based on whatever you see getting unfolded on screen. On a plus side, we get to see some steamy hot sex scene and kissing scenes between the two men, which is not a common thing at all in Chinese gay movies (whatever little I have seen so far). The ending of the film was pretty random. Somehow it all turns out to be a film shoot and the two men meet again in modern life and be together, maybe. I was like WTF! The plot could hav been interesting but it was way too confusing to even try to make sense out of random events that were shot and just put together. (2.5/10)
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