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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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Jaque Mate! (Spanish) [Check Mate]

By Golu
This film was apparently Dominican Republic's official entry for 2013 Academy Awards. The film wasn't bad actually. The screenplay was quite tout and the film moved at a god place without any unnecessary drama, but still I feel there was something missing. The motive behind the crime wasn't strong enough, at least in my opinion, for anyone to go through the lengths that the perpetrator does in this film.

David is the well-known host of a popular fictional game show, “Jaque Mate” (Checkmate). The show has a segment in which he answers calls from audience members. One day he receives an anonymous call, telling him his son and his wife have been kidnapped. The kidnapper threatens him with killing them if he doesn't follow his instructions, making David play his game on live television to reveal some of his secrets. The cops show up at television station and at David's home too to control the station, but the kidnapper manages to broadcast live feed even from David's home. He makes David, recount some events, makes him snort drugs on live TV, shows footage of him with another man (hinting at him probably being bisexual). Eventually David has had enough and he runs to his house where, when he sees the kidnapper, he recognizes him. Apparently he was David's lover 10 years back and the whole idea of this popular game show was actually his that David stole. The kidnapper feels that David stole his idea, his life, his success while pretending to be his lover. Eventually the cops come in to save David's family but the kidnapper manages to escape.

This film is not a queer film per say. Sure, eventually the kidnapper wants to tell the world about secrets of David including drugs, sexuality, infidelity, but it wasn't very clear whether David had a one off affair with the kidnapper many years back or is he secretly leading a double life? Also, for someone to actually hack into every single control system of the TV station single handedly is not an easy thing to do. Clearly the filmmakers have taken enough liberty here. In situations like this, with a high profile event where everything is broadcast live, I never felt a sense or urgency from the cops involved or the TV station owner. It was always like, lets watch what his man is going to do next, as if secretly everyone was enjoying David's expose. The acting was ok, but I think the film could have used some better production values. Actually, probably when the film came out 10 years back, I am sure no-one would have scrutinized it as deep as I am trying to, but hey I can't help the fact that I am watching it now. Strictly an average fare. Watch it only if you don't have anything better. (4.5/10)
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