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...
Maybe six years ago, when I was brand new to the world of gay cinema, and had this been one of the first movies I had seen, I might have liked this film a little a bit. But today, I don't feel so. And don't get fooled by this poster. There was so much taken for granted in this film along with a little too many characters and a plot and sub-plots just to make the film longer, I guess. Each sub plot gets suffered from this because, the film makers could not focus more on any specific story vs the other.
Kevin owns a house and has roommates Wendy, Andy and Vinny. One of the room-mates Tom just does and we find out later that he was originally Kevin's boyfriend before deciding to change his sexuality and dating Wendy. Vinny is an 18 year old boy, whom Kevin met somewhere and is letting him stay for free. Andy is a hunk who is gay but is very interested with neighbor lady, whose son is Vinny's best friend. Vinny is totally in love with him but he is all macho latino guy. Meanwhile Wendy finds out that she is pregnant, so suddenly Kevin nows becomes straight, starts sleeping with Wendy and marries her. Meanwhile, we have a mysterious fat guy join the house as anew room mate. He is always cleaning and weirded out. It turns out that he has some history of bank robbery and is hiding all his money. The end of the film is nothing but chaos where all sort of things are happening all over the place. Andy gets arrested, then Kevin gets arrested but suddenly Vinny has this bright idea and Kevin is Fine. Kevin is back to being gay and now his mom is ok with it. Vinny's latino crush comes around and they are a couple. Gosh! What a mess.
First things you realize after watching the film is how pathetic and awful the acting by everyone is. The fat guy was the most convincing of them all, and thats saying a lot. The production values and sets were very ordinary. It seemed like everyone was gay and bi in the house. Vinny and his boyfriend had zero chemistry. I think now that I am writing all this, I believe that the director is mostly to be blamed for this awful job. Music was terrible. Folks were loud. Had the film maker focussed on just a few of the stories, it would have been so much better. He should have explored the buddy romance of Vinny and maybe just focussed on Kevin. The whole bank robbery and Andy with the neighbor and the fat guy just made this film a mess.
I have seen so many more bad films, that this one doesn't feature all the way down there. But it is pretty awfully acted and directed. (3.5/10)

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