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...
An interesting film where ex-lovers reunite after 15 years. I think the film is supposed to be a delicate and mature touching love story with heartbreaks and everything intercepted in between to make it watchable and more realistic. Somehow the parts of the film made it a bit hard for me to believe. The simple fact of why would there b still so much passion and love for someone who you spent a summer 15 years ago. Isin’t that a long long time ago? By the way, the title of the film comes from the eye condition that Dean has.Dean, who works as a graphics designer in LA, is a bit bored with his job and how his life is going. An out-of-the-blue email from Alex brings a kind of storm in his life. We find out that Alex and Dean spent a summer together 15 years ago before Alex abruptly disappeared and now wants to reconnect with Dean. After an initial reaction of “Fuck off!”, they start exchanging emails with a bit of flirtations and finally decide to meet each other. Dean Dean invites Alex to spend a weekend at his house in the Southern California desert. As nervous as Dean is anticipating Alex, they both can’t keep their hands off each other as soon as they meet. They start talking about what happened and through a series of flash-backs we get o know how they met 15 years ago. Things are going fine till they both drop a bomb on each other. Dean admits to being married to Brian who is travelling for work. Agitated Alex leaves home but comes back to give his secret that he disappeared that summer since he met someone else. Rest of the movie is about reliving past, coming closer and pulling apart again. Alex expects Dean to leave everything including Brian to be with him, but thankfully Dean questions his commitment to anything in life and says that he would rather prefer to make his marriage work and be honest. And just as Alex disappeared 15 years ago, he again leaves in the crack of dawn.
Though the pace os the film can be a bit questionable, the director adds enough layers, giving an intimate insight into the lives of the reunited lovers. Though Dean blames Alex for leaving abruptly; we soon find that there are always two sides to any story and how communication is important. The locations are new, and the lead actors are both very good looking with their tidy matching beards. They definitely act really well and there is plenty of lounging around near pool in tasteful nude scenes. The story is relatable but personally for me, not very believable as I said before. People change drastically in 15 years both physically and emotionally and it seems this was never discussed. Its a film for mature audience who have been in love. The pace of the film could have been faster but the whole idea was probably us, as audience, to spend the weekend with these 2 protagonists and feel what they are going through.
The film is a no-frills, simple, to the point, very well acted film. (6/10)
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