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...
The primary events happens between 4 close gay friends over an evening and our primary man is Juan, who is also the host of the party. He is obliged to attend a family event with a boyfriend. "I imagine that you will come accompanied" (“Me Imagino Que Vendrás Acompañado” thus the abbreviation MIQVA) says his mother, who has accepted him being homosexual but cannot accept that her son is single. This happens every time and all his friends have already exhausted pretending to be his boyfriend. In the urge to avoid problems and prejudices, he hires an escort as a companion, and gather his friends to give them the news and ask their advice. The evenings goes from Juan telling his friends about his decision and their reactions waiting for the escort to arrive and judge him. They also spend time remembering good old days, full of sex, companionship etc. Each of the friend has his own story where one is just been proposed by his bf but fears monogamy; second one just wants to be famous and successful and the third one mocks love but secretly thinks otherwise. The series ends up with all of them getting drunk and Juan and a friend ending up having sex. They all ultimately decide that the four of them should go as a family and forget this whole boyfriend business.
Whats not very clear at the end os whether the sex between the two guys is purely physical or there is more cooking between the two. It seems it was purely physical and they both had been wanting to do it for a while but couldn’t risk hurting friendship. There are good funny moments and each character gets ample opportunity to throw some witty one-liners; especially when they compare how things used to happen in “good old days” vs with current generation. Although a lot of times I felt that the acting was a little over the top and the jokes forced; I have a feeling this could be a successful theatre act. But the truth is that making this as a web-series definitely increases its reach to the target viewers. All the four guys look good and make for a nice eye-tonic.
This could have been better, but at least its a platform that is slowly allowing me to get back in the groove. (5/10)
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