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Journey With You (Chinese Series)

By Golu
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...
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Speechless (Mandarin)

By Golu
The story of this film is interesting yet dumb at the same time. The characters seemed a bit unbelievable and awkward. The story is told via some flashback sequences , which just add a bit to the confusion. Thankfully the movie is not too long and ends after a decent time.

A foreigner is found naked by the police by the side of river. Unable to extract any information out of him, he is sent to the hospital. The male nurse, Jiang, forms a bond with this foreigner (Luke). When hospital decides to send this guy to mental asylum since he refuses to speak anything, Jiang decides to take matters in his own hands and smuggles him to his uncle’s village. When the foreigner one night calls a random number on Jiang phone, he tracks the number and meets a girl Ning, who is not helpful at all. But later Jiang finds out the real truth. It turns out that Luke had met Ning and her boyfriend Han at the college campus and they strike a friendship. Unaware to Ning, Han and Luke start an affair. When she finds out about this, she publicly outs Han, which leaves him mentally in a very bad condition and he tries to commit suicide and is hospitalized in coma. and This is the reason Luke has lost his speech. The final fate of the characters was somewhat confusing to me at least.

The story is novel but not completely thought through. Also thankfully this film shows the rural side of China/HongKong that I have not seen before. This was quite refreshing for me. Sadly the film execution felt a bit underwhelming. The whole reason for losing the speech and all was ok, but at least Luke could have written down things and explained himself. Rather than making the people driving him to mental asylum. We learn via flashback as to why Luke lost his speech but the problem with this is that the flashback is long enough that it changes the flow of the movie, and the transition back to the current story feels awkward. Was Jiang also physically attracted to Luke or not is still a  question that wasn’t answered. Interestingly the movie was apparently shot in secret because of the  stigma associated with homosexuality in the region. The acting by the characters was all good.

It may seem that I did not like the film, but it was strictly average. There are many better films out there. (5/10)

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