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...
Kath is a lonely middle-aged woman living in suburbs with her ageing father DaDa. When she meets hanssome, young and very sexy Mr. Sloane sunbathing on a tombstone in the cemetery near her home, she invites him to become a lodger. When he accepts her offer and comes home, her father recognizes him as the man who killed their neighbor but is too afraid to speak anything. Eventually Kath seduces him. Meanwhile, her closeted, yet obvious gay brother visits him and also gets charmed by him. He makes Mr. Sloane his personal chauffeur (complete with a titillating tight leather uniform) of his pink convertible. Sloane takes delight in playing brother against sister and tormenting the elderly man. He gets Kath pregnant and a jealous Ed warns him to stay away from her. When Sloane murders DaDa to protect his secret, they blackmail him by threatening to report him to the police unless he agrees to participate in a ceremony where they both end up marrying Mr Sloane and now not only he is their sexual partner but their prisoner as well.
First of all, for a film being promoted as a dark black comedy, I did not laugh at even a single scene; and thats where I lost most of my interest in the film. Kath was funny as the sexually frustrated woman who seduces Mr Sloane. She delivers her cruelest lines with an underlying pathos. There is complete absence of any morality in any character but I think this is the way the script was designed. This may have been a good production way back in the day, but watching it in today’s day and age felt like work which I do not like. For me it was more like a campy film that you watch , if you are kind of person who was alive in 1968 and enjoying reminiscing old times. Otherwise, my recommendation would be to avoid the film. (2/10)
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Useless to say I understand now and thanks to Your comment the film. Was the time of Alec Guinness 's British " black comedies ", never appreciated : murder for me is still a crime.