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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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Love Is All You Need?

By Golu
I am sure the idea behind this film might have been novel and to educate people and be tolerant towards LGBTQI+ folks, but somehow I personally found the film distasteful and could just never wrap my head around it. To top it, since the film goes shifting around multiple scenes, at one point it was difficult to follow. Something that could have been shown in a crisp educating manner took almost 2 hours and by the end of it, even though the intention was otherwise, siding with heterosexual victims felt weirdly non ethical.

This film takes places in a society where being homosexual is a norm and heterosexuals are bullied and frowned up. They are called names like 'Ro' and gay and given a very hard time. The story is focussed on two (or three) protagonists. The star player of college football team Jude is in a happy relationship with her girlfriend, but when a male college mate who is a sports journalist comes into picture, she starts feeling something she has never before and soon finds herself in a heterosexual relationship. Then we have a young girl, who is bullied in the school for being weird and 'Ro' to the extent that she tries to take her own life. In all this, its the female church reverend , who continues to fill hatred in the community's heads that lord doesn't want a man and a woman to be together. When Jude's affair with a guy goes public there is a huge outcry and the guy's friends end up killing him on orders from the reverend. Hopefully life will be better for heteros.

The film tries to thrusts its audience into another thought of existence that does more than just acknowledge there is a serious social problem affecting the gay community and does more than just talk about the issue. But in my strong opinion, it fails miserably. It fails to address the real reasons behind bigotry, and instead presents homophobia as an either/or situation that can be easily flipflopped, when it can't. I mean it just takes issues faced by gay community and it reverses the scenario in the hope that it would educate straight people and be more empathetic, but I don't think this film manages to do any of it. We don't need a hate propaganda whether its for gays or straight. What we need is a more balanced world and art that shows it. I also felt the film was primarily from a women's perspective, which is understandable, but shortchanging the struggles of boys and men in the film was way too obvious. The acting by all was pretty decent given the material provided to them, but as I said before, this movie, IMO, doesn't achieve what it was hoping to. Sure, you can come and argue and try to justify to me the motives but if this was to help gay people like me and if I am not convinced it does that, then my voice should count. (3/10)
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