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...
This is an English-language German documentary film about the social and cultural movement known as Queercore. Queercore was a cultural and social movement that began as an offshoot of punk and was distinguished by its discontent with society's disapproval of the gay, bisexual, lesbian and transgender communities.
The documentary starts with tracing the roots of Queercore in Toronto where queer revolutionaries were rebelling against macho punks in a bourgeois gay scene. Using multiple overlapping interviews, the film maker details the movement, the overlapping philosophies with punk, and the nuances of what the scene offered to the queer identity, which was ultimately about the shared goals of fighting the dominant ideology and its structures. In the second half, it shows the growth of the queercore music scene and bands including Tribe 8 and Pansy Division that came up alongside acts that went mainstream.
At some point, it started to feel repetitive because every interviewee had pretty much the same thing to say, but to a novice like me, the documentary still gave me an insight into Queercore (something I had never heard of before) and queer punk, which I had heard of, but had no knowledge or interest before and nether do I think I will. I believe many people were disappointed with no representation of People of color in this doc, especially since they are the ones who are taking Queercore forward, but as I mentioned I would not have any insight into this. Personally, I don't identify with punk scene or music at all. So I had no specific interest as such in watching this documentary. Having said that, the film is an important document capturing the influence of queercore, an underground movement that enjoys life on the fringes, where identifying as an anti-establishment is just as important as sexuality. (3/10)

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