Is this technically a gay show? Even after getting through the whole thing, that's still kind of tricky to answer. There's never any physical intimacy shown between the two leads, not even a single kiss. What it gives you instead is something that goes way deeper than that. It traces an emotional bond that spans a full decade between two guys who are both dealing with their own baggage, and what they share basically amounts to being soulmates. The story moves across Japan, South Korea, and Berlin. Honestly, whether people want to call what they have a romantic relationship or not doesn't really matter to me. A relationship doesn't need a label like boyfriends attached to it to actually mean something. And closeness doesn't need to be physical to feel genuine. What this show captures is something quieter but way more powerful, a bond rooted in understanding, respect, and just showing up for each other. Across eight episodes, each running 35 to 45 minutes, this is one...
Frank is a 15 year old boy squatting in an abandoned building. He is addicted to drugs, supplied to him by his best friend David who deals. To meet his drug requirement Frank has sex with other men in alleyways and toilets. The money is barely enough for food forget drugs. Despite David trying to make sense to Frank to stop doing those, he doesn't get it. David also doesn't like all the gay stuff Frank does and tries to set him up with a female friend of his. One day on the street Frank meets the older man Sebastian and memories come back to him. When Frank was 9 years old, this older man took him home with him in lure of money and food and took lot of naked pics. He now wants to rekindle that but Frank is disgusted by the thought. It turns out that it was the incident with this older man that lead to Frank's spiraling low life. Frank now likes a neighborhood girl but needs money to woo her. In desperation he goes back to old man to make more money where he gets exploited again, but this time he ends up killing the old man. He comes back to this girl he likes and gives her drugs too to have sex, but she ends up dying. Now he and David need to take care of these two dead bodies and dump them.
The biggest problem of the film is that it lacks a coherent screenplay. It feels like the director had some plot outlines but his team failed to create that into anything meaningful. We do get an insight of the pathos of what some of these street kids might have to go through just to get by their day to day lives, and you can empathize with it, but somehow the film gets lost, which is very clear with its shoddy and weird climax. Two street boys who barely have money for food are supposed to bring in 1600 USD to dispose off two bodies. Wtf! Frank's sexuality is also not clear here. He does have sex with men for money but also pines for the neighborhood girl, but anytime he tries to get close to a girl, images of the old guy haunt him and has fucked up his mind to a large extent. Shot in black and white with pretty much a movie cast, the actors do a decent job but the film meanders away at lot o points. David and Frank just sitting and chit chatting yapping away is no fun to watch. I understand Frank was molested as a 9 year old but a little more back story on how he ended up there, who is David, why are they friends etc, would have added a lot of gravitas. As the film stands, it is a testament to pre-film-school level direction, acting and script-writing. (3/10)
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