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...
Biyahe - A taxi driver who has just been dumped by his girlfriend, picks up a fare from a student, who is in tears because a female student that he is keen on has gone off with another man. The driver consoling the passenger morphs into the two of them having sex in the cab.
Linya - A young man working from watching straight porn cannot get a modem dial on phone. Two handsome linen appear to repair the phone, get turned on by the phone and a threesome follows.
Laro - A gay player watches scratch game in a local park, then sneaks into the locker room to watch four players take shower and jerk off. After they leave, the gay player sticks up a photo of a man on the wall and, as he is jerking off to it, one of the earlier group returns and they have sex together.
Bilis - A pizza delivery boy is rushing for onetime delivery since his bike gets a flatter runs up to deliver pizza to a bored yuppie who is working overtime in his office. They get instantly attracted upon seeing each other have sex on the boardroom table and the pizza guy leaves with his money and a tip.
Bantay - A horny security guard in the graveyard shift watches two boyfriends having fight about monogamy and jealousy. When one f them storms off leaving the other crying, The security guard consoles him leading to them having sex before the lover comes back and makes up.
In almost all of the stories, the leading guy who is fantasizing happens to be a heterosexual man and the other person in some sort of uniform. Not sure of the idea is to focus on the hidden homosexuality of these men or just sex, the film doesn't really delve deeper into the stories. We are introduced to characters but clearly the focus here is more eon the sexual fantasy scenes. And you know, I should have known better, with a title like this, I shouldn't complain. The film has a lot of guerrilla filming of street scenes in Manila and class and religious issues and the resulting pervasiveness of the closet feature in all of the vignettes. The sexual scenes are actually pretty hot and can turn you on, but lets try to talk about some other aspects. The lighting in almost all scenes is very poor and hard to see what's going on, but I wonder if its a homage to those VHS days. All the narrators seem to be sad and miserable, albeit somewhat uplifted as a result of their daydreaming but still not interesting enough to actually care. (3.5/10)
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