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...
A beautiful young male escort, Paul, suffers from trip-like dreams he doesn't understand. These visions are shared by his clients, both scaring and exciting them. Paul is searching for his twin brother, whom he hasn't seen since childhood. At the same time, Paul meets Baxter, a producer of gay pornographic films who yearns to be able to make something artistic. Baxter is taken by Paul’s beauty and wants to make him the focus of his new film. As Paul thinks about Baxter’s offer, his pursuit of the visions becomes more dangerous.
Seeing Heaven seems populated entirely by pretty young guys who are frequently required to parade around with bared chests and/or no clothing. The main problem with this film is that it is slow and things seem to take forever to happen. Far too much of the film is taken up with scenes of people wandering around in their underwear and the hero’s continual indecisiveness over whether he is going to appear in the said artistically meaningful porn film. As we goes through these endless scenes, we just wish that the plot would get on with it and go where it is going to go. It fails to engage as a plot. There seems nothing at stake, no sense of any urgency that the hero has, as he tries to save his twin’s life. By the time the film reaches its end and we get to the big surprise revelation that there is no twin, that Saul only exists inside Paul’s head – a twist that has been borrowed from countless other films. This film shows why being artsy just for the sake of it is not good, especially at the expense of plot clarity and good dialog. The acting is basic and direction horrible. Half of the time I had to struggle to understand what the character is trying to say because they are too busy trying to be poetic when a simple line would have done the job of describing what he tries to say. (2/10)
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