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...
Akin to the very famous Mathew Shepard story, I wasn't much aware of the gruesome hate murder of Gordon Church in Utah. A gay man, who was brutally murdered at the age of 28, this documentary tries to shed light on what really happened. The two main accused were Archuleta and Lance Wood. Interestingly when the body of Church was found, it was Lance, who went to cops and volunteered all the information to tell the cops on how Archuleta met Church, took him in car, armed him and eventually murdered him while all along he was an innocent bystander. As expected the cops had to listen to both sides of the story and Archuleta said that Wood was equally guilty. We do not get to see the proceeding details, but what we do see that Archuleta gets death sentence (which still never happened) while Lance Woods get life imprisonment (a slight hint to wards his white male supremacy). We meet a guy named Anderson, who at one point started researching about hate crimes in Utah, how many of unsolved murder cases there were out there and Gordon's story stood out for him with the brutality of the crime and the fact that justice had been administered in his case. It was him who took the story to producers to make a documentary out of this.
The film’s detail of the crime itself is voluminous. We get see details of the point from where Gordon, a native of Delta, Utah, stopped at a 7-11 store to purchase cigarettes to when he was abducted by Archuleta and Wood and to the brutal torture, sexual assault and murder he suffered in a remote spot in Millard county and finally, where his body was dumped in Dog Valley. Through series of interviews with Gordon's friends and ex-boyfriend; we establish what kind of person Gordon Church was, an out a proud gay man who loved his life. The police and investigators who appear on camera during the film were deeply affected by the utterly heinous nature of Church’s murder. Archuleta doesn't do any interviews, but we do get to hear a lot of his family's viewpoints. In a surprising move, Lance Wood, is more than happy to share his side of story doing his time in minimum security prison. He shows very little remorse. It is fascinating that, both the convicts took different justice paths. One is on death row and the other is a womanizing prisoner living in minimum security. The film doesn't try to sensationalize anything and neither is it trying to take sides. He takes the story all the way too much late when hate crime legislation is passed in Utah. Personally, the documentary was an insight on what happened but how and why is still unclear. If the documentary was a bit shorter it would have worked better cos it felt being overstretched at multiple points. Yes, it is surprising that this story was never as known to the world as that of Shephard, and this documentary helps to take away some of that. But as a film, too much of it is shown too soon, which eventually makes the audience feel that now the stuff is being stretched and repeated. Nevertheless, a moving documentary. (5.5/10)
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