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...
Starting on a Tuesday night, we meet Noah, an introverted young engineer who needs to take pills due to a traumatic experience and has visions of a child. Next to him in Lohan, a tattoo artist and an asthmatic who likes to smoke and they both are apparently on a road trip with their best straight friend couple. A bond grows between the two men during the trip, they have fun visiting a church where Noah sits and Lohan confesses his impure thoughts, there is a first kiss after a Karaoke night, and there are arguments while bowling. As days go by they get to know each other while moving from one place to another, providing reflections on their lives and inner feelings. Lohan realizes and says Noah has entered his head like a tumor that doesn´t want to get out. We see how they had met a day before the film started. And it ends with a gay basher bashing the two in which Lohan has some sort of accident. The film has a bt of weird ending, which takes into account a comment that Noah had made earlier as to he is working on a chip that can save only nice memories for you.
What seems like an oddball gay romance turns into a weird, surreal fantasy film defying all and any expectations. It's imaginative and fired up and the two boys are extremely hot and share a very good chemistry. But this ending can be very controversial in the sense that people will either love it or hate it. I felt that it was rather under developed. The makers could have expanded more on the end if they were anyways trying to make a full length feature. These kind of shockers and abrupt ends work nicely in a short film format. Here it felt that something was missing. There are real and dreamy sequences, movie provides little information about the couple that also share the road and the cultural and social environment. This film is hard to classify as gay romance, sci-fi or just plain drama. The back stories of both characters are missing so the audience can only take them at face value. There are certainly interesting moments along the way but by the time the film ends, you wonder what really happened. It was likely an interesting idea on paper but an opportunity lost. A deliberately vague and almost dream-like watch, the film feels more like a concept than a fully-fledged story. (4/10)
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