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Journey With You (Chinese Series)

By Golu
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...
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Boys In Love (Thai Series)

By Golu
We have a yet another high school teenage romance BL. You will not find anything much different here than what we have already seen numerous times, but the good and refreshing part about this is that there I son forced drama. This is more like a feel good romantic teen story focusing on various couple and depending on their individual situation how they fall in love, manage love and their insecurities. The first half of the show follow on these and in last 2-3 episodes the focus shifts on future universities, what happens to love and friends and life in general. The series is 12 episodes of about 45 minutes each roughly.

Since we have multiple couples here. That is how I am going to review. First we have Shane and Kit. Shane is a hardworking student looking for scholarship for further studies. His teacher makes him tutor a student Kit who has been failing in Maths and that he can make some good money. Their initial few sessions are nothing but chaos since Shane is full of fears and insecurities while Kit lives each day as it goes by. Eventually they do fall in love and it just happens organically. We see some family conflict from Shane's parents, but nothing critical. The big conflict comes towards the end when it time to decide on future course. Shane doesn't get scholarship which affects his self-capability, but thanks to teachers support he survives. Meanwhile when Kit gets into a nice university abroad, Shane doesn't want to be the one to hold him back. Thanks to a very supportive family of Kit, the duo are able to survive this. Every time, Shane acts out of character, Kit stands beside him & supports him unconditionally. This relation works primarily because Kit ends up being the more mature one.

Next we have Kim and Mon. Shane's friend Kim immediately falls head over heels in love with the new student Mon. HE is a romantic at heart and the cute Mon takes away his breath. He pursues him, and very quickly the two are madly involve and do not hesitate in indulging in PDA. They both are very much in love and even if they have any indifference, they talk it out and it gets resolved. Their romance is also comically sweet for most of the series, and their chemistry has an endearing energy. Their conflict comes mostly from Mon's mother who has a high position in the school administration and her very overprotective nature which stiffles Mon. But with his maturity (despite coming off as a cute romantic boy), he is able to win heart of Mon and his mother. This couple was sooooo cute and so much in love and share an amazing chemistry.

Then we have two sub plots of two other couples. One is about two other friends from this group, who keep swinging between are they friends or are they lovers or are they confused. One of them is more obvious in his affection while the other constantly tries to avoid it. This couple felt was not necessary at all. And the final one is between the nerdy math teacher who gave Shane the tutoring opportunity and the new teacher of the school. Their's is a more mature love story, which is decent and nice and was given just enough time to not make it center stage. Their bond felt very sweet and you could see they respected each other a lot.

What really stood out to me is how all the couples handled communication. Misunderstandings happen, but here they were not milked for the drama and dragged on forever. They actually talked, listened and sorted it out with no unnecessary angst, no soap opera twists, but just a bunch of teenagers who accepted and acknowledged their flaws and moved on happily. Each individual in these stories had their own insecurity which comes to forefront in the last 3 episodes. I think the series did a good job of expressing that. It might not be the most mature way to handle things when I view it through an adult lens, but as teenagers, their small disagreements and emotional responses made sense. It was like a sweet blueprint of teens navigating their life with love, dreams and changes around. They are confused, their decisions might be influenced by hormones or emotions; but everyone learns from their mistakes and grows mature. Everything turns into an experience of a lifetime.While the script is nothing out of the ordinary and it does feel like it plays a little safe but the charm here is that it never loses its tone or tries to be something it's not. (6.5/10)
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