|
I don't remember how but I stumbled across
this blog
and realized I've never seen a Thai BL before. I picked a highly
rated one - Love In The Air - and enjoyed it enough to
want to see more. I've added like 40 new show titles that are
all Thai BL's to my media wishlist... I'll watch them all...
maybe, hopefully, potentially, theoretically. I was
hooked after watching Kinnporsche which is just a phenomenal
show. I think categorizing it as a BL is masking how good the
story is on its own. The BL label is probably there due to
marketing & political reasons but I would have watched this even
without the label. It reminds me of Interview With The Vampire
in the best of ways. The action is great, the world building is
solid, the story is intriguing, the cast portrayed the
characters well, and the mafia politics is fun to explore,
especially the way the characters are affected by existing
within a constantly violent environment. The violence is taken
seriously which is a nice change from some other BLs I've seen
that address violence or harm "lightly". Like the harm is easily
resolved or minimized or never addressed really... It ruins some
of the validity of the world building for me, especially if the
tone of the story is suggesting that the violence is supposed to
be serious. I find it hard to immerse myself in stories that
portray violence from a binary perspective - right or wrong/good
or bad... especially when the environment these characters are
stuck in is inherently violent (mafia, gangs, revolts,
military, etc.) There's no space for characters in those worlds
to exist in any moral gray area because the violence they engage
in must be justified morally, which means that the
character engaging in the violence must be either morally
righteous or morally bankrupt, which reduces the character down
to the role that they're playing... the personas they're
performing. Within that framework it's like that character isn't
actually experiencing their life, just performing it and the
narrative is reinforcing that their performance is genuine. That
what we the audience are seeing is the "real them" and
how violence "really happens" - both existing on one end
of the moral scale despite the world within the story being
unpredictable and harmful. So really I just prefer realistic
depictions of violence especially in relation to romance & love,
which is why I think Kinnporsche is great.
|
thai bl's, my love! |
|
I'm not watching as fervently as I was a few weeks ago, mostly
due to trying to engage with life & all it's responsibilities
again. So far I've watched
Kinnporsche
, The Next Prince, ABO Desire,
Pit Babe S1&2,
Reset the Series
, and Jack & Joker. I only finished Pit Babe & Reset the
Series... the other shows just didn't grab me, especially ABO
Desire. I understand why it's such an important show - it's a
Chinese BL show that shows men being physically intimate which
each other and it's airing domestically & internationally. Given
China's history of harshly censoring queer media and even going
as far as punishing the actors involved in those shows, this is
a historical moment for queer Chinese media. I think Heaven's
Official Blessing & Mo Dao Zu Shi really paved the way for this
show to be so successful. I just didn't like the story. Same
with Jack & Joker, the story didn't grab me & I couldn't believe
in the intense moments which SUCKS because I liked Jack &
Joker's dynamic but I'm at the point where I'm only giving a
show 2 episodes to keep me interested bc I got too much I wanna
watch and I'm NOT willing to reduce my media wishlist.
Overall my Thai BL experience is going great! I'm going to add
some reviews for Shine & See Your Love soon!
|
other shows
|