Dark Blue and Moonlight
Taiwanese BL series Dark Blue and Moonlight is something of a mixed bag and a struggle to like at times. But it's at least more human than so many other dramas I've watched lately - it's both ugly and beautiful, dull and fascinating, camp and restrained.
Summary: Aspiring artist Hai Qing notices a beautiful man Yan Fei at his local swimming pool and surreptitiously takes a few photos with his phone. However Yan Fei spots him, corners him in the locker room and the two share a long kiss, the sort of kiss that changes your life. The passion and deep connection between the two men is immediate and profound. It's love at first sight. Yan Fei gives Hai Qing his phone number, but Hai Qing almost immediately loses it through no fault of his own. Will these two men, whose destinies are now so closely bound together, ever meet again? They pine for each other and never forget their bond, but move on with their lives, believing they will never see each other again. Hai Qing meets model Pin Jun and the two start their own loving and caring relationship. Yan Fei's long term relationship with beautiful party boy Jimmy is on the rocks and seems destined to fail, as both men are unhappy for different reasons. When the number of coincidences of interconnection mount up - Pin Jun's sister works at Yan Fei's company, for example - it's soon inevitable that Hai Qing and Yan Fei will find each other. And everyone's lives will never be the same again.
This show starts off as pure soap. It's full of excessive emotional pressure points and clichés that aim for the profound but come off as superficial. It's unfortunate then that the lack of a credible foundation for the central relationship makes it the dullest element of the series. The main reason for this is that the boys meet once and then disappear from each other's lives, seemingly forever (or, in reality, for half the series). There's nothing to hold onto except the writers' weak insinuation that they are, in the grand soapie tradition, "destined for each other". There's far less interest and verisimilitude to be found in the Yan Fei / Hai Qing stroke-of-fate dynamic than in their respective relationships with Jimmy and Pin Jun.
On a more positive note, the first half of the series generates considerable tension by creating stroke-of-fate coincidences that only the audience can see. The boys are only three or four degrees away from meeting each other again by complete accident. Hai Qing's grandfather meets and chats with Yan Fei at a dumpling shop. Yan Fei spots Hai Qing on his bicycle while driving and almost crashes his car in an attempt to catch him. Jimmy meets a drunk Hai Qing at a bar and makes a pass at him. The screenwriters obviously had a lot of fun inventing these sorts of close calls, and it pays dividends by keeping the first half of the narrative gripping. Slowly these degrees of separation are whittled away until there's a deep dread when the inevitable at last presents itself. When it arrives, however, it's short, sharp and oddly anti-climactic. I almost wish that they'd taken it back and instead drawn out the karmic inevitability even further. In any case, it launches us into the high-stakes final stages of an overwhelmingly passionate drama, with infidelity, desperation, confusion, guilt and indecision coming to the forefront.
This all makes the show sound like fairly typical BL, but it's actually not. The characters are all certain of their sexuality, and only Hai Qing is a teenager, being 18 years old at the beginning of the drama. There's a dark tint of adult world-weariness and cynicism to the characters' interactions and passions. Pin Jun is the only character who manages to rise above the grim reality of what being a mature gay man entails. (Wow, I just realised how cynical that last sentence sounds.) He is just about the perfect boyfriend that anyone could possibly ask for. Everyone else comes off as manipulative, selfish, cruel and shallow. Jimmy in particular comes in for some very severe judgement at the hands of the writers. Apart from some sweet dating scenes early on with Pin Jun and Hai Qing, there's little romance to be found in Dark Blue and Moonlight. It distinctly hard to find anything that redeems these characters, they're not sympathetic at all. The only commonality they share, buried underneath their human frailty, is their desire for love. And that's no small thing. Perhaps that's redemptive enough. (The four main actors are all certainly beautiful enough, blindingly so.)
Ultimately, it's Pin Jun who unites the most likeable qualities of this series and then transcends them. His character's empathy, love and understanding are almost mythically virtuous; everyone else's far more challenging and realistic characters take a step back in awe. He gives the show the ending it doesn't deserve - something so tender and genuinely moving, the rest of the thin series we've just watched fades into nothingness behind him. The paradox of his character - and a good indicator of how intermittently disappointing and great this series can be - is that he's the most BL character in the whole show.
Rating: 13 out of 20.
Ending: Sad and happy. When there's a four-sided love tryst, you know someone's going to end up hurt.
Best scene: the extremely tense few moments before Yan Fei and Hai Qing meet each other again.
Summary: Aspiring artist Hai Qing notices a beautiful man Yan Fei at his local swimming pool and surreptitiously takes a few photos with his phone. However Yan Fei spots him, corners him in the locker room and the two share a long kiss, the sort of kiss that changes your life. The passion and deep connection between the two men is immediate and profound. It's love at first sight. Yan Fei gives Hai Qing his phone number, but Hai Qing almost immediately loses it through no fault of his own. Will these two men, whose destinies are now so closely bound together, ever meet again? They pine for each other and never forget their bond, but move on with their lives, believing they will never see each other again. Hai Qing meets model Pin Jun and the two start their own loving and caring relationship. Yan Fei's long term relationship with beautiful party boy Jimmy is on the rocks and seems destined to fail, as both men are unhappy for different reasons. When the number of coincidences of interconnection mount up - Pin Jun's sister works at Yan Fei's company, for example - it's soon inevitable that Hai Qing and Yan Fei will find each other. And everyone's lives will never be the same again.
This show starts off as pure soap. It's full of excessive emotional pressure points and clichés that aim for the profound but come off as superficial. It's unfortunate then that the lack of a credible foundation for the central relationship makes it the dullest element of the series. The main reason for this is that the boys meet once and then disappear from each other's lives, seemingly forever (or, in reality, for half the series). There's nothing to hold onto except the writers' weak insinuation that they are, in the grand soapie tradition, "destined for each other". There's far less interest and verisimilitude to be found in the Yan Fei / Hai Qing stroke-of-fate dynamic than in their respective relationships with Jimmy and Pin Jun.
On a more positive note, the first half of the series generates considerable tension by creating stroke-of-fate coincidences that only the audience can see. The boys are only three or four degrees away from meeting each other again by complete accident. Hai Qing's grandfather meets and chats with Yan Fei at a dumpling shop. Yan Fei spots Hai Qing on his bicycle while driving and almost crashes his car in an attempt to catch him. Jimmy meets a drunk Hai Qing at a bar and makes a pass at him. The screenwriters obviously had a lot of fun inventing these sorts of close calls, and it pays dividends by keeping the first half of the narrative gripping. Slowly these degrees of separation are whittled away until there's a deep dread when the inevitable at last presents itself. When it arrives, however, it's short, sharp and oddly anti-climactic. I almost wish that they'd taken it back and instead drawn out the karmic inevitability even further. In any case, it launches us into the high-stakes final stages of an overwhelmingly passionate drama, with infidelity, desperation, confusion, guilt and indecision coming to the forefront.
This all makes the show sound like fairly typical BL, but it's actually not. The characters are all certain of their sexuality, and only Hai Qing is a teenager, being 18 years old at the beginning of the drama. There's a dark tint of adult world-weariness and cynicism to the characters' interactions and passions. Pin Jun is the only character who manages to rise above the grim reality of what being a mature gay man entails. (Wow, I just realised how cynical that last sentence sounds.) He is just about the perfect boyfriend that anyone could possibly ask for. Everyone else comes off as manipulative, selfish, cruel and shallow. Jimmy in particular comes in for some very severe judgement at the hands of the writers. Apart from some sweet dating scenes early on with Pin Jun and Hai Qing, there's little romance to be found in Dark Blue and Moonlight. It distinctly hard to find anything that redeems these characters, they're not sympathetic at all. The only commonality they share, buried underneath their human frailty, is their desire for love. And that's no small thing. Perhaps that's redemptive enough. (The four main actors are all certainly beautiful enough, blindingly so.)
Ultimately, it's Pin Jun who unites the most likeable qualities of this series and then transcends them. His character's empathy, love and understanding are almost mythically virtuous; everyone else's far more challenging and realistic characters take a step back in awe. He gives the show the ending it doesn't deserve - something so tender and genuinely moving, the rest of the thin series we've just watched fades into nothingness behind him. The paradox of his character - and a good indicator of how intermittently disappointing and great this series can be - is that he's the most BL character in the whole show.
Rating: 13 out of 20.
Ending: Sad and happy. When there's a four-sided love tryst, you know someone's going to end up hurt.
Best scene: the extremely tense few moments before Yan Fei and Hai Qing meet each other again.
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