A World of Asian "Boys Love" Drama

Thai BL 2gether The Series (2TS) generated massive hype when it first began to air in early 2020. Everyone loved its fantastic early start, and word of mouth spread quickly across social media, pulling in big weekly audiences for creators at GMMTV. But as the series progressed, some viewers' opinions started to sour. Let's take a closer look and try to work out if it really is true love or nothing more than fake flirting. Warning : spoilers ahead, read with care if you haven't watched the whole series yet. Summary: Freshman law student Tine is a free-and-easy ladies man, and, together with his three best friends, he lives a fun, carefree life at university. He's fallen into a dating slump though, and he can't find a decent connection with any of the women he meets. When an effeminate gay man Green loudly confesses his love for him and starts stalking him, horrified Tine tries to find ploys to get rid of him (you'd think he'd just say he's not gay and...

2019 Thai BL series Until We Meet Again (UWMA) aims at presenting a story at the more dramatic and romantic end of the BL spectrum, without straying far from the formula. You'll run the usual gamut of tentative first steps, painful uncertainties and long loving stares, but prepare yourselves for such intense longing that it can even overcome death. There's comedy here too, but, much like that other recent Thai BL success story He's Coming to Me, the true unifying emotional force and strength behind UWMA lies in its supernatural theme. SPOILERS WARNING: I go into a fair amount of detail about the evolution of some of this series' characters in this review, so this is a heads-up for some substantial spoilers. Summary: In the late 1980s, two young gay lovers at university Inn (also called Intouch) and Korn try to overcome obstacles that are preventing their relationship, especially their families. When their angry fathers make a final attempt to separate them for good,...

2019 Thai BL sequel series Dark Blue Kiss (DBK) gets its greatest gift and strength from the charisma of its two lead actors Newwie and Tay, reprising their Kiss The Series and Kiss Me Again roles of sensitive intelligent Kao and hot-tempered tough guy Pete respectively. These two very likeable and popular actors have amazing chemistry, and with this series they've reimagined one of the least sympathetic couples in Thai BL as one of its greatest. But the real surprise here is how unexpectedly great the new series is too. The screenplay is just so good. Summary: At the start of this sequel, set three years later, Pete and Kao's loving and trusting relationship is now well-established, though they remain closeted and discreet in front of most of their friends and family. Perhaps surprisingly, it's Pete who wants to take the next step and come out, whereas it's Kao who resists firmly and won't be pressured. Perhaps this is partly because Pete is already out to his fa...

The latest instalment for HIStory season 3, called Make Our Days Count (MODC), is a marked improvement on Trapped, though still not up to the high standard of other sub-series in season two. It's a high-school BL drama, with a distinct preference for keeping it young and light-hearted but with just enough seriousness to give it some sense and purpose. Summary: Top student Yu Shigu has had a difficult life. After his parents died in a car accident when he was younger, his aunt had taken him but she has been struggling financially ever since. With the idea of making his relatives' lives as easy as possible, Yu Shigu studies extremely hard at school and works part time, hoping for a scholarship to university. When we meet him just before exams, his health is deteriorating rapidly because he has been pushing himself too hard. He keeps himself almost completely separate from all the other pupils, which makes him appear haughty and unapproachable. When rebellious layabout Xiang Hao...

It's interesting to note that the highly original Taiwanese BL melodrama The Ambiguous Focus is in fact a sequel to Kinematics Theory. Can this predecessor be even more fascinating than the sequel? Summary: Childhood friends Zhang Zhe and Zhang Nan study mathematics at the same university but they are completely alienated from each other and fight constantly. On the surface, Nan is an arrogant bully, content to rely on his good looks, amazing physique (and goddamn, yes, it is indeed amazing) and his swimming prowess to get by in life. Zhe is a bookish nerd and top student but he's too introverted to make friends. But these boys are longtime friends and understand each other much better than their personalities suggest. Zhe sees Nan's morality and desire for independence under the cocky bluster, and Nan knows he can rely on Zhe's support and loyalty through any difficulty. They soon come to a truce and agree to help each other out. Their mutual support and reliance hel...

Let's say this right up front. I ended up hating this program. 2019 Thai BL series The Effect is not going to please everyone. It's not your typical BL, to put it mildly. You can see what it was trying to do, especially in its really fine first episode, but the end result is a complete failure. Some might appreciate it, some might even admire it, but for me, this is a BL program that's so wrong-minded, it's utterly despicable. SPOILERS WARNING: I'm going to give away everything about the story in this series, mainly so that I can make a point, but also because I want to put off as many people from watching it as possible. I make no apologies for that. Summary: Shy new university student Shin meets the kind and popular senior Keng, and over the coming weeks, the two become close. Keng is the obvious instigator of the closeness, and it draws the attention of his jealous friend and admirer Maan. When Maan anonymously releases some compromising photos of Shin and Ke...

Get ready to take a step back into the fluffiest and sweetest of BL fantasy worlds, with 2019 Thai series Great Men Academy - where school lessons are a series of gaming adventures, wish-granting unicorns roam the forests, and manipulating your friends is never the best way to achieve success. Summary: High school girl Love is obsessed with dreamboat Vier from the local private boys school, Great Men Academy (GMA). Vier has won his school competition "The Greatest" two years in a row, and he's now aiming for his third and final win as a senior. Love stalks him online and has decorated her room wall to wall with images of handsome Vier. When Love is suspended from her own school for three months for fighting with a student about Vier, she tries to come up with a solution to meet him. Her strait-laced older brother Good, who attends GMA and is a dorm monitor, refuses to help her. One day, while hiking through the local forest between her house and the school, Love comes a...

I've stuck with my Taiwanese obsession by watching feature-length movie Artemisia . I went into this movie cold, not knowing anything about the storyline except that there was a gay-themed subplot. SPOILERS ALERT: I give away some of the ending in this review, beware. I've marked the section with spoilers so you can avoid them if you want to. Summary: A middle-aged widow leads a lonely life and struggles to fill in her days. Her two children are in their thirties; her closeted gay son looks after her, and her daughter studies in France. She also regularly looks in on her elderly mother, a malicious, cantankerous woman who is a chronic miser. She secretly longs for a large family, all living together, but is increasingly resigned to the fact that it probably won't happen. She finds it extremely difficult to understand her children and the way they live their lives. Knowing her temper and conservatism, her children generally give their mother plenty of distance from their...

After watching the wonderful Crossing the Line recently, I decided it was time to catch up on the rest of the various HIStory sub-series from both seasons 1 and 2. I'd originally started watching Right or Wrong a couple of weeks back, but I had struggled with its early episodes, so this was a good opportunity to revisit it and give it a second chance. Summary: Fei Sheng Zhe is a university student who also participates in the drama club with his friend Ruan. When a lost young girl Yo Yo interrupts their rehearsals, Zhe and Ruan take her back to her home, only to find that it's an unliveable mess. Yo Yo's divorced father Shi Yi Jie can barely keep up with the demands of being a single parent. Zhe and Ruan are shocked to discover that Yi Jie is also their university lecturer. He has a terrible reputation for being strict and intimidating, which proves to be an understatement when they finally meet him in class. Zhe agrees to work as a nanny and cook for the father and daug...

The premise of Chinese short BL series Uncontrolled Love  (also known as Irresistible Love) didn't appeal to me when I first read about it. But I thought I would give it a try anyway, seeing as it has generally good reviews. Summary: Orphan Shu Nian is adopted by a wealthy industrialist family, the Xie's, when the malicious capricious young son Xie Yan chooses him from the other orphanage children, mainly on the basis of his passivity and his ability to withstand Yan's cruelty. They become very close as they grow up, but Nian's relation with the Xie's has clear boundaries that never allow him to become a fully-fledged family member. Instead he becomes a servant in a toxic master/valet dynamic with Yan and his parents. After high school, Yan is sent to England for several years to study and learn the family business. When he returns to China in his mid-20s, the two young men live together again in the family home but still as servant and 'young master'. Yan...

It's time to take a deep breath and consider how to review what's the best - and my favourite - BL drama I've seen so far, the Thai short serial  Grey Rainbow . It's apparently hard for most reviewers to be objective about it, it provokes both intense love and deep abiding dislike. I'll do my best, but I doubt I'll be the one who manages to resist subjectivity. SPOILERS WARNING: This review goes into a lot of detail about the narrative of Grey Rainbow including some specific plot points and dialogue. It looks more closely at general themes, however there are some specific details about the epilogue. It does not give away important revelations about the climactic ending. Do not read this review if you don't want any clues at all about what the story entails. Summary: Roommates Porsche and Nuer have been attending university in Chiang Mai for four years, and are best friends. Porsche thinks he might be gay but is overcome by self-loathing and tries to rep...