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 series TharnType The Series is a prequel to game-changer Love By Chance, so it has high expectations to live up to. It focuses on soccer team manager Type when he was a university freshman, and his gradual realisation that he's in love with a man. Played by Earth Pirapet, Type was my favourite character in Love By Chance; impatient, crass and blunt but also kind and generous, I loved him for his unconditional support of his friends and teammates, and for being a loving partner. It was a minor role with very little to do, so creating a prequel around him to develop his character better is already a winning decision. MINOR SPOILERS WARNING for the end of this review. Summary: University freshman Type is horrified when he hears a rumour that his new roommate Tharn is gay. An unrepentant homophobe, he wants Tharn out of the dorm room as soon as possible, so he sets about finding ways to torture Tharn with annoyances that range from pettiness to vandalism. Shaken by Typ...

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...

Openly gay Korean director Leesong Hee-il's revisits LGBT themes from his other movies, such as blog favourite No Regret, in his 2014 film Night Flight. His portrayal of gay experience from a uniquely Korean perspective and distinctive direction makes his work highly watchable. But his warping of his stories under the magnifying glass of the strictures of Korean society can make his fatalistic view of homophobia and anti-gay violence tough to stomach at times. Night Flight is monumentally grim, despite its deceptively pretty BL-style high school promotional poster, but it's no less riveting for that. Summary: Three friends since junior high are now in senior school, but they are steadily growing apart. Yong-Ju is secretly gay and tries to keep a low profile, hoping to cruise through school more or less unnoticed by the bullies and bad teachers, not liked but not disliked either. He's had a crush on strong, silent Gi-Woong ever since junior high, but they are now completel...

A new HIStory series is about the closest thing that BL fans have to mandatory viewing. Each sub-series has an original spin on the usual BL tropes, and they're generally well-made, well-written and have great casts. The latest instalment, 2019's Trapped, has all of this and more, on paper. So has its great promise and hype translated into another top-tier series? Summary: Policeman Shao Fei has been obsessed for years with finding definitive evidence that gangster Tang Yi was implicated in the murder of both Tang Yi's own gangster mentor and Shao Fei's colleague police officer. He tracks Tang Yi relentlessly, following him everywhere and accosting him in public. This gets him into trouble with his boss and Internal Affairs on numerous occasions. Tang Yi is trying to 'clean up' his gang by removing it from the drugs trade. This draws the attention of other local gangs who suspect his motives, and suddenly Tang Yi and his sister find themselves in danger. Shao ...

Thai BL series Love by Chance was hyped well before it was finally broadcast in late 2018. Controversially, this is allegedly due to a postponed release date enforced by the show's creators, whose new executive team has apparently purged all gay content from its productions. If this allegation is true, it's a devastating policy reversal from the creative team behind BL classics such as Love Sick and Make It Right. (Check out blogger Queer Fudanshi's take on the scandal here .) So it's very fortunate that Love by Chance was picked up instead by GMMTV and Line TV and released at all, because this series is BL gold. Summary: timid, naive university student Pete is from a wealthy family. He's secretly gay and has had terrible luck dating guys; most of them have used him solely for his money. One day at university, he is accidentally knocked over by handsome soccer jock Ae riding past on his bicycle. Kind-hearted, decent Ae takes Pete to get medical attention, and over...

I was drawn to watch new Thai series Kiss Me Again solely on the basis of the actor Newwiee, one of my BL favourites and a fun charismatic performer. He didn't disappoint, although that's about the limit of the interest to be found in this series. It's a prequel to 2016 drama Kiss The Series. Summary: A disparate group of five university students unite together as friends. Two of the boys in the group, bad boy Pete and intelligent sensitive Kao, don't tell the others that they know each other better than they are letting on. They hate each other, after a series of violent incidents that has set them at odds. One of these incidents ended up with them accidentally kissing. While it's clear that Kao wants to talk about his confused feelings for Pete after the kiss, Pete pushes him away angrily, leading to more violence. Their friends eventually realise that something is wrong between Pete and Kao, leading Pete to lash out at Kao even more violently and destroy the gr...