BLISS RATING: ★★★★★
“Act as if what you do makes a difference. It does.” – William James
This BL series is a treasure to watch and an absolute masterpiece. It is simply breathtaking. It covers every conceivable emotion that humans have. From happiness to profound sadness to the joy of new love to the mundaneness of living together. It does so in such a relatable and understandable fashion that no matter what culture you are from or what language you speak, its messages are universal. It is a series with seven snippets of slices of life in gay settings. I will NOT summarize anything about each of these stories because you need to experience them yourselves. Each tells a full and complete story. Some will make you laugh and at least one will make you cry with profound and utter grief. I quite literally had to stop and compose myself because I was so incredibly affected. Others will make you cry with joy and a feeling that no matter what, life is beautiful. We just need to see it again that way.
What is so pleasing about this series is the way they portrayed gay life and gay living. It is ‘normal’ in every sense of the word. And this series takes it to a whole new level of acceptance. There are no great pearls of wisdom in the dialogues here, but the messages of each are conveyed to the audience with utter sincerity and depth and relatability that no matter who you are you will understand its message. It is storytelling the old fashion way — through great acting of true stories about life.
The themes for each are simple but yet are told with such sensitivity and compassion that you almost think it is a documentary. The theme for each is simple:
1. Story 1: Acceptance
2. Story 2: Secret Love
3. Story 3: Mistaken
4. Story 4: The End
5. Story 5: Choosing Career
6. Story 6: Blossoming Love
7. Story 7: Mundane Life
The major actors, without a doubt, put everything they had into their roles. Each story had different actors with different characters to display and to convince us that they are who they are in a short period of time. Without exception, they did that. The acting is, for lack of a better term, superb. Never overacted but managed to show us personality traits and subtleties in characters that usually take a long time to develop. In other words, we understood these individuals. There were no ambiguities in who they were. They were not caricatures but real people.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. the series? There are seven distinct stories with many different characters, but I can categorially tell you that there was not a bad performance with any of them. It would be virtually impossible to single out just one since they are such independent stories. All are phenomenal.
Each of these stories represented a different stage and development in gay relationships. Some were just starting out while others were in it for a while. The actors themselves are so beautifully relatable to who we all are. They are the most representative of what guys look like in everyday settings. It was astonishing to me that their stories of everyday living ended up being meaningful and precious. We all go through life experiencing it in everyday terms without us really noticing its beauty.
This series allows us to sit back and watch the beauty of a relationship grow, survive, accept, and ultimately end. It elevated gay living to simply but elegantly — living — with all its twists and turns and stumbles and falls.
This is a masterpiece of cinematic genius, brilliant writing, and profound acting. I BELIEVED each one of these scenarios. Pay particular attention to the last story and how it brilliantly connects itself to the previous stories. It is nothing short of genius. I simply cannot say enough good things about this series overall. While most of it will make you feel good, there are a few, and one, that will make you cry and leave you with a hole in your heart the size of the universe.
These snippets of everyday (gay) life are so true to reality and so profoundly well done that this has to be labeled a masterpiece. I was deeply moved by all of them. Suspend yourself and allow your thoughts to just get into the stories. I just wish they had English translations of the interviews of the actors during the credits. I really, really wanted to hear what they had to say.
Please watch this gem. It is nothing short of perfection. This is a series that must be felt as well as seen. It really is in a special and unique category.
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