BLISS RATING: ★★★★
“A friend may be waiting behind behind a stranger’s face.” – Bookroo
This is obviously a low-budget production that looks like it was sort of thrown together. The production frankly is just awful, and editing made it hard to follow the story. They certainly packed a lot in this short series that almost all other BL series would not even touch. Rather than write about the series, let me just list some of the topics that are addressed in this obvious labor of love.
These are a few of the issues this series tackles that you will not find in other BL series:
1. Parents are deceased with the older brother having to take care of the younger brother with no other help. In other words, they are poor. Very poor.
2. Significant bullying from neighbors because you are gay and/or a weakling.
3. Trans individual having a major rolein a series and not just for comic relief and with a certain amount of acceptability.
4. Bullying/taunting/teasing them because they are dressed and act like females.
5. A parent physically/psychologically and emotionally abusing his son for being trans. Very painful to watch.
6. A trans person raising a child on his own and being the surrogate parent.
7. Quite literally, child prostitution.
8. Drag contest with overtones of jealousy among the contestants.
9. A boss who bullies and belittles his help because he can.
10. A one-night stand based on pure lust and circumstances that is hauntingly so real and authentic.
11. Attempted suicide and all the pain that goes with that.
12. Feigning friendship to learn secrets about your employer so you can steal money from them.
This story is NOT situated in a sterile affluent area. It is in a humbler area involving individuals who are real, genuine, poor, and barely making it. The story revolves around Nico (Xerxes Damuggo) who is simply drop-dead gorgeous with a mesmerizing face. There is an innocence about him that you can sense and feel. He exudes trust. While often naïve, he is laser focused on one thing – to help reunite with his younger brother whom he had to leave behind.
Along the way, he meets his savior (literally) named, Prince (LJ Russell) who is also drop-dead gorgeous. He is a complex individual and very, very lonely, having to spend his entire life with no family except for his ‘surrogate’ mother, who is a trans individual.
Nico and Prince develop first a friendship and then it begins to turn into affection for each other. It is a simple basic love story compounded by the fact that Nico’s boss, Julius Villamor (Ryan Espanol) also begins to fall in love with Nico. Ironically and in a quite a plot twist, the two of them were involved in having a lustful one-night stand without initially recognizing each other in subsequent interactions.
This story has so much human drama and twists and turns that at times is a bit hard to follow. I honestly must admit that some of the screenplay is top notch especially involving the more emotionally scenes. It is obvious that the actors put their heart and soul into this series because on several occasions, the intense emotional connections, the rawness, the grittiness, and intense psychological traumas are well done, and you can feel their emotions. But during the more mundane parts, acting tended to be a bit too monotonous and rote. They could have used an acting coach to help in the more ordinary scenes.
The biggest issue with this series is the poor production. It was obviously filmed on a shoe-string budget (or less), but certain components could have been better. The obvious one is the sound. It was so inconsistent. I know it was filmed in a less than ideal location and the earthiness added to its charm at times, but the sound needs to be way more consistent and audible with less background noises that almost drown out certain parts of the series. The camera work is awful at best. Weird shots of focusing on unimportant items (like a speedometer). Lighting was bad and way too dark making some of the scenes impossible to see clearly. Also, the editing was amateurish. Too much time on some scenes and not enough on others. (Way too much time on the gay pageant and the talent contest. Disappointingly little time on the reunification at the end of Nico and Prince was afforded. We need to understand that better. I was not sure how or even why that even happened.
Who really S.T.O.L.E. the series? Please forgive me, but I am going to name three individuals here. The first one is in the series for only a few short scenes, but he is phenomenal in those scenes. He is Angelo Sandiego as Nico’s brother, Arjay. The scene with him wailing as his brother Nico left him alone, was so incredibly powerful, moving, honest, and left me in tears. I saw in his face the intense sadness of being abandoned and how painful that was. He screamed and cried with such real emotions that I was there with him It is intense. He maintains an innocence about him that actually works to his advantage. He is almost drawn into a world of child prostitution but for the grace of someone who quietly rescues him from that world. You can feel everything with his role. He is also a profoundly handsome and good-looking individual, who if this was really happening would have no doubt been manipulated into the world of prostitution. The second individual worthy of distinction is Vergel Madlangbayan as Vergel. He is the person always trying to help and comfort others especially Miray. But hidden beneath the surface is a person in deep internal pain and profound feelings of hopelessness. Again, never being seen because he is always the one providing comfort to others. His rescue by Miray is one of the best emotionally intense scenes I have ever seen in a BL series. It was so profoundly moving and made me cry with both joy and sadness. That scene is incredibly powerful. Which leads me to the individual with the top performance in this series and that is Etz Bonggastar as Miray. Her life is a living hell of emotions. She not only is repeatedly abused in many ways by her drunken father, but she is also bullied by neighbors and contestants in pageants. Yet, she maintains a sense of strength, determination, and a no-matter-what, she is going to live her life in her way. I can only imagine how crushingly difficult her life is. But her determination to live it as she defines it. When she almost lost Vergel, she rescues him as a friend who completely totally and understood his pain. She defines for him his worth and value and in a sense, she is also defining herself. Her acting and the intensity of these scenes are something to behold and are incredibly powerful. Those feelings seem so genuine and real that I could completely understand. There are very few, if any, BL series that will even mention this side of the gay world with such conviction and strong emotions. Usually, these parts are added for comedy, distraction, or down-right mockery. In this case, they ARE the story as well. And it is about time. Kudos!
I know I have saluted this series with parts of it being very, very good even with the acting inconsistent. I do not necessarily blame the performers. I think with better direction and more detail and money committed to production, this would and could have been a much higher rated series. It is just so difficult to get through the inconsistent production of it.
My recommendation is to watch it knowing that the production is not very good, but the storylines are unique in its content. You will not see many BLs that tackle such issues in quite this way and for that, it is worth watching. This truly seemed to be a real labor of love.
Leave a Reply