Skip to main content

Han Zi Gao: The Male Queen (Mandarin)

I believe this made for TV or web film is based on a true story. It's interesting how gay relationships can be traced back to hundreds of years back and still our current politicians can say that this is a western phenomenon and that homosexuality have never existed in our culture. This story is set in sixth century.

Han Zi Gao was born as Han Man Zi. He was well known for his beauty and during times of war, he always managed to escape because of that. Around 554, when he was 16-years-old, he met the future Emperor Wen of Chen, by then only a general. Chen was deeply attracted to Han Zi Gao's breath-taking beauty and urged him to go with him, promising the boy a life of wealth. Ever the clever boy, Han Man Yi agrees to serve him and Chen Zi Hua is changing his name into Han Zi Goa as a sign that they are going to be connected for the rest of their lives. They both start to take care of each other's need including physical. The general also starts to teach him fighting, martial arts, music etc. And what starts as a master-slave relationship soon turns into a quiet love story. Of course the relationship is not taken good by either general's wife or his sister, who wants Zi Gao for herself. As it is General has trust issues and we see some misunderstandings but eventually he promises to Zi Gao that if and when he becomes emperor, he will make him the queen.

The film, to be honest, at one point got very confusing because there were way too many names in the subtitles, and I couldn't keep a track of whether it was name of a person or a place or what was going on. The film moved from scene to scene very random so it was also difficult to keep a track whether it's a continuation of sort or we have moved beyond a few years or months. Clearly the 2 men were deeply in love, stuff that pure love is made of but the general couldn't help his jealousy. He always felt that Zi Gao will leave him for some woman or someone else. But that never happened. There are no kiss or love making scenes between the two men but they share good chemistry with their eyes, their dialogues, that you can tell that they deeply care for each other and are in love. They both were good actors and had good chemistry. I just wish the subtitles I had with me were clearer.

At just over an hour of length, this was good time spent watching a period gay love story, which also happens to be true. Decent, not great. (6/10)

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Shortest Distance is Round 3: Fallen Flowers

Continuing with the weird trilogy of "The Shortest Distance", I am so glad that finally I am done with part 3 and won't have to deal with this again in future. Thankfully, as of now the makers have not announced any further parts; which will save all of us on this earth from the embarrassment of watching this in near future. After the first 10 minutes are used in sort of recapping bits of first two parts, the story moves forward. Haruto is now starting to have feelings for Ruka, the mysterious pole dancer from second part. In a fit of rage, Ruka ends up killing the goat man and to save him and Haruto, Shibahara asks them to go underground. Meanwhile Shibahara continues the search for Seiya (the guy who had cut off Haruto's penis). It turns out Seiya is now also taking care of the original club owner from part 1. Both of them were released after they had informed Shibahara of Aoyama's secret location. Shibahara tortures Seiya's boyfriend leading to Seiya killin

One Summer Night (Korean)

I really wanted to like this film but for non native speakers, these movie leaves a lot to be understood and the way scenes were unfolding in front of me, I wasn't sure many times what was really going on. The story had potential button getting any back story on any of the characters limited my ability to empathize with any of these actors. Film starts with two North Korea military guys Yong Joon and Jae Sung having sex and they are caught red handed and they run. Three years later we see Yong Joon in Seoul leading a very mundane and poor life. He has a boyfriend Tae-Kyu, who is a weird guy. He is carefree, doesn't do any work and is completely emotional and financially dependent on Young Joon. In fact, even Yong Joon will go to any lengths to protect him , fend for him and taking care of him to the extent of even taking up prostitution. Suddenly one day Jae Sung appears in their life again. His motivation is not clear but it is obvious he wants Yong Joon back in his life, who

Ultimate masturbation: Shigoki no yama (Japanese) [The Ultimate Masturbation]

I would never know what was the point behind making this film. Was it supposed to be a comedy, cos it wasn't. It wasn't even porn. It was just a silly attempt at making something absolutely senseless and ridiculous. The story, as well as direction is equally shoddy. You could laugh for having seen something so bad, but I wouldn't call that comedy. An old man runs a camp about gay masturbation. The explanation given is that gays masturbate for pleasure unlike straight men, for whom the act is seen as shame or because they can't find a woman. One day a straight man shows up and wants to join the camp for his thesis. After discussion, he is allowed in. Rules include that you can masturbate together, you can masturbate one another, but there is no fellatio or anal sex. Some students of course breaks rule. The teacher then talks about 2 forms of masturbation which gives ultimate pleasure. He shows one without touching and then refuses to talk of the other. Somehow suddenly,