Gay Movies: Boys Love (ボーイズ ラブ)

What can I say about Boy’s Love? The original manga it is based on is apparently a popular genre among Japanese women, being a kind of gay soft porn, called Yaoi.

We’re introduced to typical love triangle. First there’s the beautiful teenage model that everyone wants, Noel, but he’s empty inside, so lives a life of excess and debauchery, sleeping with a new guy every night, to fill the void. Then there’s his ugly (looks remarkably like a Japanese Harry Potter) and nerdy childhood friend, Chitori, who is secretly in love with him. Chitori has faith that Noel will eventually realise that he is the one, and return that love.

A new element comes on the scene in the form of a journalist, Taisan, interviewing Noel for a magazine article. Apparently straight, Taisan denies Noel his sexual advances. As he gets to know Noel better, Taisan feels sorry for him, and pushes him to grow up and pull his life back together. Suddenly Noel complies as he feels someone really cares for him and looks out for him for the first time since his childhood first love died. As this bond grows stronger between these two, Chitori isn’t going to take this sitting down.

It’s not exactly soft porn, since apart from a couple of nude scenes and implied sex, its more of a cliche love story. More sensitive and emotional, perhaps to cater to the female audience. Taisan and Noel never do consummate their bond that transcends the physical.

However, its very Japanese in that blurring of acceptable social behaviors between adults and children. Noel is still a minor, even if he acts like an adult, and it walks a fine line of political incorrectness as it explores the relationship between Taisan and himself. If you’re willing to accept the cultural differences, it makes for a more interesting story.

I was unable to find a trailer with English subtitles, so here is the Japanese one:

Open Cam

Manny is a politically expressive gay painter, who loves to frequent gay chatrooms on the internet. He has no real enemies, everyone likes him, but he doesn’t let anyone get too close. Sex is just a bit of fun. Suddenly a serial killer begins murdering and mutilating people on his favourite chatroom, with Manny seeming to be the only link between them.

The first thing you will notice that Manny is hot, and spends much of the movie in a state of undress to various degrees, and he’s not the only one. Most of the plot, especially in the first half, seems focussed around numerous scenes of a gay sexually explicit nature and the acting is as bad as the eye candy is good. 

It reminds me  of a porno that has sacrificed some of its harder-core action for increased plot focus. though I  found the mystery/suspense element was a bit predictable and the plot full of holes.

The most annoying character was the greasy rat-faced cop solving the case (Manny’s love/lust interest?). He seemed intent on being bad cop and interrogatively annoying towards everyone he talks with, for no apparent reason. With that sort of person being one of the lead characters he started to get on my nerves after a while and it didn’t make much sense that anyone would be attracted to that.

I don’t want to focus much on the sound quality, cinematography, etc. since production budgets would have been tight for this film, so its forgivable for this small independant film.

For the most part I felt like I was watching a movie about gay people being ‘gay’. Casual encounters, net sex, bitching to each other about how unfair the straight world is to gay guys, everyone too busy being artists to hold down a real job and the rest. You get the idea.

If you prefer softcore gay porn with a basic storyline to hardcore gay porn with almost none, then you might like this. Otherwise don’t bother.