Next to Broken Hearts Club, this has to be the phoniest 'gay' movie I have ever seen. It's bad enough that a lot of screen time is taken up by unnecessarily long scenes, such as periods of brooding silence, aerial shots of trees and buildings, and one of the lead characters serenading his girlfriend with an entire song — from start to finish. Intimate scenes between the two lead characters, which I think is pertinent to the theme and plot of the movie, are totally absent. The only 'kiss' we see is at the end, but it is shot from such a distance that the two guys could be checking each other for zits or dental plaque for all we can see. I don't know about you, but if two male actors cannot bring themselves to be explicitly intimate with one another in a gay-themed romance movie, even for the camera, it smacks of 'insincerity' or maybe even homophobia. Whatever, the assumptions some gay viewers may form over this reluctance leaves an ugly taste in the mouth. Are they afraid the Filipino stars may damage their 'macho' image? The Philippines, FYI, still has hang-ups about gay male sexuality, preferring to lump the many forms of gay men, from cisgender to transwomen to 'effeminate' gays under one label — the disparaging 'baklak'. It's the same in Malaysia, where similar categories of male sexuality are collectively known as 'pondan' or 'bapok', the Malay equivalent of 'fag' or 'queen'. Which is a shame really, seeing as how the Philippines are also to produce cutting-edge and risqué stuff like Antonio's Secret. Apart from the eye candy, this one just fails to break any new ground.
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