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The Journey To Killing You (Japanese Series)

By Golu
This dark gritty Japanese BL is something I was not expecting. The story focuses on a Yakuza bodyguard  assigned to kill his young boss. The premise sounds interesting but the execution was just weird. There were lot of problems with the show like violence, abuse, coercion and even forcing themselves sexually. Eventually it somewhere becomes. BL with some nonsense stuff. Thankfully the series was only 6 episodes of about 26-30 minutes each. Kataoka is a respected yakuza leader. His boss has grown old and frail, unable to manage the organization anymore. Leadership now falls to the boss's son, Keito. He assigns Odajima as Kataoka's new handler to keep him in check. Kataoka is impulsive and treats Odajima aslmost as a servant even forcing sex on him. But beneath the rough exterior, Kataoka occasionally reveals a gentler side. Odajima, on the other hand,  is stoic and distant, keeping his emotions under tight control. What Kataoka doesn't know is that Odajima has a hidden agen...
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Hit And Runway

By Golu
Hit and Runway was a formulaic film school comedy. A film about budding friendship, it shows how friendship between 2 most unassuming people just naturally grows. The film doesn't take anyone's side. It just shows how 2 people from 2 different world in terms of ethnicity and sexuality are brought together with a common goal: to become a good screenwriter. All actors are pretty unknown and hence the film becomes more believable. 

Alex is a budding screenwriter but the reality is that he is not much of a writer. After his father passes away, he is forced to work at his family's cafe. He wants to write this major story but is hindered by his lack of screenplay writing abilities. He meets Elliot, a regular looking Jewish guy, at his cafe. Elliot is there to meet Joey, the server and part time actor on whom he has a crush on. When Elliot leaves his play for Joey to read, Alex finds it and recognizes that Elliot is the only one who can help him write his script. Overcoming his phobia, Alex and Elliot embark on this friendship which started because of work. Together they come up with ridiculous ides, crazy dialogues, borrowing heavily from what is happening in their real life. Elliot helps the Alex becomes a more insightful person and with Alex's encouragement, Elliot begins to develop some self-assurance. We have a few side stores where Elliot and Joey have a brief affair and Alex meets a plain Jane in his screen-writing class and falls in love or at least he thinks he is. When finally the producers agree to read their script, the lead actor wants to do the film that Elliot originally wrote as a screenplay. And in a major twist, the lead actor falls in love with Elliot (that was just like blah!!). Alex finally tries to get his life together and decides that he will use his real life experience and come up with a wonderful script. 

I am so glad that this film did not fall in the same category of straight man realizing his gay side and falling in love with the gay man. This story is about the development of an accepting friendship between a gay man and a straight man without the issue of sexuality. As they collaborate on the screenplay they talk and learn important life lessons from each other. The dialogues are amusing and very realistic. I love Elliot's one lines that he keeps throwing off and on. A lot of side characters were not really properly build up but it was ok. Alex's romance was forced IMO and was not needed at all. But I guess for him to agree to Elliot's point of view, he needed a doze in del life for himself. The film is not great and but is not bad either. Definitely watchable when you don't mind a brainless entertainer. (5.5/10)
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