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The Journey To Killing You (Japanese Series)

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...

The Ode

The film is actually based on the book 'An Ode To Lata'. I saw it in recent I-View festival in New York. Apparently the film is still in work (post production stage, I guess). Overall I was not very impressed by the film. I doubt whether the book actually got all the rave reviews that everyone kept talking about. The movie is about this South Asian (Indian/Pakistani, dunno) boy Shiraz grown up in Kenya and who now lives in LA. A successful banker during the day, his night life is totally different. He is deep down in world of sex, drugs and all typical gay-ism. He has just broken up with his boyfriend Richard whom he cant forget for some reason. He is slowly going deep in drugs and depression and looks for Richard in every man he meets. He is visited soon by his mother. The film keeps going in flash back showing his troubled childhood, the fighting parents (who were actually not married) and how his childhood was always with people fighting with beating each other. This still keeps him unrest. He tries to met new people in LA but something stops him from loving them. He has his own set of issues. FIlm progresses showing some of his tricks and his friends and then just ends up abruptly where they show that he is still looking for that love and stability in life. There was nothing about the movie that held my attention. Acting by lead actor was actually pretty good but overall screenplay and direction and movement of the whole story just could not hold your attention. There were so many unanswered questions and the viewers were supposed to assume a lot of things. Not having read the book, I can't say is that is any better. There were so many people yawning and complaining but of course no one says its a bad film when you are watching it in its first ever screening with all actors, director and the writer. The film is apparently part autobiographical Lets see its fate when it releases. (3.5/10)

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