Customer Reviews

Boys Love

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(5)
3 star:		(4)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I live in Japan right now, where this movie's been out on DVD for over a year, but as my Japanese is conversational at best, it's always been more of a chore to pay attention to the dialogue than the action on-screen.

This movie's really...well, different for everyone. It's moving at parts, and definitely a little cheesy and "wtf" at others. But it's DEFINITELY worth the price here (especially as this subtitled DVD is actually cheaper than the original), and one of the better, in my opinion, gay/gay-themed movies Saitou Takumi has taken part in.

If you're looking for a good 90-minute movie that will satisfy your longing for some nice eye-candy and a moving storyline, then this is it. If you're looking for a revolutionary look at homosexuality...then perhaps you're better off searching somewhere else.

On the surface of things, Boys Love might be seem like a simple (perhaps even clichéd) romance that traipses along the lines of vague vulgarity, but by the end you cannot help but feel a certain attachment to its protagonists.

In using the term 'simple', I refer to the general plot of the film, but there are concepts and sequences within the story that cut just a bit deeper than your average misty-eyed effeminate male love story. In such a manner, there are numerous quotes from literature and notable speakers threaded silently throughout, usually as conclusions to pivotal scenes, which encompass many of the emotional boundaries in which the characters of Boys Love entwine - from innocence to promiscuity, tenderness to maddening jealousy. Some of the quotes seem obvious, but many will stir about your sense of reasoning and curiosity.

For the most part, Boys Love is indeed rather predictable. However, the compelling and genuine performances of leads Saito Takumi and Kotani Yoshikazu result in a nevertheless touching and irresistibly engrossing experience - all culminating into an unexpectedly dark and lingering final chapter.

Boys Love isn't a movie to be examined and picked apart, but instead, a movie to be felt, absorbed. There's a lot of heart here, you just have to be willing to look for it.

Quite popular in its home country of Japan, "Boys Love" (2006) has just recently been released in a subtitled DVD in the US.

The film tells the story of Mamiya, a 20-something journalist, who is assigned to do a profile on popular teen model (and amateur artist) Kisaragi Noeru. Mature for his years, Noeru takes control of their meeting, and later of Mamiya himself, as he introduces the young journalist to his first experience with man-to-man sex. Visiting Noeru a few days later, Mamiya learns that Noeru is more than a bit of a slut, and seems incapable of settling down with one person or keeping his word to anyone, including his best friend Chidori, who has an unrequitted crush on Noeru. After Noelru picks the wrong person to go home with, and is the victim of a gaybashing, Mamiya learns from him why he is leery of forming a close relationship with other. amd pledges to be there for him, which turns Chidori into a jealous rage.

It's actually a simplistic story, stretched out to fill almost an hour and a half. Though the film is chock full of great eye candy, the acting is a bit "over the top" and tedious at times. I could also have done without the "proverbs" used by the director to transition from one scene to another, which I found to be anmoying after a while. The ending seemed contrived and hardly logical, as well as unnecessarily depressing. I would rate it four out of five stars for the eye candy, but only two for everything else, so let's call it an average of three stars out of five.

I initially approached the movie from a manga-esque, bishonen point of view, and I was not too off the mark. My expectations were not too high for the intelligibility of the script, but focused mainly on Asian eyecandy -- in which regard I wasn't disappointed.

I half expected to see some sort of anime/manga-based art work on the walls as Taishin (Kotani Yoshikazu) interviews Noel (Saito Takumi) on his 'art,' but groaned when I saw kindergarten-level art instead. Already the story line was apparently unraveling. Thankfully Noel had a modeling career, and that didn't seem too far fetched, given his beauty. Suspension of disbelief was engaged, and I moved forward.

But, surprisingly, overall, the movie quality was good and the acting was quite decent and believable, and I found I had to start re-evaluating my prior assessment of the film as the character interactions became more complex, and more of the story line was revealed. I was equally pleasantly surprised how the movie shifted from initial sex to the gradual telling of how the characters were falling in love. The movie was actually becoming better and better. Some people might object to the occasional quotes on the nature of love during the course of the movie; I actually quite liked them. They didn't detract, in my estimation, but underscored various aspects of the film and the changes occurring in and between the main characters.

Although the story line was somewhat predictable, the movie was, nevertheless, engaging and quite enjoyable. It was fun watching Taishin learn to swim and Noel to box. There was an onscreen chemistry between the two. I was thoroughly enjoying the film right up to the end -- and then I had a major reality disconnect as well as quite a shock. Without giving things away, it wasn't so much that they went to the ocean, it was WHY they went to the ocean and not to a much more obvious, rational place, especially given their current plight. And then there was the final scene... Immeasurably sad. And, yet, I shouldn't have been in shock given my original mind set -- Manga. It all made sense, in a way, given that point of reference. I had, simply, become engrossed in the movie and forgotten the obvious.

If you're looking for a light, frivolous, fun film such as 'Another Gay Movie,' this is not it. I watched the film three days ago and I'm still thinking about it. For me it held a visceral punch at the end which continues, as I said, to linger with me. Still, I recommend it and feel it deserves a better rating than some have given.

Of recent, I have watched several East Asian films, mainly Taiwanese, dealing with the topic of homosexuality. Some, such as Zero Chou's Spider Lilies and Leste Chen's Eternal Summer, have been quite hard hitting and truly did a good job treating the subject of female and male homosexuality in a tasteful way without relying on too much camp or sappiness to tell their respective stories. However, others such as Yu Jong-jong's Go Go G-boys was so campy and gay that one is hard pressed to take it seriously (not that the director was intending for the film to be taken seriously). Then there is Terauchi Kotaro's first rendition of his film Boys Love (2006), a straight to DVD film, he made a second film under the same title for theatrical release in 2007, which pours poorly executed scenes of sap that could not be cut with a white hot knife.

Boys Love revolves around the relationship of the uptight spiky haired journalist Mamiya Taishin and the effeminate, aggressive high school model Kisaragi Noeru. The two meet while Mamiya is on his first big assignment: to interview Noeru. Kisaragi likes Mamiya because not only does he not ask the same vapid questions of other interviewers, but also because he takes interest in Kisaragi's artwork, especially a painting which depicts a boy looking out to sea. The two go out to a pricey restaurant, and while Mamiya is getting ready to urinate in the restroom, Kisaragi cups his hands around the journalist's manhood and drags him into a bathroom stall. However, before Kisaragi is able to do anything, Mamiya escapes. Not to let his sexual interest escape him, Kisaragi has his manager call Mamiya's magazine company to demand that Mamiya apologize to him. Mamiya goes to Kisaragi's apartment and is quite surprised to find a businessman in the buff putting his clothes back on. As the viewer later learns from Kisaragi's best friend, and wannabe lover, Chidori, Kisaragi apparently sleeps with a different man every night to fill up some inner need. Determined to change Kisaragi, Mamiya becomes closer to the young man, and during that relationship he might begin to feel emotions that he did not know that he possessed.

Boys Love, to put it briefly, is a disappointing film. Filmed with a cast whose looks are better than their acting abilities, it comes off quite ham-fisted, and contrived at some times, especially the scenes in which Kisaragi and Chidori cry because of their wounded hearts. I could feel the bile rising in my throat at much overdramatized scenes. A gay writer friend of mine once said that most gay fiction is nothing more than bad romance novels with an overabundance of penises. Boys Love, or at least the 2006 rendition, encapsulates this statement, and offers little else to the audience.

This is the story of 2 boys who get to know each other due to professional appointments. They are too different from each other and what was supposed to be a professional appointment becomes perssonal.
One deals with past frustration inducing us to understand the whys of his promiscuous behavior.
While the other takes his responsibilities very seriously but finds different feelings after being haressed by this young handsome model who is not even a bit shy.
At first this movie may seem a little too dramatic.
But if we consider the point of view thru the eyes of a different culture such as the japanese culture its possible to understand better the elements stressed during the story.
It is far from being a great movie but I'd say the way the story was set in a traditional society and the development of the sexuality as well as the way the author deals with the steriotypes it was worth it.
I will wait for the next BOYS LOVE movies to be available at Amazon.com as they already exist in Japan (scenes available at youtube.com)

Being a fan of Japanese actors, I saw this movie when it was originally released in Japan. It's worth watching, but there are extremely sad parts that I definitely wasn't prepared for from the initial blurb. If you can't handle movies like that, I wouldn't recommend it. Otherwise, it's a great film for the genre.

This is is a Japanese Picture This production. I could tell from the very beginning that I was going to like this feature as there was an air of class. Again, like many of the foreign movies I have seen and reviewed recently, this one can be added to the list of countries. As I repeated before it is not just the gay subject what make these movies fascinating to me, but the cultures and the people that are being portrayed as well.

This is again another tragic story, a love triangle. There is three main characters: Noel, Mamiya, and Chirodi. Noel and Chirodi are high school students. Noel is a famous beautiful model and painter. Chirodi is the nerd, shy, intelligent boy who is secretly in love with Noel. They are both gay. Mamiya (that is his last name) is an editor in a magazine who is doing a column on Noel.

The first interview between Mamiya and Noel includes an expensive dinner in a fancy restaurant, and the seduction by Noel to Mamiya in the bathroom. Mamiya is shocked and gets extremely angry refusing to continue on this story, telling his boss the following day.

As the days go by, Mamiya starts to question his sexuality and the experience in the bathroom. He goes back to Noel's place to find him in bed with another man. Mamiya makes a pact with Noel to stop whoring himself and the friendship and love develops between the two of them.

Chirodi becomes enraged with Noel's new found love and tells him how he feels about him. Noel goes on a drinking rampage and gets raped and beaten on the streets. Mamiya reads it on the paper and comes to his friend aid, is then that he realizes that he is in love with Noel. Chirodi catches both of them in the bedroom and tells his employer of his affair. Mamiya looses his job but he is happy. He finds a new job in Noel's model agency.

The story ends tragically when Chirodi surprises both of them and stabs Noel with a knife. The final scene shows Mamiya taking his lover to an ocean spot which is one of Noel's painting. This painting has something to do with a boy from his childhood who he was in love with but dies.

There are quotations throughout the movie from famous people in history dealing with love, they are nice and inspirational, adding class to the movie.

I like this movie, it has class. It focus on love between men. There are a few male nude scene, not frontal. There was never sex between Mamiya and Noel nor Chirodi, just the love triangle. There is featurette on the making of the movie, interviews of the directors and actors. Saito Takumi (Noel) is extremely handsome, the other young actors are very boyish in their looks. They all stated that they are not gay. I am not sure the director is gay.

This movie sucks. After watching it, I threw it in the trash. I don't even want to have it in my home. The acting and the storyline are as lame as it could get, and it did. And that's a shame because it could have been so much more. DON'T BUY THIS MOVIE.

It works brilliantly. I thought the subtitles would be half rate but they are perfect and the dvd works beautifully.