Between Us (2021)

Low budget and flawed, but not without entertainment value

So, more than a year after the finale, I stumbled upon this Filipino BL series and binge watched it. There is a LOT to pick at, but somehow it charmed me a little bit. Or maybe I've just been bored by most of the oh-so-predictable Thai BLs that have been churned out like factory products as of late. At any rate, here are my pros and cons.

PROS

THEME SONG. Nicely sung and catchy tune.

BL ACTORS NOT AFRAID TO KISS. Unlike most of the dead fish passionless kissing we get from the guys in Thai and Korean BLs (sorry, but it's true), these guys delivered. I mean, they really went for it! Kudos to the two main couples for that. And the shirtless pre-sex make out scene between Art and Mack was erotically HAWT.

BITCHY GIRLS. Sure, it's a trope that's been used many times. But it's been a while since I've seen an entertaining bitchy girlfriend who thinks she's all that. I'll admit to being entertained by both of them.

ACTING. No one here was going to grab an Academy Award for this, but I thought some of the actors did respectable jobs.

FOOD SCENES. Some of it looked really good! I've got to cook more chicken with adobo.

CONS

DISAPPOINTING TRANS CHARACTERS. Why were they even there? And they were so over-the-top annoying it went way past caricature and into the level of insulting toward trans people in general.

CONVOLUTED STORY. Too many story lines, too many characters. I started getting confused as to who each character was, and what they were even about (or upset about), which leads to me to my biggest complaint of all...

THE TWO FINAL EPISODES. So, after13 episodes featuring more characters than three consecutive seasons of RuPaul's Drag Race, they're suddenly just GONE, save the two main couples. (And even they weren't together in either of the episodes, they each had their own epilogues.)

And I'm sorry, but... who the hell are Anj and Rex? This out-of-the-blue random straight couple took up at least 15 minutes worth of the Art/Mack finale, and... why are we supposed to care about them?

Mack accepted Art's breakup way too easily. And then we get a "two years later" reconciliation... it was just weak.

But with all that, my biggest peeve has to be the Sai/Khel finale. For what possible reason did Khel continuously apologize to Sai... when Khel NEVER DID ANYHING WRONG TO BEGIN WITH! Seriously? Not once could Khel have found the time to explain that he set up a romantic evening for Sai, that was completely misunderstood by some girl who hugged him?

Do Filipinos never talk out problems? Do they just enjoy melodramatic crying over nothing??

No, I don't believe that, I'm pretty sure this was just bad writing.

A bit of a disclaimer: this series was obviously filmed during COVID. And I do remember the Philippines having off and on lockdowns during that time. The airing of the final episodes -- 14 & 15 -- came two months after Episode 13 aired. There was probably an even longer time span than two months, for the filming itself... Art looked quite different than he did during the first 13 episodes. It seemed apparent to me that it was probably all the producers could do to film any kind of ending. So kudos to the team for that... but the finales were, at the very least, odd. It was as though we were watching a completely different series.

But, overall, I kind of enjoyed this low-budget, somewhat trainwrecky series, especially before the finales. It's a 7.0 from me.

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História excelente com produção horrível

Mais uma série filipina com grande potencia, porém estragada por uma produção de centavos.

A história é bem clichê. Trata-se da história de Sai e Khel, que se conheceram quando crianças e eram grandes amigos. O destino os separou e agora os trouxe de volta para a vida um do outro na faculdade. Khel é um belo rapaz, muito galinha e Sai é um rapaz tímido e discreto. Paralelo à história deles, os amigos de ambos, Mack e Art, se apaixonam um pelo outro e eles acabam reconhecendo um no ou outro a amizade de infância e um amor para toda a vida. A ambientação é na faculdade, e os dois casais sofrem interferências tanto das famílias como de mulheres. Como já disse, a história é boa, o que é bem ruim é a produção. A imagem é ruim, a câmera muitas vezes treme bastante, a atuação não é lá grande coisa e tem algumas coisas que não fazem muito sentido.

Alguns pontos que me incomodaram: A falta de desenvolvimento entre Win e Rain, que inclusive foram esquecidos no churrasco nos últimos episódios. Os dois casais tiveram seus finais em episódios separados, Mack e Art terminaram no episódio 14, e a história deles teve um salto temporal de 2 anos, foi um final morno para quem já tinha tido uma ótima cena de sexo (que não foi melhor devido à qualidade). O final de Khel e Sai foi no último ep (15) e teve um salto temporal de apenas um ano. Achei ridículo o fato de brincarem com uma tentativa de suicídio, totalmente desrespeitoso!
Outra coisa, é que colocaram as mulheres como as vilãs terríveis que querem acabar com os relacionamentos, já passamos da época de romantizar isso, e o fato de usarem gays afeminados apenas para alívio cômico também não considero legal.

No mais, a fotografia é péssima, a ost é bem "tanto faz" e provavelmente eu não veria de novo, pela falta de qualidade. Mas recomendo a série pela história, são 15 episódios de mais ou menos 20 minutos, então é possível maratonar em um fim de semana.

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In my opinion, completely unused potential in this series, where for me the sympathetic representatives of the main characters dominated the most. The selected guys are nice, I'm afraid to write about the actors (even if something flashed here and there), the "acting" for many secondary characters was mere amateurism, when many girls were more of a "difficulty" for the whole chaotic story and not to mention the trans characters. The obtuseness of the womanizers offended the viewer rather than making him laugh. Moreover, in the last episodes, these monsters disappeared. I understand that some non-Islamic countries in South and East Asia (including Oceania) have experienced (and hopefully it will improve) that if someone is gay, they are better accepted in society by acting and dressing like a woman, but this creation was rather by condemning the whole community. The processing is quite bad, surprisingly the music didn't seem to me as well, as usually with Pinoy productions it is good, sometimes excellent. This time I had to force myself to finish the whole series, although the last episodes, despite the chaos, are probably the most interesting because of the main characters, and the only thing I appreciate about this series is the expression of the relationship, feelings and love between the boys. I'm already looking forward to the Thai series with the same name which is coming out soon and hopefully will be much better (Win a Team from Until We Meet Again) ...


Dle mě naprosto nevyužitý potenciál u této série, kde nejvíce pro mě dominovali sympatičtí představitelé hlavních postav. Vybráni sice fajn kluci, herci se bojím napsat (i když sem tam něco problesklo), u mnohých vedlejších postav bylo "herectví" pouhým amatérismem, kdy mnohé dívky byly spíše na "obtíž" celému chaotickému příběhu a o těch trans postavách ani nemluvě. Ta tupost zženštilců spíše diváka urážela, než aby se smál. Ještě že v posledních dílech tyto příšerky vymizely. Chápu, že některé neislámské země jižní a východní Asie (včetně Oceánie) mají zažito (a snad se to bude lepšit), že pokud je někdo gay, je lépe přijímán ve společnosti tak, že se chová a obléká jako žena, ale toto pitvoření bylo spíše zostuzením celé komunity. Zpracování dosti špatné, překvapivě i hudba se mi nezdála tak, jak většinou u pinoy produkce je dobrá, někdy výborná. Tentokrát jsem se musel přemoci celý seriál dokončit, i když právě poslední epizody, navzdory chaosu, jsou díky hlavním postavám asi nejzajímavější a jediné, čeho si cením na tomto seriálu, je vyjádření vztahu, citů a lásky mezi chlapci. Už se těším na thajský seriál se stejným názvem, který má brzy vyjít a snad bude mnohem lepší (Win a Team z Until We Meet Again) ...

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