Color Rush (2020)

This is not so much a review of Colour Rush so much as a repository for me to put my confused meandering thoughts about it somewhere. Hopefully it'll then the basis for a more coherent blog post.

This has to be the most unusual BL I've seen. If you told me it was Japanese I'd have believed you and yet its sensibility is completely Korean.

Set in an alt-Korea where there is widespread prevalence of a neurological form of Monochromacy (the eye functions perfectly but the brain cannot process colour), 'monos' cannot see colour unless they find their 'probe'. How and why looking at the face of your 'probe' enables your brain to process colour temporarily is not explained, nor is it the point really. Monos dwell in a grey and shapeless world until their Probe brings it to life for them. It's questionable science but the metaphor is pretty obvious.

Yeon Woo (Yoo Jun) is a 'Mono' who never wants to find his 'Probe'. The television news is filled with scary reports of Monos going crazy and kidnapping or murdering their Probes due to their intense desire to possess them. Yeon Woo has no interest in becoming that kind of crazy. He's happy to dwell in darkness if seeing the light makes him a statistic. But when Yeon Woo meets his probe, Yoo Han (Heo Hyun Jun), he finds himself unable to stop himself from craving what Yoo Han is selling. And 'selling' is the closest word I can find to what Yoo Han seems to be doing for the first few episodes. He comes across almost as a drug dealer, giving Yeon Woo a taste of his product to get him hooked and then manipulating him into a more intimate relationship.

It's admittedly sensual and intense - or at least as sensual and intense as two moderately-uncomfortable teens can be in a narrative tradition known for its stylistic and often antiseptic portrayals of romance. And it's a pretty good metaphor for the confused and intense emergence of adolescent sexuality. But that doesn't meant that Yoo Han doesn't come across as a pusher who is slowly and deliberately building up to asking for sexual favours in exchange for a hit. It's a little uncomfortable. Before Yeon Woo knows it, and despite his best intentions, he's completely hooked on Yoo Han, although how Yoo Han feels and why he's so aggressive about being Yeon Woo's Probe is not immediately clear. And yes, that feeling of being out of control and completely at the mercy of another person is possibly also a great metaphor for first love. Yeon Woo is as unsure of Yoo Han's motives as we are but also keenly aware of just how destructive his own obsession can be.

Either way, Korea has produced a pretty deft portrayal of a first love so intense that it feels almost illicit. The two boys creep around as though they're doing something wrong, a sense not helped by Yeon Woo's Aunt who's scared of losing her nephew like she did her sister. Yeon Woo's mother - also a Mono - disappeared four years ago. His Aunt is trying to find her and keeps Yeon Woo on the move so he doesn't risk the emotional attachment that might lead him to do something crazy. In a way, though, his Aunt's determination to keep him safe and at home with her is the reason that Yeon Woo is so scared of his own emotions and his relationship with his probe. It's a fear that eventually leads him to do something drastic.

I honestly can't say how I feel about Colour Rush overall. The camera work and direction feels surreal and disjointed, lingering almost fetishistically on the faces of our two boys. The soundtrack is minimalist in a way that works perfectly but doesn't mean the soundtrack stands out. Unfortunately Yoo Han's idol actor, Heo Hyun Jun (while admittedly playing an idol) is not just wooden but hindered by his no-doubt contractual obligation to be perceived as homoerotic rather than gay. Idols barely kiss each other in mainstream Korean dramas, there's no way their management is going to let him be perceived as happy and comfortable in a gay role. Yet that's no doubt only part of the reason he's so flat.

And yet the show creates the perfect sense of a bubble world created by two people whose feelings for each other are bordering on obsession, an addiction even. In that respect, it's the sexless and more intelligent version of Addicted/Heroin and one that shows that these feelings don't have to be a destructive force. The bubble the two boys live in comes more from implicit bias in how Monos and Probes are portrayed in society and from the way in which their families treat them than from the reality of their relationship. And there's no greater metaphor than that for being gay in a world that wants to paint you as unstable and in need of psychiatric help because of it.

So I guess in the end I have to conclude that I kind of love this. Aside from constructing a perfect and fascinating metaphor both for homosexuality and for first love, some of the dialogue is particularly beautiful. It shows once again that Korean writers treat BL far more seriously than either Thailand or Taiwan and if they keep at it they'll rival even the Phillipines.

It would have been nice for the mother mystery to go somewhere, especially since the show hints that more Monos than her have disappeared. It's a mystery component that's raised and then mostly ignored except as an impetus to his Aunt's fears about him being "just like his mother". It's possible the show is angling for a season 2 and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

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