Love Is (2021)

Not the worst think I've ever seen.

This series had potential that was never realized. It had a fairly talented cast - including Kaleb Ong, one of the best actors in BL, Axl Romeo, and RR Roque, who was a surprise.

It had some interesting story ideas, like a minister who has an interesting night job, interesting class difference issues, an unusual, mildly creepy, but ultimately engaging sibling relationship, and portraying an effeminite gay character in a very positive way (and for the first time in human history, had an uke who was taller than his seme - this counts as a major miracle).

But many of these plot points went nowhere, like the minister performs his night job once and then it's never referred to again. The class and power dynamics were never really explored.

I think there are three main problems with this series.

- The script is not good. It wanders all over the place and needed a lot more discipline and to link the stories together better - and build up to issues rather than springing them out of nowhere. It needed to focus on the themes it introduced, instead of handwaving away all the conflicts.

- The directing drains all the energy out of the production, not to mention the actors. Meet My Angel was not good in most regards, but the acting, especially Kaleb's, was spectacular - maybe the best single performance in a BL of all time. Here, he's... there. In My Chinito Prince, Axl was compelling and sexy - here he's... there.

- The editing. The series wandered all over the place, with strange scenes included and critical ones left out - like there's a critical conversation between Omeng and Lemuel in the last episode... that apparently happened offscreen, because there's a sudden and total reversal in their relationship that came out of nowhere.

The technical qualities of the production like sound weren't great, but they were above average for a DIY like this and adequate. The OST was good, but it sounds like all the other Filipino BL OSTs and is used way too much to the point it gets irritating.

I don't think I can recommend this series - there's no payoff for the investment, and the actors (epecially the ones that drew to watch this) are poorly utilized and give their least compelling performances to date.

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