Continued from Tony Perez's Electronic Diary (October 19, 2018 - March 12, 2019) http://tonyperezphilippinescyberspacebook41.blogspot.com/

Photo by JR Dalisay / April 21, 2017

Saturday, September 17, 2022

Watched Thailand's 2015 Red Wine in the Dark Night (1:44:25). Wine, a gay young man, is devastated by his boyfriend's decision to break away from their relationship. One night he encounters a mysterious young man suffering from amnesia, whom he befriends and whom he names Night, but who survives only by drinking human blood. Wine falls in love with Night, and deems it his duty to keep him alive by providing him human blood to drink.

This is a tender, slow-paced, low-budget, but well-written movie. I was reminded of the musical The Little Shop of Horrors, in which Seymour adopts a plant from outer space and feeds it his own blood. Not for viewers who are squeamish with scenes in which blood is being drawn, but certainly a movie for straights and non-straights alike, because it is best viewed as a horror story--which Thai writers are very clever and creative at--rather than as a gay romance story.

There are no females in the cast, not even as extras, and there are several sex scenes verging on soft porn, but there is no full nudity and there are no hard-ons. The sex scenes, as a matter of fact, present the usual problems that directors have with sex scenes, which is that the farthest the performers will go is to remain in their underwear. It has been as problematic for time immemorial as the problems costume designers have had for mermaid movies: they just can't hide the actors' heels. 

The prudish, of course, will raise their eyebrows because the protagonist, Wine, engages in multiple sex and is quite promiscuous about it--and there are never any condoms in sight. It is a really scary movie, though, because you don't know how all of it will end. The premise is actually that of the fairy tale "The Fisherman and His Wife", in which the fisherman's wife wishes their hovel to become a house, and then wishes their house to become a mansion, and then wishes their mansion to become a castle, and then wishes their castle to become a palace, and then finally wishes herself to become God.

A few shortcomings: The actor who plays Wine is androgynous enough, but he has a dumb, insincere smile. The places where he takes his victims and his choice of victims, to me, are highly unlikely and too convenient for comfort. For some strange reason this is also one Thai movie in which everyone's enunciation is too nasal and has too much twang. None of the roles are true acting vehicles, but the best performance was rendered by the young man who played the role of Night.

At any rate, if you're not into cinema as art and are simply into scenes with young men in white briefs, this movie gives The Brotherhood of Satan a run for its money.


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