The Men Who My Father Loved (2018)

Next time less sex, more plot please

Let's get first things first: there's A LOT of sex in this film (and by A LOT I mean about 2/3 of the film). However, surprisingly they aren't too obscene and there's even something a bit naive about them, quite a change from some recent Japanese gay movies (if you've watched any of the Saitankyori wa Mawari Kudokute films or Sei no Gekiyaku, then you know what I mean).

However, these scenes exactly are the problem of the film - they are not sexual enough to turn it into a porno (at least, in my opinion), but they are not interesting enough to become an essential part of the story. I think that if some of the sex scenes were cut and others added with some more lines in them, it would have been much better - for example, the relationship between the protagonist and his sister, or the protagonist's personal love story (which we just get a glimpse of at the end) .
The other option was to go full-on porn mode and just make the scenes as explicit as possible. The current result feels like a bit of a mess. Maybe I misunderstood the genre, but that's what I think.

The acting was good, I think, though sometimes during the sex scenes... I don't know whether the main actor was extremely uncomfortable or just bad at pretending to have sex (the tongue, bah).

The visuals are stunning, and combined with the eternal sound of the Japanese cicadas, I actually felt like I was in Kyoto during summertime.

Probably wouldn't watch it again. 7/10 and I'm being generous

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Plot is a vehicle for NSFW scenes

Overall: An interesting premise, but it ends up feeling like just a way to show explicit NSFW scenes. Watched on gagaoolala. It's only an hour and 10 minutes so it's not a huge time investment if you like watching steamy scenes. 

Content warnings: there are very five sexually explicit scenes, 1 dub con

What I Liked
- I liked the sister and wish we could have seen more development of her/their relationship
- the overall premise is interesting, it just needed to be delved into more instead of NSFW scenes
- the color grading, how in the past it was more grey scale. It can be difficult for me to tell when flashbacks happen, but it was very clear in this short(er) movie. 
- that ending scene seems pretty unrealistic but I quite liked it

Room For Improvement
- I wish there was more development/explanation of what was happening with the protagonist's romantic relationship. We mostly get ghosting/ignoring and then just a little at the end. There is an apology, but for what? What happened between them?
- odd, why is the protagonist sleeping in the living room of his parents' house - aren't there at least two bedrooms?
- odd, why wouldn't the protagonist push for the name of the movie where he is named after a character? He just drops it, I'd want to know the movie if it were me...

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