"The Resurrected": A tied-up hunk, a beefcake cult that resurrects people, human trafficking, and phone scams. With Eason backside and Soda d*ck

  

Link to the n*de photos

Since I watched Revival, Netflix has been suggesting a surprising number of series about people coming back from the dead, not as zombies or vampires, but as actual humans. There are quite a lot of them, but The Resurrected drew my interest with an icon of a tied up muscleman.  Looks beefcake-heavy, even if there are no gay characters.

Episode 1.1: "Execution Day."

Scene 1: A firelit ceremony.  A shirtless man covered with tattoos brings a deceased person wrapped in a sheet -- no, wait, they're alive.  Hundreds of people are watching, including a lot of shirtless guys and  two grieving women.  Tattooed Guy deposits the sheet-wrapped person, pulls out a scimitar, and slices them! Blood seeps out.

Everyone starts gyrating and howling, and sparks fly. A child of indeterminate gender enters in a shawl, and chants.  The deceased person re-animates, turns into a monkey, runs through the crowd, then returns to the child and grows to human-size.  Everyone kneels down to worship 

Scene 2:  The two women are introduced to the Divine Child and their beefy entourage.  "If they ask for money right away, let's go," one of them whispers.

Woman #1 wants them to resurrect her daughter, who is in a coma.  Nope, they only resurrect deceased people.

Woman #2 wants them to resurrect her deceased daughter, but all she has is ashes.  They need an intact body.

"Dang.  Ok, we'll just try another Divine Child."

On the way out, they see the Child's next supplicants, a husband, wife, and kid.  They tell him "It's been seven days, time to go," and thank him for coming into their life as he dissolves. I'm guessing that you can only be resurrected for seven days, not permanently.

Scene 3:  News story about Chang Shih-kai's syndicate was luring young girls from Taiwan and China to Thailand, where they are confined, hurt, and forced to engage in telephone scams. Chang was arrested five years ago, and finally received a death sentence.  

Woman #1 addresses her social media followers from her daughter's hospital bed.

Woman #2 is on the same flight with Chang's mom, sister, and brother (Cheng Jen-Shuo) She glares at them.  Upon arrival, she tells the cab driver to follow their van.

Wait -- Wikipedia says that Cheng Jen-Shuo plays Woman #1's husband.  I don't know who plays the brother.

Scene 4: An elderly woman in a coma. Eason, who looks like a teenager, arrives with flowers and says "Hi, Grandma."  But the flowers are for Woman #1's daughter.  So he has a comatose grandmother and friend?  Does he collect comatose people?

Eason is played by Yin Haoyu, aka Patrick Finkler of the boy band Into1.  He has n*de photos on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

More after the break

Meanwhile, Woman #1 gets into an argument with her husband about getting their daughter back to Taiwan in an air ambulance. It's expensive, etc., etc.

"We have a civil suit against Chang's family.  Maybe it will pay off."

Scene 5: The women have Chang's mother under surveillance as she buys expensive stuff.  "She goes shopping the day before her son's execution!"   They call the lawyer, who says that the family is not connected to Chang's assets, so they can't sue unless you have evidence of money laundering, and by the way, your bill is due.

Scene 6: They stop into Pong's convenience store, where Woman #2 works.  "Sorry I'm late."  

"Where's your husband?"  "He says the bed is too small here."  With the subtitles on, I can't tell if Pong or one of the women is speaking.  Maybe Pong is gay.  Taiwan legalized gay marriage in 2019.

Pong is played by Sukollawat Kanarot, who has played gay characters, but is straight in real life. N*de photo on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends.

The door to the deep freeze gets jammed easily.  Chekhov's Gun: presumably this will be important later.

Ok, it's Woman #2's store. Pong owns the pharmacy next door.  He was just helping out while she was away.  This will be important later, too, I assume.

Scene 7: The women bribe the guards to get five minutes with Chang.  Hey, we don't see it.

Cut to Execution Day.  The women and one of their husbands fight their way through the crowd of reporters asking "How do you feel?" and make it to the viewing room. 

We see the execution.  Chang (Meng-Po Fu) is the tied up muscle guy from the icon, but here he's dressed in a regular prison outfit.

Flashback to Woman #2 identifying her dead daughter, and meeting Woman #1 in the group of victims being interviewed.

The officer is played by Frederick Ming Zhong Lee

After the execution, the mob of reporters yelling "How do you feel?"

Scene 8: The women walk aimlessly through town.  Woman #1 is returning to Taipei tomorrow.  She gets a text: her daughter's care worker is quitting, and no one else wants the job.  

They drop into Smail's nightclub, which has scary photos of animals on the walls, including the monkey that was turned human-sized.  Presumably this is significant.

Suddenly they get an idea: the death penalty is too light a sentence.  They can resurrect him, and hurt him for seven days!  The end.

Beefcake: Just in the cult scenes.  Otherwise it's women being upset and girls being hurt. The n*de dude on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends is supposedly  Soda Voya, who plays Hsu Yung, but I'm not sure.

Heterosexism: None.

Gay Characters: Maybe Pong.

My Grade: I liked the cult scenes, but otherwise it was unpleasant viewing, and rather confusing: why have several comatose people?  Is this taking place in Thailand or Taiwan?  And not enough guys.  C-

See also: The Fixers: A gay-vague Taiwanese hunk, a bi gambler, politicians, blackmail, mysterious monks, and n*de Chinese dudes

Sam Li: Frank's victim in "Always Sunny," a lawyer, two students, a gangster's brother, tells his mom "It's not a phase." With some Chinese c*cks

Revival: The dead return in small-town Wisconsin, with zombies, a gay deputy, a lot of hunks, and four d*cks