the lifeguard delivers
up the slipper
by Douglas Messerli
Jason Sakaki (screenwriter and director) Ramen
Boys / 2025 [13 minutes]
Canadian director Jason Sakaki’s Ramen
Boys is a charming but absolutely empty-headed comedy about a recently out Asian
boy, Kevin (Brendan Koyanagi), desperately—although maybe not so hopelessly—looking
for a dream lover to just walk down his street one day, enter is house, and
sweep him off his feet.
He
even lays out his summer’s dreams to his bestie female friend, Marianna
Zouzoulas, who when she expresses in her incredulity he explains that he has
already spotted a hunky lifeguard James (Johnny Wu) to passes by the house
every day at about 3:00. Having questioned him about why he hasn’t called out
to him, this Rapunzel in his tower, realizes it is about 3:00 once again, and
rushes to his balcony.
Finally he does call out, but when the lifeguard (recognized as a pool guard
by his T-shirt) doesn’t hear him, he tosses a slipper at him, attempting to
cover up his blatant come-on making up a story about a huge insect which he was
attempting to kill.
Still, his ludicrous story works like a
charm, as the lifeguard visits him to return the shoe. Within minutes, our
crazy gay hero has discovered that the big-chested savior is not gay—happily
discerning, however, that he is “bi”—and is ready to serve him up a meal of
Ramen, the lifeguard quoting Lady Gaga’s off-hand observation: “There could be
a hundred Asians in the room, and 99 don’t believe in using a kettle for the
ramen. But all it takes is just one who believes.” Even James has to agree that
Kevin’s kettle heated ramen is quite special.
And within moments both boys, feeling it has been very difficult to find
the right person who really cares, find themselves kissing and falling in love.
The film ends in a truly meandering and meaningless scene in which,
after Kevin summarizes his wonderful summer with James, the female bestie
Marianna begins to explain her special summer with a Greek boy.
This is lite, very lite fair with a fair amount of cliches and one
zinger about Asians meeting up with white gay boys. Most of the white boys who
are attracted to Asians, the concur, have just returned from Japan showing
pictures of them in a kimono. But these young men are so attractive that you’re
happy they’ve found love. Too bad it couldn’t have been in a more intelligent
movie.
Los Angeles, February 24,
2026 | Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (February 2026).
