Ferryman (2014)

Watch All Three Seasons

After spending 28 days in Chinese quarantine, I needed something to pass the time with :P So I ended up watching all three seasons of this series on Iqiyi 's website (https://www.iq.com/play/1qjg1dgygck). I really, really enjoyed this show and watched all of the episodes in about a week.

Basic Gist: Dong Q. has the kind of childhood that makes for a great sob story. Orphan. Sees ghosts. Alone. But he's also that character that makes for a great Chinese 'damsel in distress' kind of person . . . - 'forever hopeful, incessantly optimistic, has all the faith in the world in spite of its flaws, GOOD in all caps' kind of hero. Much to his surprise (and to his great exasperation), he finds himself employed at Convenience Store 444* under the charge of owner Zhao Li.

The same Zhao Li who also happens to be a ferryman for the underworld, bringing lost souls across to the care of the Queen of the Dead. Zhao Li who is a whole lot of arrogance hiding a kindness that got subsumed in centuries of loneliness. Zhao Li who is determined to make use of Dong Q.'s ghost-seeing abilities but keeps finding himself drug off track with Dong Q. being all heroic and stuff. Resolving last wishes, finding lost loves, passing along final messages. It's a problem for him ?

Accompanying them on ghostly adventures is Xiao Ya. . . a girl as lonely as the other two and looking for someone who is open to loving her as much as she want to love them. In the end, it's not a romantic story really. It's about friends. Lonely people living lonely lives who somehow find each other and form a family. Being there for the holidays, celebrating promotions, watching KDramas together, having BBQ. Cherishing memories and building a life together.

*4 is the Chinese number of death.

Observances:

- It's spooky but not scary. Sometimes funny, sometimes serious but not like a horror film. The cover is a bit misleading. Smoke, night escapades, creepy music, evil laughter. . . that kind of creepy.
- The first season is episodic (each episode or two is a new plotline / ghost). I get the feeling it was meant to run for one season as a kind of fun holiday sort of show that became popular and got deeper as it went. The first season was fun, but you only got hints that there was some bigger plot behind everything. It could be watched alone I think, but you'd miss a lot if you did.
- The second season starts off weird. . . it took me like two or three episodes to really figure out what was going on. It seemed like a whole different storyline or parallel world, and to some extent it was? Again, I think season one was a stand alone, and the next season they had to shift or back-track on some things so it could re-start the plot again. Just don't look two deep and roll with it. The storyline moves on pretty quick.
- Third season made me cry. A lot. You see so much character growth through all the seasons and by the time it gets to the third season they really are a family and it's precious.
- Second season is a lot of anti-Japanese rhetoric. Pretty heavy on the nationalist propaganda too?‍♀️
- If you watch it on Iqiyi, the last episode of each season doesn't belong to the series; it's like a 'Christmas special'. Same cast, but a self-contained plotline.

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I imagine there hasn't been many reviews for this series because there is lack of sites to watch this with subtitles. Although I don't really need them for this series, there is a subtitled version on iQIY (English site version) as of this review if anyone is interested.

Had really high hopes for this one because there are so many really good Chinese series that are better than a lot of the mainstream ones, just unfortunately without subtitles.

While this series started off pretty well, the quality was a seesaw. It tries to incorporate too many mythical, folklore, legends, etc. influences into the modern world and it ends up just feeling corny, but not the good kind of corny. The main trio includes a male who can see ghosts, a non-human ferryman, and a very annoying female who hangs around but can't see ghosts. Their main base is a convenience store numbered "444" (the number 4 means death in Chinese). Although the trio is amusing at times, their relationships with one another wasn't built naturally and doesn't have much depth.

Despite it's negatives however, I was still compelled to complete the series just out of curiosity. It's like not being able to divert the eyes from a car accident in progress. Almost every episode comprises of a different encounter with either a ghost or supernatural being, all with a different story that is usually "resolved" within one episode. Not all of them are interesting but because one is so different the other, this in itself keeps it intriguing. In one story, you are watching high school girls calling upon a spirit and in the next, you are watching a demon in a painting drawn by the bones of a human. Since the stories cross over various eras, the production set/costumes for them were done pretty well.

So strangely, despite its many flaws, I still might consider taking a look at the sequels and/or the prequel movie. It's hard to categorize a series that is cringy but you still finding yourself clicking on to the next episode. There is still some creativity in this and it is still entertaining if you don't take it too seriously. And if you ignore the terrible "I will be back" statement that occurs in many of the episode endings.

It helps that each episode averages only half an hour so it moves along pretty quickly.

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