Day and Night (2017)

The curious case of Bambi in the headlights.

The short mini-series format is fantastic for mystery and intrigue. I have been meaning to explore this promising genre for while. I chose Day and Night due to its strong international reception. Although it delivered in terms of an intriguing plot and decent script, the overall execution was poor. It starts out as a mystery/suspense but ends up like just another cop drama.

The plot is built around former lead investigator Guan Hongfeng's secret mission to clear his fugitive twin brother Guan Hongyu, who was wrongly accused of brutally murdering an entire family. Hongfeng conceals Hongyu, who covers for him at night while he wrestles with his fear of the dark. That they are identical twins gives wide scope for multiple fun plot twists, something the writers took advantage of. Back at the crime investigation department, the twins alternate as Hongfeng to secretly try to solve Hongyu's case while assisting with ongoing investigations. There is only one conspiracy to uncover; all the other cases are presented as police procedurals so we only have to keep track of one set of clues for the one big whodunit. There were too many side cases - the drama ended up morphing into an action oriented police thriller with great high speed chases and fist slugging action. The one good, meaty suspenseful, whodunit conspiracy I was so looking forward to ended up taking a back seat. The many other excellent cop thrillers out there sets a high bar, relative to which this is at best a mediocre effort.

Where this drama crashed was with the uninspired acting by a B-list cast. The lead actor (Pan Yue Ming) only did a decent job playing twins - this is hard to do but it can be a fun, challenging role for a more versatile actor to shine in. He was good at conveying a barely discernible difference in mannerisms between each twin. But while his Hongyu was engaging as the more outgoing and charismatic twin, his portrayal of the introverted, cerebral Hongfeng fell far short. This character should have more intensity and quiet gravitas; an intellectually intimidating veteran detective with a giant secret instead of a lethargic, sleep deprived, monotonic and mostly expressionless character. Zhouxun (Wang Long Zheng), Hongfeng's ex-partner and successor as head of the department was well acted. He came across as a politically savvy, mercurial, cunning and suspicious friendemy of Hongfeng but tended to over-act, notably the temper tantrums. The critical casting error was Liang Yuan as Zhou Shutong, Hongfeng's rookie newbie mentee. This actress thinks rookie is synonymous with vacuous and that best describers both her performance and her favorite facial expression. This destroyed the chemistry of the entire cast - they couldn't interact with her nauseating deer in the headlights Bambi routine. Consequently, there was no convincing team dynamic between the cast. This rapport did eventually emerge and feel natural in the last 10 episodes, notably in scenes with no Shutong. Unfortunately Shutong got a lot of airtime as her role closely touched all of the lead characters. They should have just cut their losses by turning her into the victim of a serial killer.

The final episode was excellent, ending the show on a high note although only part of the conspiracy is revealed. There is no hard air date for the sequel and few details. Given the mediocre execution, I would not be surprised if it never eventuates. I am only mildly curious to find out what really happened so I won't be crying if it never happens. Overall this is an ok watch, it didn't live up to the hype for me although I will watch a few more in this genre.

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I think the main factors that didn't really make me enjoy this drama were the directing, acting, and writing of this drama.

Just a heads up, this drama is hard to find elsewhere on drama streaming sites these days, but it is on Netflix if you want to watch it.

Directing: I couldn't stay interested throughout most of this drama due to how lackluster most of the directing is for this drama. It wasn't the type of cinematography to really keep me captivated on the characters and for the story happening. Successful directing is where the director can make the audience feel the impact of the action and words the characters are conveying, but I couldn't feel that effect. I think the reason to why this directing turned out to be a bit unsuccessful is because the director didn't try to really capture the emotions for most of the characters at all? Like I didn't get to really feel the emotions of a character that is being portrayed on the screen the majority of the time, which led me to feel that none of the characters really stood out to me. Instead, most of what is being portrayed in this show is just the action. The action sequences in this drama are definitely top notch and deserve a 10/10 from me. But the directing for the whole show, overall, needs improvement.

Acting: This drama could have been so much better to its fullest potential if the acting was more POWERFUL. I have no idea why the director decided it was a good idea that most of the dialogue the characters spoke in this show would be so soft-spoken and calm when a lot of the dialogue could have been expressed in a more dynamic manner. A lot of characters that could have gotten a lot of amazing character development ended up not getting it. This story focused too much on Guan Hongfeng and his twin brother for a span of 32 episodes. 32 episodes aren't short for a series at all, and I believe a lot of the episodes could have progressed more on Zhou Shutong, that ended up being in the dark light of this show, where she's not able to become a fully distinguished cop with her abilities and was basically overlooked. The acting of this cast was decent in general.

Writing: "Genres: Suspense, Mystery, Detective, Investigation" The story gives us some good mystery, where there are crime cases with questions left unsolved that keeps us guessing. For suspense? ...This was not a good suspense drama to me. The writing did not make me feel a lot of the suspense that this drama intended to do due to how poorly executed it was. I did feel suspense for some of the action scenes in the drama but most of the suspense could have been more thrilling if the directing was a lot better. There is definitely a lot of detective and investigation work going on throughout the whole show, as the story involves crime cases and the detectives in this show try to find clues to solve the mysteries being handed to them.

Conclusively, this is a drama that's great to watch if you're looking for some kickass action scenes and good puzzling mysteries. However, I am not coming back for the second season, as I feel no interest for any of the characters in this series, where none of them really left a powerful impression on me and the cast is a vital part of a drama to see if I will like the drama or not.

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