This review may contain spoilers
Chinese censorship makes watching law & order dramas interesting...
In my personal rating system of "loved," "liked," "meh", and "nah", this rates a "liked"/"meh".What I liked:
I, of course, liked Vin Zhang, but then again, I could probably watch a drama that is just him watching paint dry and I'd be okay, as long as I occasionally got that quirky slightly crooked smile of his. I also like that he is not afraid to play opposite female leads who are older than him (like in "I will never let you go"). I thought both FL and ML actors did their roles well. I appreciated getting to hear their normal voices and neither one bothers me. Of course, I also do not speak Mandarin, so there's that. I liked their opposite natures: ML was cheerful and often irreverent, FL was by-the-book and serious. Their romance was believable (and there was even a kissing scene. If I was Yang Mi, I would have made VZ do that take at least ten times. You know, for science), but I did get a bit frustrated by the FL's unwillingness to let anyone into her life. I loved ML's family. They were hilarious and had a good relationship with their son (and for once, the dad was played by an actor who was handsome enough in his own right to have believably produced a son who looks like Vin Zhang.). Despite the initial drag of the plot, I actually got into it as it moved along.
What merited the "meh" portion:
I'm not really into procedural police dramas and this was definitely procedural. Lots of time spent in conversations about the case and what they were going to do. Thanks to censorship, plenty of patriotic script writing--I had to fast-forward through those bits. And I know this is most likely due to censorship, but I had a very hard time believing in a government agency that had zero infighting, zero bosses under political pressure, zero problems interacting with local police forces, and zero territorial disputes with other agency offices. In a way, that is what ruined the other very realistic-seeming parts of the drama.
If you're really into procedural law & order-type shows, you'd like this one, just be aware of the limitations due to censorship outlined above. I thought all the actors did a nice job and I did not feel I'd wasted my time watching it.
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Am I watching a pro-China infomercial, or a spy drama?
I should have learned my lesson when I tried to watch Love Me If You Dare. This drama is even more heavy-handed in its pro-China spoon-feeding. From the moment I turned on the series, it felt like one of those cheesy, overly patriotic recruitment videos we're forced to watch in school or before a movie starts in the cinema. I almost have 2nd hand embarrassment with how over the top it is. From the ridiculous monologues about patriotism and "dying for your great Country" (while they're talking about a dead coworker) to the regrettable OST that sounds like it should be coming from a school megaphone and not a serious spy espionage drama.Despite my reservations, I gave this series a shot because I adore the cast and just came off watching Bin Bin in Rattan (great drama!). That being said, it was admittedly hard to watch from the beginning. Our ML, Ma Shang (Bin Bin), is straight-laced, fluffy toward our FL, and adorably feisty when he's not in serious job mode. He's got a great relationship with his parents, and I adore their interactions throughout the series. An Jing, his childhood sweetheart and co-worker, shares great chemistry with him, and I liked seeing the two actors together again from Eternal Love. I also really liked Ma Shang and He Zi Xuan's chemistry. That's...pretty much where I stop caring about the series.
I was already skipping through by the 4th episode and pretty much skipped around until I got to Ma Shang and An Jing's scenes. Even then, it really couldn't be saved.
In reality, China *can't* do espionage/crime/serial killer/murder type genres. Their Government censorship rules completely water down everything to a laughable extent and puts their winning team on unrealistic pedestals. You mean to tell me that their national security teams are perfect? Zero infighting? Zero corruption? Perfect and seamless camaraderie and technology from start to finish? The criminals are never a match for them, right? They're always sloppy, one-dimensional villains who tend to speak in English when they're being diabolical, or they're terrible D-list Western actors playing evil caricatures of themselves, and they always just lay down and give up when they're caught. Give me a break.
If you want gritty, more realistic dramas within those genres, I recommend Western TV shows or Kdramas. I just finished watching Through The Darkness with Kim Nam Gil, and it was *amazing*. It's a novel adaptation and has a lot of similarities to the Western drama, MindHunter, about profiling serial killers in custody while trying to catch an ongoing case. Both shows are miles better than this. If you want a corporate espionage-type thriller, I recommend Killing Eve (has a bit of dark comedy as well), The Americans, or The Night Manager.
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Overly pathetic and patriotic
I basically picked this drama because I wanted to see the cast of the Eternal Love in modern outfits and check what sort of deals the Chinese security office investigate. Industrial espionage that is. For a short moment it was even interesting to observe the level of intertwinement between the government and a corporate world, but I am not really into corporate dramas, which this show appears to be by the third episode. What they'd offered by the fifth episode wasn't my fav type of intrigue. All the security service guys looked too flat, pathetic and immaculate. Vin Zhan and Yang Mi look way better in historic costumes, whereat I'm going to continue enjoying them.Was this review helpful to you?
