Time after time.
Zhang Haifeng is a cop that will not rest even after he is caught in a deadly explosion with his daughter's alleged murderer. In a bizzare twist, time after time he has a close shave with death, he wakes up in the past but while each time the events, the people and their actions rhyme, they are not exactly the same. Yet gradually shadowy outlines of the truth emerge as he pulls at the different threads and uncovers hidden relationships and causality. The first ten episodes are full of suspense and the cat and mouse encounters between Haifeng and the antagonists brim with powerful undercurrents and inuendo. I was really hooked and this was the show I looked forward to and watched first. The encounters between Wang Qianyuan and Lu Han were superb - both actors really got it just right. Qiao Xin's subtly suggestive portrayal of Sun Xiaomeng also deserves special mention.And then I watched a murder take place right in front of my eyes. It is unambiguous. The censors did it. They massacred the last two episodes of what could have been an awesome thriller. It is really hard to tell what really happened with this. In any whodunit, we need to know who, when, how and why. It is quite clear who and even why but the full motive is not revealed or is not convincing. The when and the how really depends on which version of three different accounts of the events as they played out actually took place. It doesn't really qualify as an interpretation ending because there are too many open questions no matter what you think actually happened. I have an idea of what I think most likely happened but I am left with a deeply dissatisfying and unfinished feeling. So watch this at your own risk. I rate the first 10 episodes 8.5/9.0 and the last 2 a 4.5/5.0 for a 7.0 overall.
There is a brief spoiler in the comment section of this review with what I think happened.
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Good Enough
" Light On Series : Sisyphus " is an okay drama.The start was pretty smooth, with enough elements to keep things intriguing and make the viewer want to know more. However, the explanation of it, along with the way the drama handles the fantasy element, were less than satisfying. Thus, the drama ends up confusing and harf baked.
Other than that, the background stories-mystery of the main characters were pretty emotional, dark and twisty. The drama had also the right mood for those tragic events.
So, overall, five out of ten.
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A lot of wasted potential.
When i see Time Travel in Synopsis/ Tag, i jump in blindly.So if you are a hardcore fan like me who doesn't want to miss any related series out there,go for it.If you are not a fan or you are just a newbie,you can skip this and choose something else,more light and less confusing.
The best parts in this Drama was production,direction and acting.For a -more or less-6 hours mini series i was highly impressed.
Nothing seemed cheap.Actors were really good and believable in their roles.
Direction was great,Seriously.I liked the slow motion scenes(you can call it my personal fetish!Lol)the overal camera use and the smooth transition between the scenes.The flow was kinda artistic.If i had to rate this separately,i would have give a 9.
As for the Music.A mysterious tune as a carpet added some suspense.But very fast turned too monotonous.
The only song plays partially in some episodes and is the main outro song.But who stays to listen the outro fully?I didn't.Thats why gave a 5,5.
As for the story.
As i said iam a hardcore fan.Ive been watching movies and series about Time Travel for over 20 years.
Yet,i sometimes had a hard time to follow everything up in this one.
Plotline was just a mess.And not the good one when at the end everything clears and make sense.No,not that kind!The bad one.
It was like an idea popped up in writer's head and after that he blacked out.Felt like he was struggling to tie things up in every episode.Unable to untangle the mess inside his head he had no other option but to finish the story ending up to be a complete mess and nonsense.The main idea became so blur,at the end everything lost focus.
In the last 2 episodes they tried to turn story deep and profound-my ass!-by adding philosophical questions about life,choices how to cooperate with grief bla bla bla.Yeah.Whatever.I didn't buy.
Obviously i do not recommend this one unless you have a goal about how many Time Travel Dramas you will watch til the end of the year!
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Confusing and Complicated
What attracted me to this drama is that because it's part of iQiyi's Light On Series, a lineup of mystery and thriller drama produced by iQiyi and that the episodes are only 12, easy compared to most c-drama that are at least 30-40 episodes long. No need to invest a lot of my time in this, and each episode is only between 30-40 minutes, so in total, the whole series is probably only 5-6 hours long, like finishing three movies.The first Light On Series I watched was The Bad Kids, which blew me away! It was so good and few months after I finished the series, I still have goosebumps and think about this drama. It is that good! Unfortunately, Sisyphus did not live up to that drama. The first couple of episodes are interesting as they are still building up the story and characters, but halfway through the plot is very confusing for me. I don't know if it's just me who are struggling to follow what happened and why this and that happened, but many of the reviews of this drama that I read said the same thing. And the last couple of episodes are the most confusing ones, there are too many questions that are not answered. The Bad Kids also have unanswered questions (which I could probably find in the novel), but they wrap it up nicely so that it's not a big hole in the story.
Maybe in order to understand it better, I have to re-watch the drama. However, this drama left a bad taste in my mouth and I don't think I can go through being confused a second time. I have too many c-drama on my list (and they just kept on coming with new ones every week) to bother rewatching this.
My recommendation is if you like mystery or thriller, start with The Bad Kids (The Long Night is also good but i haven't watched it) and just skip this one.
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This review may contain spoilers
Very enjoyable with many flaws
I see the series as a mashup of Terminator, Back to the Future, Minority Report and Life on Mars. I get that it posits the future cannot change, just like the rock Sisyphus pushes up the hill will always falls down again, no matter how many times he pushes it up again. Even when the story seemed to finally change the future (for the good), the final scene with Sigma suggests not.I gave high marks for the story and acting, but with serious reservations. Too many times I wanted to shout out "Take the shot." Too many times the Gang Seo-hae character stood there like a deer in a headlight, while normally she performed admirably when in action. Too many times she cried too much and too long. And the dialog sometimes didn't make sense.
The series could have been completed in 12 episodes instead of 16. I kept wanting to fast forward through scenes that dragged.
Since the actors were good and the plot was clever, I blame what I consider flaws mostly on poor direction but also on poor writing.
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Marred by a terrible ending
There are some stories for which an unsatisfactory ending can be forgiven, but this isn't one of them. So much of the story depends on a solid ending that really resolves everything. Instead, we are treated to an mindboggling ending that leaves us with a few huge question marks.My guess is that censorship laws with regard to time travel interfered with the ending, so instead of being someone who is transported back in time, the explanation is that the main character Zhang Hai Feng, is merely creating false memories to ease the pain of losing his child. At least this was as much sense as I could make from the ending. The ending reminds me of Psych Hunter's unsatisfactory ending, but at least in Psych Hunter, the idea of entering someone's subconscious is featured prominently from the start.
It's a shame that the ending is so bad because the story is quite good for about ten or eleven episodes, and the acting is overall quite good. Casting Lu Han as Zhao Bin Bin was a good choice. Because he doesn't at all look villainous, the ambiguity and mystery in the character is nicely brought out. I doubt there would be a sequel or a special cut that will save the story, so we are left with something that is likely to disappoint even the most forgiving viewer.
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This review may contain spoilers
Kinda disappointed with the ending. There are some parts that I think don't really make sense and have no logic, especially in the earlier episodes and the latest episode. There are also some parts that I like such as the acting, the ending song, and some emotional scenes. I actually was quiet enjoying the following episodes after ZHF woke up in the year 2017. But after watcing the last episodes, I couldn't give it a higher rating. You will know why after watching the drama yourself hey.
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Bad editing, confused story, flashback, not solved
at first I thought flashback stories might confuse me, but until episode 3 I felt the flashback was not that confusing because it was only a flashback at the end of each episode,, but more the story more confusing because a lot of scenes are skipped and added only when he recalling about it, and not showing before,,Until the end i think yhe story not solve
Who is Liu Yuqi anyway?
Does he exist or not?
In the end, shifang farmacy culprits was not caught, so what laws are there to talk about?
What the meaning of the end part?
In the end, it’s like not watching it and wasting my time
Omaigottt wasting wasting
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Superou todas as expectativas e ainda surpreende em roteiro e atuação!
Essa foi uma história com muitas reviravoltas inesperadas e fodas, um mistério dentro do outro, além dos rebuts temporais. Difícil assistir um episodio por dia, acaba querendo maratonar, porque sempre termina o episodio em uma cena que voce fica "OMG preciso ver o proximo". Sobre os atores, todos muito bons, mas amei mais a atuação do Luhan como Zhao Binbin, primeira vez como um vilão e merecia um oscar! Foi esperto, cruel e calculista de uma forma que nunca tinha visto nele 😎🥰. O final fez sentido, o que me deixou mais chocada para os finais abertos da China 🤭.Was this review helpful to you?
