Danger Zone: The Dark Night (2021)

Hard core gore.

This review covers both Season 1 and Season 2 as it does not make sense to review them separately.

This is a gripping and fast paced psychological crime thriller that explores the dark side of justice and how the road to perdition is paved with just intentions. In a desperate race against time with few promising leads, Captain Tan's investigative team are under intense pressure to put a stop to a bunch of brutal serial killings. Prison inmate and gifted former profiler and attorney Liang Yandong, is on trial for murder and is convinced that his case is linked to the serial killings. He persuades hungry young rookie cop Ren Fei to share information in the case with him in exchange for his assistance with profiling the serial murderer. The first season solves the first case only to reveal a larger conspiracy that intertwines with a devastating unsolved cold case.

I really enjoyed Vic Zhou's performance as the inscrutable Liang Yandong, especially in the beginning when he teases us with the question of whether his motives are benign. Among the big name cast, his performance pulls the production together as his rapport with each of the main characters seems the most natural. Sandrine Pinna also pleasantly surprised me in her ability to pull off a complex role although some of her scenes in the latter half could have been more nuanced and less forced. Although I like Christopher Lee, his Captain Tan did not really connect with me or with the other members of his investigative team. Part of the problem is that Zhu Tingdian's performance as Ren Fei is hit or miss and his character interacts the most with Captain Tan. His Ren Fei "clicks" with Liang Yandong and Teresa Daley's Ji Siqi but not so much with Captain Tan and the rest of his team. The broader investigative team's dynamics is also not convincing enough to inspire me to root hard for the "good guys" and feel pulled into their mission. To some extent, the cops in this show are dumbed down a little bit too much so that Liang Yandong can look really smart.

The plot overall is fairly tight and it fast paced, full of good twists including a hidden antagonist that reveals themselves a tad on the early side. There are some holes and some suspension of disbelief is needed but it moves so fast and is so action packed you won't have time to dwell too much on on them, which is fantastic. The ultimate villain is known fairly early on and their motives are not that convincing or well explained but there are enough other interesting characters. By pretty much the same team as the highly acclaimed and more memorable Victim's Game, I like this better as a pure suspense thriller for its better focus on a well explored big case that ties everything together and its lack of digression into social issues.

My main problem and reservation with this drama however is that it goes far beyond hard core gore. In general I am fine with dark themes and I don't get triggered that easily but what I found deeply disturbing about this drama is its heavily in your face misogyny. You will be repeatedly treated with gratuitous, extended gore images of women being tortured and mutilated. It is completely unnecessary to the plot or the exploration of the killers' psyches. To give the production the benefit of the doubt, I can tell from The Victim's Game that this team overly delights in showing off their technical prowess at detailed, realistic and almost pornographic gruesome scenes. However I cannot help but be offended and put off by the almost exclusive focus on abusing women and in such loving and repeated detail. So I am really struggling with this review and avoided writing it for quite some time. If they had toned things down (a lot), I would be tempted to give this an 8.0/8.5 but my anger at the extreme misogyny makes me think 6.0/6.5. I am just going to make life easy for myself and call this a 7.0 while acknowledging that is maybe a bit unfair. If you can get past the hard core gore, this is a very enjoyable thriller for fans of the genre.

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A Masterpiece in Suspense and Fear

MDL should have one more criteria-- cinematography. Because the cinematography (or directing) at this drama is 10/10, and this is where Danger Zone stood out from the typical murder mystery thrillers. It has quite an ordinary and easy to guess plot, nothing that we have not seen in other murder mysteries. What made it so suspenseful, intense and scary is the cinematography, the directors' and art designers' brilliant work.

My rating does not seem to correspond with the headline ^^" It is indeed a masterpiece in building suspense and fear in the viewers, but the script is weak and has quite a lot of plot holes and logic issues. This drama focused the storytelling on the art direction and some shocking images to build-up the tensions and suspenseful atmosphere. It use a no-holds-bar approach to tell the story, which gave a rarely seen realism in such murder mysteries (I mean, in most other dramas, it would not have shown some of these scenes, instead it would make references to those scenes in the dialogues or show us a character's reaction to what was supposedly seen)

Some might ask is it necessary to have so much gore in the storytelling? Well, it seems effective since this drama got me hugging cushions and pillows, something that I've not done watching other horror shows. And it is kinda "refreshing", most dramas don't do this, but it did here!

The cast performances are quite good in this, not the best though. Special mention on Vic Zhou, his eyes are haunted with the pain and feelings of hopelessness as he is stuck behind bars and unable to defend himself. Christopher Lee and the supporting characters are very natural in their scenes, and for the more emotional outbursts scenes, there are some phenomenal performances. Berent Zhu's Ren Fei isn't as good but director has cleverly cast him as a young hot-headed new police detective, and as his character gradually develops throughout the story, I grow to like him a lot. For me, the weakest is probably Teresa Daley's journalist, she didn't quite managed to make the character her own.... they could have put any other actress into this role and it wouldn't have made a difference.

The other thing that I dislike about the drama is the "superhuman" rate of recovery!! Lol.... the way Ren Fei jumped and crushed through that window, didn't even need a day of MC and back at work 🤨 the most unbelievable was how fast that female detective (sorry, forgot character name) recovered from her head injury 😅 and finally the way police looked so stupid at their work.... but I guess this has to happen else there would be no drama (which is why I feel the script is actually quite weak, couldn't it have made police look smart and the murderers are just smarter?). Also, where the heck is Liang Yan Dong getting all the batteries and cigarettes from? I dunno how the prison store works in Taiwan but they would restrict the amount of batteries that a prisoner can purchase.... and there is no way it would be selling cigarettes! Liang Yan Dong don't seem to have family visiting him, so from who and where? Just a few annoying plot holes....

I'm rating this a 7.5 for now, let's see how S2 develop, might come back and re-edit this review.

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