Thirteen Years of Dust (2023)

Catch me if you can!

Thirteen Years of Dust is the best Light On/Mist Theatre suspense thriller iQiyi has released since The Bad Kids and The Long Night in 2020. This tightly written mystery cum police procedural is gripping from the start. An eerily staged crime scene reminds Lu Xingzhi of a serial killer that had terrorised Nandu thirteen years ago, when he was just a rookie detective. Starting with his mentor Wei Zhengrong, he gets the old investigative team that had profiled and hunted the killer back together again. They have unfinished business to get down to. Thus begins a thrilling chase for the long hidden killer who seems to be taunting them, "Catch me if you can!"

The way the narrative unfolds in parallel between the present and the past is mesmerising and immediately made me invested in the main characters, including potential antagonists. In the present, the characters are older yet wear unmistakeable vestiges of the past that make them seem still touchingly familiar. We see what they were like juxtaposed against what they have become. This invokes a haunting sense of nostalgia over what was lost and what could have been. This captures the essence of what made CBS's Cold Case one of my favorite police procedural series. Wei Zhengrong seems the most markedly affected. In sharp contrast to the rather rough, dismissive, and bitingly cynical cop in his prime, he becomes a muted, wiser and oddly broken shadow of his former self. Lu Xingzhi on the other hand has delivered on his early promise and come into his own but his family life is disrupted.

Chen Jianbin and Chen Xiao anchor the stellar cast in this production. Both are charismatic and convincing actors with such incredible chemistry that it evolves to reflect the passage of time. They each subtly take on some of the other's traits thirteen years later, indicating how deeply they influenced one another. It is not easy to play characters that have aged and changed over thirteen years, yet remain essentially that character. Beyond both leads, every main character in each of the many cases delivers riveting portrayals of both their younger and older selves. This brought the victims to life through the eyes of people who knew them, loved them, feared them, envied them and may very well have killed them! The side story that moved me most was that of the gangster and the dancer.

The plot is very well designed and is a lot more whodunit than howdunit. It is set in a time when use of forensic technology was nascent and primitive. So the cases had to be approached the good old fashioned way of narrowing down suspects to who had motive, means and opportunity. The evidence and clues are all presented in an even handed manner; there is no attempt to hide anything from the viewer. From early on, the audience has enough clues to credibly build a case around at least two suspects at any given time. While the solution is not a huge surprise as the killer is well concealed but far from invisible, it still comes with a decent twist. It is a surprisingly dark story with a chilling ending for a c-drama. The production maintains an unsettling tension of a disturbing and menacing presence throughout. If I have to criticise, the staged crime scenes are a bit pretentious and the explanation of the painting and its significance is on the weak side although it just passes muster.

Overall, this is a well written and nicely executed crime thriller that will satisfy exacting crime buffs. A highly recommended watch that I rate 8.5/10.0.

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Not quite there but getting so close to being perfect.

Acting: Cast were one of the winning cards of this drama, even small/guest roles were done very nicely. Main point of the story is a case and the people connected to it in 1997 and 2010 and characterization, make up and acting together make you feel the years passed and the changes in the appearance and personality of the people involved. I seldom remember a drama showing time change this delicately.

Story: My problem with whodunit stories, either in writing or on screen is that they tend to spend more than 95% of their length circling around who has done it then the short remaining time is spent on a hasty "Why" and "How" . I don't know if it's because the creators are afraid it becomes boring after the culprit is exposed so they keep them hidden as long as then can or else but the important part here is "hasty wrap up". From 4th ep. and Yang Zhe's introduction until 21th ep. by emphasising on both his personal traits like interest in European paintings, amateur drawing, writing detective novels, etc and parallels between his behaviour and Lu and Wei's descriptions of a serial murderer doing things like asking around to get information on their case or going away and stop killing, the writers made him a perfect suspect, "The only suspect" for at least 18 eps. I lost believe in his guilt before his return in the '10 timeline but still they did everything they could, even the smallest details (e.g. having him living in the same neighborhood as the murderer and coming home at midnight, Ning being wary of him, killing Hong violently on the night YM stood him up to gave him anger) to keep us focusing on him, they even gave him a knife in an isolated place only to forget his existence after a harsh arrest just like Lu did. I didn't want a full story of his life or what did he do if he didn't have a company but his subplot could've been solved much earlier and more graceful. On the contrary a good unassuming suspect like Guapi was wasted away hurriedly like that. They could've very well use his similiar surname to Wu Jia to play this father and son game a bit more, instead of getting divine police instinct in the last 2 episodes and know the culprit on the spot. Two good plot twists was done with in a blink.


Anyway, the '97 timeline was wrapped up nicely by reaching the first episode point but at the end, the original murderer's thoughts and motives remained largely unanswered, like his interest in drawing, paintings, detective fiction, etc, Specially as he used the hole on his mother's face to compare how the victims' faces would look in her picture. How did he even chose them? Lu ordered his subordinates to investigate his background family but it was never mentioned again, there wasn't a glimpse of his notes too. Here we had a character that barely talked more than 5,6 sentences throughout the drama with a mysterious past but they killed him off in flashbacks without shedding anymore light on him other than being a monster.( personally when they said he disappeared, I thought WJ must've killed him)


Lastly: although the story took its time with pacing, going between the past and the present wasn't disjointed or boring but rather uneventful. I think the suspects were too few, there were barely one suspect for every death and they were cleared quickly. Copycat crime was a nice diversion but still there wasn't enough suspense to keep up the thrill. Also, I didn't understand why Lu and YM had to go through all the bothers to get an official divorce and stay a couple when they could easily just live separated. Ning only needed a relaxed home.


P.S: Out of seven deaths, two unattended ones excluded, I liked Liu Meng's posture the best. When Wei called the others to watch it from behind the frame, the lights, the set and the music were just great.

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