Sha Chen Bao (2025)

"The dark side of human nature. Everyone has it."

As the quote above reveals, this is on the darker side or noir crime dramas. There's a closed room murder mystery with only 3 possible suspects. Police officer Chen who has kept himself busy guarding sheep from sandstorms and robbers is called in to reinvestigate, as not everything seems right with the previous investigation. This sets off a chain of events which ends with the same murder scenario repeating itself.

Chen Jiang He is delightfully temperamental but also a broken humbled man, due to an accident involving his senior police officer. He believes that patiently finding out about the lives and motives of the people surrounding the murder mystery will eventually lead to a breakthrough. We gradually get to know the families of the 3 suspects and their histories. One thing I particularly liked about the drama is how there were no boring psycho killers. The sad incidents resulted from partly accidents, partly deceptions and selfishness.

The plot tightens toward the end, and the last 3 episodes are particularly heartbreaking.

The mountaineous half-desert location is very beautiful and also very harsh. We see and almost feel the dust and sand in the air. Watching Sandstorm felt like being there. Highly recommended for friends of c-noir.

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