A mature, yet soulless and disappointing spiritual successor to MRIAD

User 'PeachBlossomGoddess' wrote a great review comparing this drama to the original material. For me, I have never watched or read any of Agatha Christie's works, so I will instead base this review on making direct comparisons to the predecessor, My Roommate is a Detective, and more specifically on the MCs.

Some say "You shouldn't compare these two" to which I say "Why shouldn't we?" Same director, same premise, same setting (just more snow), same character roles, same main lead actors, they are purposefully similar because of the success of MRIAD. A lot of the hype around this drama is from fans of the predecessor. This review is for those who have watched MRIAD and want to know how Checkmate compares.

I'll get some general points out of the way before focusing on the meat, the characters.

Production - Checkmate no doubt wins in quality, but MRIAD production quality is still good enough to enjoy.

Cases - A bit harder to say which is better, it's definitely personal opinion. Checkmate gave a lot more breathing room for cases to unfold, and directly used Agatha's brilliant works, so if anything she should get the credit. Especially the first, Murder on the Orient Express, was so artful and intriguing, no wonder it is her most famous work. But cases started to drag on a bit when they lasted so many eps. On the other hand, MRIAD was all about fast-paced hamminess. The cases were often ridiculous, but as over-the-top it got, it was just so fun to watch it didn't matter how unrealistic it was. I prefer this to Checkmate, though the train case was better than any MRIAD case.

Romance - Checkmate wins hands down. Romance is subtle, mostly makes sense, and doesn't intrude on the plot. (I did skip through the last few eps so unsure how prevalent romance was there) MRIAD romance is a joke. Lu Yao liking Bai Youning? Doesn't make a lick of sense. Fortunately only becomes more prominent in the latter end of the series.

Now to the part where Checkmate really made me want to drop this drama, making it a chore to keep watching.

Characters - MRIAD's characterisation for the two male leads is amazing. 2nd male lead Qiao Chusheng has an interesting dark backstory related to the mafia, influencing his personality in a really unique way and giving a realistic understanding into why he becomes so enamoured with Lu Yao. Female lead is less amazing but has her own weird charm if you can get over her brattiness. All three are given reasonably in-depth backstories. Checkmate characterisation is so average it hurts. There's no love put into them, and it shows. The relationships between the characters also feels forced, put together for plot sake rather than actually enjoying each other's company. Backstories are few, revealed only when involved in cases or in some horribly written way (cough Jin Qiming alcohol scene cough).

This review is already long enough. I'm only going to go into detail on the MC from the respective series.

Backstory
MRIAD MC Lu Yao. A stock department manager from Haining, studied at Trinity College in Cambridge Uni, getting a double degree in maths and medicine. Other tidbits include that he studied law but was too lazy to write a thesis, he's a deacon of UK Freemasonry, and has cut himself off from his very rich and powerful family with ties to the government and military. What I'm saying is, Lu Yao actually has a fully fleshed-out background and existence that explains his personality and motives.

Checkmate MC Situ Yan. A lawyer in Beijing, who studied under a teacher that now lives in Harbin. And... that's it? Maybe I missed something, but for 19+ episodes, this was basically all I knew about the background of Situ Yan. Perhaps they wanted his past to remain mysterious, but it only made him hollow, not really worthy of being a solid MC.

Personality
MRIAD. Lu Yao is a genius. But he is also a cheeky money-lover who wants to live a simple life away from the messiness of politics. He's crass and selfish, a huge troll, super wimpy when confronted with danger, likes solving mysteries to test his intellect and bantering with his companions. He's not a goody-good, but he is on the right side when it counts. Hu Yitian goes above and beyond to craft this multi-faceted character into the charming smartass we all know and love.

Checkmate. At first, I really liked Situ Yan. Dedicated wholeheartedly to justice, mature, calm, intelligent, has OCD. And... and? I enjoyed the first case as it was introducing Situ Yan as a somewhat distant but honest man with amazing reasoning skills. But then... that was all there was. As the episodes went by I found myself feeling more and more despondent at the fact that Situ Yan was so dull and lifeless, like a boring Gary Stu. It's as if his character was just a case-solving medium with no individualism.

I could go on, but this should be enough to prove my points I hope!

For those that read the whole thing, congrats! If you hate my opinion, that's okay! I just wanted to give a genuine analysis on why Checkmate fails to live up to the hype from MRIAD. At the end of the day, it's worth giving it a go so you can judge for yourself.

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Lightweight crime show with an awesome MC and many cliches

At the time of this review unfortunately only the first 5 eps have been subbed in English. I can understand Chinese so I was able to watch the whole thing without subs (understanding about 90%), so this review may not be very helpful to those who can't understand it. Hopefully it gets fully subbed one day!

On to the review~

Brief opinion:
Being so short (and 30 min eps), the drama is enjoyable and easy to watch, with great team interactions and generally great main characters, especially the MC. The drama falls short on the actual cases, they aren't anything noteworthy but still okay enough to watch. The last few eps is kinda where the show drops the ball, making the villain very cliche and disappointing, making the MC lose IQ at times, and finally making the FL a typical damsel in distress to threaten MC...

Detailed info:
The Good~
The investigation/psychology team overall is really cool and competent, and is pretty much the only part of the show worth watching. The team dynamics and bond are a big focus of the drama, and remains pretty light-hearted. If you are looking for romance, you will be disappointed. (I hate romance so it's a big plus for me)

I'll describe the team members below.

MC: Xu Lang - Usually referred to as 'Professor', he is a surprisingly funny character that strays away from the typical moody genius MC that has a past trauma. Instead, this MC is playful, talkative, is frank about his own brilliance, and an expert at reading micro-expressions and body language. He's also someone people may find hard to be close to as he is very blunt and prefers the truth over someone's feelings. The actor himself is pretty mesmerising, super good looking and a silky smooth voice, no complaints with his acting. He makes the show worth watching for sure.

FL: Ding Jia Qi - An officer that acts as the 'rookie'. She is for sure not as smart as the other members, and is even basically assigned as the assistant to MC. Her strength is in fighting, but we don't get to see this very often. It takes a few eps for the MC (and probably the audience) to warm up to her, as she has a strong temperament and the MC does not treat her with much respect at first since she's not an intellectual. The show uses her as a device to get the others to dumb things down and explain everything. In general, kind of an annoying character but I have seen worse (cough myroommateisadetective cough).

Tang Sen - The Boss. He's quite the cool, calm and collected type, and also super smart. He specialises in criminal profiling and gathered the team in the first place. Has a past history with MC, and get this, THEY LIVE TOGETHER. Yup, the bromance is there, though not very much sadly. They are more like good friends.

Qi Lei - The Techie. But also seems competent at psychology as he was a student of MC. Very cute character, the youngest it seems but definitely clever.

Now the bad...
Oh boy was the main villain disappointing. In fact, the whole Big Bad arc at the end was Big Badly written, with the main characters making silly mistakes and walking into traps. At least it's only a few eps to suffer through.

In conclusion:
I did enjoy watching the drama, mainly for the MC. So I think it's worth watching if you like the main characters, but don't expect an amazing plot and ending.

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Consistently great, marred by an unsatisfying ending

LONG REVIEW WITH NON-DETAILED SPOILERS

I really really enjoyed watching this series, I basically binged watched the whole thing in a few days. This is coming from someone who has never watched a drama involving a long-term undercover operation before, so I had no expectations on this genre. I started watching this as I'm a bromance fan, and I could see the potential. Like I mentioned, this drama was consistently great, none of the episodes felt dragged out/rushed, or out of place... until the end, where things seemed to be wrapped up quite quickly (and the criminals given no resolution).

- Story
The story is not complicated, which I actually appreciated. There weren't annoying and random subplots happening, things progressed fairly linearly (Best of all no romance!!! I really dislike romance). First few episodes are setting the scene for (MC) Fang Mo's undercover operation, and from there the drama focused first on Gu Tao's drugs/arms smuggling, then Ma Sijie's smuggling operations. Throughout this, MC does a brilliant job of gaining the criminals' trust and discovering the truth behind his gf's death. It was utterly captivating to watch not only the way the criminals operate, but the way the police go about handling them. (Thank the lord for this drama showing the police as competent.) There were a few great plot twists as well.

As for the ending... very mixed feelings. On one hand, it was expected. Some might say the death penalties were too harsh, but you have to realise that the number of drugs these criminals smuggled and distributed seriously ruin lives, with long-standing effects. And while yes, circumstances beyond their control lead these characters to a life of crime, however in the end they do it for money and noteriety, and they don't care about the consequences of their actions. The only sad thing is that these criminals are characters we have come to know and love, and we can't help but feel for them.

On the other hand, there wasn't much resolution between MC and the criminals he became brothers with. We spend over 30 eps watching the bond between the two grow, how much Gu Tao trusts and cares for MC. And MC does care about Gu Tao too, even if he's undercover and planning to arrest Gu Tao. Honestly, it wouldn't be strange to suggest that Gu Tao falls for the MC (but of course they instead push the brother/family agenda). There is a pretty good confrontation when Gu Tao discovers the truth, but after that? They don't meet again. Ok, I can understand that, he is the cop that deceived and ultimately got him arrested. But then what about Gu Tao and Ma Sijie? These two deserved to have their own resolution, but that isn't shown at all. It just feels like as soon as the criminals were caught, they were no longer important, no longer people worth acknowledging. All that was shown is their trial/sentencing. They didn't talk at all, and there was 0 follow up to the ones that were given lighter punishments.

- Characters
The MC Fang Mo is definitely one of my favourite characters from any show. He is smart, competent, and all-round badass. He's extremely committed to bringing down the bad guys and never wavers in his ideals, but still shows a lot of understanding towards the criminals. He goes to pretty extreme self-sacrificing measures to complete his mission and gain Gu Tao's trust, and it works. Plenty of whump :)

Gu Tao is a character you can't help but like. He's a criminal, yet he shows so much care and loyalty to his friends/brothers. I will say he tends to trust a bit too much, the progression of accepting Fang Mo was a bit fast. The naivety was a little unrealistic considering he has just found a mole (MC's gf). I really felt bad for him, knowing that the person he has poured so much trust and care into is an undercover cop deceiving him. And then when he finally finds out the truth about MC, he still loves Fang Mo so much he begs MC to stop being a cop and remain with Gu Tao, and can't bring himself to hurt Fang Mo even while feeling the pain of betrayal.

Jin Lanlan is my least favourite character in this drama. She just feels so fake, and so unnecessary. Not much else to say tbh.

Ma Sijie was interesting. He only really shows up in the latter half of the drama. His character felt a little unstable at times, but his care for Gu Tao was undeniable. Other than that, not super memorable.

The other side characters were generally quite well written and helped to drive the plot.

- Acting
Phenomenal! Except maybe Jin Lanlan's acting, which always felt sickeningly fake and put on.

- Music
Honestly didn't pay attention, which isn't a bad thing.

- Rewatch Value
The problem with these kinds of shows is that it loses much of the rewatch value once you know what's going to happen. Nonetheless, entertaining enough that I would likely enjoy rewatching in the distant future.

Conclusion
Regardless of the ending, the drama is still fantastic and well worth watching. The highlight is the way MC goes about his undercover operation, with the back and forth conflict between police and criminals attempting to outsmart one another.

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Okay standalone, but lacks action and charm

I'll start with what I have watched, which is actually all the series that have been released to date. But I will admit to skipping many scenes that I wasn't interested in, especially in Tomb of the Sea.
The Lost Tomb (2015)
The Lost Tomb 2 (2019)
The Lost Tomb 2: Explore with the Note (2021, THIS SERIES)
Ultimate Note (2020)
Tomb of the Sea (2018)
Reunion: Sound of the Providence (2020)

So with that in mind, it is very hard for me to review this series without comparing it to the others. My review will seem mostly negative, but I do still recommend watching this for any Daomu Biji fans.

- Plot: 6.5/10
Don't try too hard to link this with the prequel and sequels. They have changed quite a bit. They might have tried to make it more interesting than the novel, I'm not sure. I will say that I didn't care at all for the plot happening outside the tomb, and even the plot happening in the tomb was merely okay. First half was pretty boring, but it got better in the second half, but still not super engaging.

- Action: 4/10
Probably the most disappointing part of this series is the lack of action and cool fight scenes. It's practically non-existent in the first half, and we only get some bits in the second half. And barely any from our resident badass Zhang Qiling. There is more shooting than martial arts. I suppose when the only enemies are birds or centipedes there isn't much room for kung fu.

- Tomb Exploration: 4/10
Another disappointment. Not many interesting traps/mechanisms/puzzles, some of the settings looked cool but that's about it. I will give them props for lighting everything nicely so I'm not struggling to make things out. Budget was pretty high for making realistic environments though.

- Characterisation: 7.5/10
This is usually where the DMBJ adaptations shine for me. My favourite version of Wu Xie is Neo Hou (TLT2), followed closely by Zhu Yilong (Reunion) and Zeng Shunxi (UN). This version of Wu Xie more closely matches UN personality-wise, which is fine but makes Wu Xie less calm and intelligent. This actor did a great job, but he didn't really give off the charisma and charm that Wu Xie should have, and can't compete with the talents of Zhu Yilong and Zeng Shunxi. This Wu Xie also makes some questionable choices, such as his reactions to Pangzi's supposed betrayal. Pangzi is just like from the prequel, which was my favourite version of Pangzi too. Money-loving, jokes a lot, but still has his core values and cares a lot about Wu Xie. He definitely does not deserve Wu Xie's judgement when Wu Xie himself has secret dealings with Ah Ning! Zhang Qiling... well, much better than the prequel, but much worse than Ultimate Note, and similar to the Reunion version. He's there, but might as well not be with how underwhelming his presence is in most scenes. Ep 18 is the only highlight. The other characters are all pretty solid. Everyone's acting was great, it mostly came down to the script.

-Pingxie? 6.5/10
Ep 18 was pretty memorable. Other than that though, there isn't really a whole lot of it.

- Music: 8/10
Quite good! Nothing to rave about, but they made a pretty good OST, especially the ED song. Can't compete with Reunion OST though.

Even with all these issues, I still feel that it is worth the watch. No need to binge-watch it like I did though. And don't expect it to be as good as Ultimate Note or Reunion. But who knows, you may enjoy it much more than me!

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