There seems to be a trend of detective dramas set in the Chinese Republican era recently (Detective L, My Roommate is a Detective). Perhaps the setting allows some circumvention of censorship to some extent--it's probably easier to get away with portraying the police or some policemen somewhat negatively in a made-in-China series since it represents a bygone era not under the current political regime.

The Case Solver is a somewhat decent addition, but it is hard to sing praises of it. The series can roughly be divided into six main cases, with links between a couple of them. About half the cases involve some fake supernatural occurrences, and perhaps this could have been a feature of the series though I guess making it a feature would not really allow the historical context to be fully exploited.

What we end up with is a few rather implausible cases, some with a better story than others. The weakest story is probably the one involving a magician who uses hypnosis. The main revelation is a little too predictable and the crimes committed are simply quite impossible to execute with the supposed methods. If you do not care too much about plausibility, most of the stories are interesting enough.

The final case is clearly meant to be the most exciting, but it is also one of the more erratic ones. To be fair, the last episode does not end up being as rushed as expected, but the turn of events does not really fit the rest of the series. Furthermore, the dialogue sometimes seems a little too silly (like the male leads wishing each other a happy new year after the villain gets his just desserts--it just seems silly coming after the spate of violence that have resulted in the deaths of a loved one).

Sometimes interesting characters and relationships may compensate for flawed stories, but this series doesn't shine in the characterization department either. The romance between the second male lead and a female reporter isn't very interesting or touching. Although they clearly like each other, they spend most of the time bickering with or teasing each other. There is a hint of potential romance between the first male lead and the forensics pathologist, but there is no development.

The bromance between the two male leads is better handled--they become closer progressively. Although the first male lead seems like a somewhat cold person, he clearly cares a lot about the second male lead, putting a coat over him when he gets drunk and shedding tears when he has to point a gun at him and arrest him.

There also seems to be a missing back story about the first male lead and his teacher (who happens to be the father of the forensics pathologist). It also remains unclear how the first male lead has sustained an injury that gives him frequent headaches. The acupuncturist who is able to relieve his pain is an intriguing character, but nothing much is revealed about her.

The series does turn out okay, but it isn't really outstanding in any particular way.