Sword Rose (2025)

Interesting, but could have benefited from character development

First, how depressing is this show?

Human trafficking is a heavy topic for sure. And they wanted to focus on the victims and their families, so a large portion is devoted to telling their stories. The first child abduction story in particular goes in depth in showing how a family can fall apart after something like this, and is rather heartbreaking to watch.

That said, it IS a story about the police catching criminals and bringing them to justice, which is a good thing. And these police are remarkably successful. Their success snowballs and they catch criminal after criminal, saving victim after victim. They end up solving every case that’s introduced, even decades-old cold cases.

It doesn’t seem that realistic to me. All the outcomes seem a little too good; somehow everyone gets saved in the nick of time. Some victims, of course, have PTSD, but they are shown to be healing and/or their stories get dropped.

It bothered me a little that everything goes well, because real life isn’t like that. But at the same time, the show became much less stressful after I picked up on this pattern that things usually end up working out. It’s not all fun and games, for sure- I still cried a lot- and not everything is casualty-free. But considering its subject matter, it’s nowhere near as dark as it could be.

That aside, I was initially very interested in this show because it has a strong female lead with no romance. This means the story is actually about her as her own person (think about how rare this is in Cdramaland).

However, it ends up being not really about her at all. Deng Yan has her backstory, but it doesn’t factor too differently than any of the other cases; it’s just the biggest and most central one. There isn’t much focus on developing her character or showing her personal journey. She does seem a bit out of her depth at first, but there’s no real transition from that to being incredibly capable. At some point you just realize that she’s quite good at knowing what to do next and assigning responsibilities.

The other members of the team are all very likable, and we see them a lot, but we don’t actually get to know them that well. They’re just doing business. Chang Rui is listed as a lead, but he’s honestly just another team member- a very capable one who does some undercover work at the beginning, and gets maybe half an episode’s worth of character development, but by the middle of the show he’s already not that important.

There is no drama between team members. They’re coworkers who get along. There are some meaningful and supportive conversations between them, which I liked, but they are few. As mentioned before, no romance- which I found to be a good thing.

Although it was a conscious choice not to focus on the team’s personal stories, I think the show would have benefited from at least a little development. That would have given me something to emotionally invest in. We’re probably supposed to get an emotional hit from the victim stories, but I personally couldn’t feel too attached to any one, because there are so many. One story ends and it’s onto the next, rapid fire with little follow-up. It almost gets repetitive (they are very successful!), which might be why they stop showing the rescues after awhile. Instead, we are simply informed that so and so was found.

The other part of the plot is police solving crimes. It’s rather procedural, eg lots of interrogations at the police station, or team meetings showing their train of thought. I thought it was interesting but sometimes a little repetitive. For example, they use each captured perpetrator to find the next, and we hear over and over again the same arguments to make them talk. I agree the interrogations need these exchanges, but there are perhaps one too many layers in the web of criminals.

Eventually, the story settles down to just a few big fish. So there is a little more focus towards the end. The show does a good job hinting at the mastermind, keeping us in suspense before the reveal.

I’m not sure how many of the cases are based on true stories (all?)- maybe there are so many because, that way, more peoples’ stories are told. The lack of follow-up mirrors the police’s perspective in that, when one victim is recovered, it’s onto the next. The multitude of victims and criminals gives us an idea of the scope of the problem.

Still, from a narrative perspective, I would have preferred fewer stories and more in depth for each. I think it makes a better story when we can emotionally invest in characters who reappear throughout the show- whether those are the police or the victims- and follow their journeys all the way through. The Ranran case is the only one that achieves that in this show.

Acting-wise, I found Dilraba’s acting to be very natural here, I thought she did a good job. The other actors all did well too, for example the rest of the police team, the victims and their families that had to do so much crying, and especially the criminals who had to act all shifty and seedy. Imagine landing that kind of role!

Production-wise, this show seems nowhere near as polished as the dramas I’m used to. I guess it was rather low budget. I actually really liked all their clothing, very sensible. They don’t use background music that often, but it was nice when they did; I think the show would have benefited from more.

There was something weird with the sound mixing. Music would start and stop abruptly, and the sound effects, voices, background static, etc had inconsistent volume. An unverified online source said that this show uses on-set recorded sound, except for some dubbing they had to do to pass censorship. I wonder if censorship explains why everything goes so well for these police.

Overall, although this show didn't have me as emotionally invested as I would have liked, I still found it to be interesting and informative. It highlights an issue I wasn’t all that familiar with, and made me only slightly more scared to walk outside alone at night.

ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS





I found the ending really disappointing.

They do catch the final criminal (still confused how they sniped him without killing him) and everyone makes it out alive. The only notable death in this show is Officer Yin, who dies somewhere in the second half. Chang Rui’s story, which I had almost forgotten about, gets a little wrapup. And they do finally find Ranran, working in the fields of a remote village.

However, they only really show us a brief glimpse of Ranran. After that we get a bunch of pretty propaganda words and random flashbacks. A quick montage shows us that some of the victims seem to be doing well.

Ranran’s story is the central case of the show, and the lack of further detail or follow-up is a glaring omission that probably leaves every viewer staring blankly at their screen with a “wtf” look on their face. I don’t know who thought this was a good idea. If you look online you can probably find somebody justifying it as bittersweet artistic or something. But after so much emotional investment in this case, such an ending definitely left me feeling empty and unsatisfied.

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Realistic Portrayal of Anti-Trafficking Cases; No Sugar-Coating. Good Drama with a Shoddy Ending.

Originally wanted to watch for Reba stepping out of her comfort zone of pretty and taking a gritty role and it paid off. Also knew the ML and several supporting characters. This series was a heavy one but it was a very real portrayal of anti-trafficking cases, zilch sugarcoating. A good drama but sadly with a shoddy ending.

Pros: For the first time in a long time it was the storyline and plots that took center stage not the actors themselves. Yes, they were important but they took a more sideline role here. The families, victims, the stories or abduction, captivity, abuse, sometimes torture, sometimes being sold more than once, release and reunion with family, which many a time took decades as the victims they focused on were children and women. You saw the absolute destruction of families when it happened, how they treated the anti-trafficking cops with panic and then rage which was very sad to see but understandable on both sides; families were frantic while the cops could only work when and if they got clues. Those didn't magically fall from the sky.

The FL or DY has childhood trauma of her own as she watched her best friend get kidnapped when she was no more than 8 years old. 24 some odd years later she still hasn't been found. That was why she joined the police force and eventually after getting successfully kidnapped on purpose and rescued, she was promoted to director of the anti-trafficking division. She also reconnected successfully with the mom of her kidnapped best friend who ran a simple noodle shop that doubled as a place where people with missing loved ones could come, pin their photos and write loving messages on the walls, they were also a community that held meetings where they branched out new ideas. As each case came along both sets joined in sorrow and gave the division something to work with. Turned out that they were essentially taking down a massive trafficking organization from the runner ants to finally the big boss (Cripple) himself at the end. It was he that kidnapped LR or DY's best friend and he had done it himself as his first time doing this.

Many were rescued or saved throughout but not without misery and sorrow. You really sometimes cried for these victims. Some were saved quickly, others not until decades later, and some were brought back no longer living but their families were still able to say their proper goodbyes. ML was a very enigmatic character who I'll speak more about in the cons but he did have his unfortunate realization that he lost his father who drowned saving a young boy who grew up to work as one of the middlemen for this trafficking organization. It took him a while but he finally was able to come to terms with it and decide that he in fact belonged following in his father's footsteps as a cop in this particular department. Sadly, we lost one officer and an elder on duty and that was a heavy hit for the department and viewers.

DY definitely was the brains but the team came together as a whole. There wasn't a time where they just sat there twirling their thumbs. Meanwhile the focus on the families was the most important and how they coped or didn't; divorce and even suicide was attempted, thankfully thwarted. Mom of LR was such an important part of the story and really the first case; she was the rallying force behind all families in the show. And her case was the last one solved. Every family and character, protagonist or antagonist were well portrayed; I can't think of one that was extra or unnecessary. The stories varied and many things felt unreal like even deaf and mute women were not off the table or because in poorer villages it seemed like they didn't know buying a human being was illegal. OSTs, small amount of makeup on everyone leads included made it more real. The twists in the story sometimes were pretty wild.

Cons: That ending made me pretty unhappy because DY and her friend's mom were the first case of this story and after everything they went through; the pain of 24 years of not knowing and than slowly inching closer, plus with the mom diagnosed with mid-stage Alzheimer's and starting to forget people and how she made her noodles causing one costumer to get sick because she put a cleaning solution in the noodles instead of what she thought was sugar. She even made the decision to go into a nursing home for proper care; so you would think once they found LR working in some field picking onions or greenery in some godforsaken village, they would have this amazing reunion; the three of them? Nope! DY called LR's name or nickname RanRan who picked up her head and smiled as she recognized the name and DY and than the camera panned away to a propaganda meeting where DY's division got an award and she made a speech where flashbacks of all the cases they solved and the families plus the officer they lost and her making some declaration about how they would keep working to bring more families back together. It was so unnecessary and made you feel cheated for the mom, DY, and LR! The entire show, there was barely any propaganda but now when it was the least needed, they packed it on and at the worst possible time. They could have had this wonderful reunion and than ended with a short ceremony in their office like they did the first time they got that award and then end out the show with flashbacks of everyone they saved with an OST. Why not? At least it would have done the three of them justice. This was just sad and inappropriate.

I had a problem with the ML; the man has virtually no expressions. He can be yelling or laughing and his face is frozen though his eyes do run around their sockets a lot. At first I thought when I saw him in Under the Skin that that's just his character but now I've noticed that nothing changes, even in real life when I saw him on an episode of Hi6. My assumption is that he's a high functioning autistic so these are the roles he takes. I do wish they had him practicing with the movement of his face more.

Felt the last few episodes were rushed as they were trying to get the rest of the rats caught in the net especially catching "Cripple" himself and his whole running for the border halfheartedly attempting to kidnap his supposed best friend's (whom he pushed off a building; dude lived, lord knows how) wife as he's obsessed with her, than holding her hostage at knifepoint and getting taken out by a SWAT sniper. Like what even? It was smooth going until those last few episodes, you could tell the pace picked up. It was still good up until this point and that BS ending.

Would I recommend it? Yes I would. Though the subject matter was heavy, it was also very hopeful. I'm proud of Reba here; she really played DY well and showed all of the proper emotions when needed. This was a realistic show and y'all should give it a shot.

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