Dead End (2025)

Justice takes a detour down a blind alley.

Dead End is a solid iQiyi Light On crime drama. It explores themes similar to Tencent’s critically acclaimed The Long Season (2023) but fails to achieve the same narrative impact. In 2012, records officer Gan E comes across a case that uncannily reminds him of the "Alley Killer"—a cold serial case from 1994 that has haunted him for eighteen years. He reconnects with his mentor, Ran Xi, who has long since aged into a role training police dogs. Together, they try to get the case reopened, hoping that immense technological advances will finally help crack a mystery that is personal to them both.

The narrative alternates between past and present, but the mystery plot takes a long time to reveal itself. The focus is instead on how the changing times of the 1990s affected life in Beijing’s hutongs, where everyone seemed to know everything and yet nothing about each other. Leaking roof and all, Ran Xi loved the hutong way of life and his connection with its residents, resisting his wife’s efforts to relocate to more impersonal modern lodgings. The drama incisively explores the social issues of the day: burgeoning sexual openness, increasing opportunities for women, the stigma of mental illness, suffocating familial pressure from authoritarian parents, and the gradual breakdown of the traditional family unit.

Although this exploration of social themes digresses from the main plot, the character vignettes are portrayed with such a terrific sense of poignant humor and irony that I didn’t mind. I really love how Liao Fan conveys dark comedy, and I came—and stayed—for that. Liu Lin surprised me; she always plays the tough nut so well that I didn’t expect her to be this funny. This was my first time seeing Yin Fang, and I enjoyed his chemistry with Liao Fan. The drama boasts an impressive cast that elevates the storytelling.

Yet, caught in the labyrinthine network of alleyways where the killer stalked his prey, justice takes a detour down a blind alley. By the time the narrative shifts back to the murder plot, I had long forgotten most of the details. Despite a chilling soliloquy from the killer, who hid in plain sight, the crime and its solution felt like an afterthought.

While I appreciated the social commentary, the resolution left a bad taste in my mouth. So much suffering could have been avoided if one selfish, ungrateful, and cowardly person—incapable of empathy or reciprocating affection—had spoken up and given everyone closure years earlier. I loathed this character so much I wished the killer had shoved them down a well instead.

Even though Ran Xi and Gan E got their closure, the unnecessary collateral damage ruined the story for me. As such, I can only rate this a 7.5/10.

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