The Punishment (2025)

Don't watch if you don't like police being useless and corrupt

If you come to watch this because of Johnny Huang, it's fair to warn you that his screentime is actually quite limited. Eric Wang, the antagonist, has much more screentime (70 percent more than Johnny). And Eric Wang really sucks in this role. If I were to count how many hours we get to watch nothing but Eric Wang sitting in his chair and contemplating and munching his mouth (give the man some lip moisturizer ffs) I'd say 10 mins per episode. In a 30 episode drama, well, you can count how much that amounts to.

The beginning episodes are interesting and the first arc is watchable. We get a cop desperately committing suicide as a wake up call that the police aren't doing their job investigating murders and corruption occurring in the city of Hangzhou. (And to spoil: we don't really get any results from the police and they keep being corrupt and hampering investigation until the very last episode of the whole 30 episode run).

The Punishment was supposed to build on the tragedy of brothers turning on each other and becoming enemies. But actually we get only few immersive or touching moments. The most memorable moment is when Tianye makes the decision to not turn evidence to his brother Qin Feng (JH) but instead to use it to build a criminal enterprise of his own.

We get 3 arcs of different enemies and antagonists who Tianye outwits and removes from the chess board. A lot of what happens is the antagonists talking and fighting each other. As the police make zero progress in their investigations despite their huge sad sacrifices, the rich and corrupt money and power hungry criminals keep taking down each other. Tianye turns his village's livelihood and enterprise into a crime syndicate. But somehow Qin Feng seems pretty blind all of this (something that didn't go down well with me at all).

The Punishment is like a poor man's watered down version of the Knockout. There are many similarities (too many to mention) put pls watch The Knockout instead because it really is a masterpiece. The criminals in The Knockout are interesting characters, whereas in The Punishment they are just one dimensionally disgusting mostly (and we get to spend a lot of time with them).

What I liked most in the drama was Zhang Tong as Mai. An unwavering ex-cop who never really let's go of investigating the crimes that went unpunishned, without even being on the payroll. If you want to watch a better role from Johnny, I'd recommend Lost Identity. It's so much more suspense filled and serious. 6.5

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