C-noir dramas

Absolutely amazing from start to finish. Far too unique and too great to be missed out on. The cinematography is mindblowing. The characters are just amazing, the acting is perfectly awesome. The adventures and action scenes are balanced with in-depth dialogues. People sitting down, talking and  telling their stories, having meals together. These things make this very different from the usual action-adventure dramas.  We truly get to know and care about the characters. Maybe this drama is not for the faint hearted bc the setting is a place of complete lawlessness, corruption and warfare. Some of the stories are quite dark. But this isn't actually a stressful drama to watch, more like Raiders of the Lost Ark in the midst of Apocalypse Now. Every episode we think "this is the end, there's no way they can get out this" but they always magically figure out a way to turn the tables. We get to trust that. One of the best dramas ever made.

Awesome drama. Completely unique and unpredictable. Unreliable storytelling at its finest. There are so many twists and turns that it just takes your breath away. Deep, touching and playful at the same time. No matter how experienced a noir drama watcher you are, this drama will outwit you for sure! Cinematography, acting, directing, pacing, everything is perfect. I don't remember ever having been this invested in a drama, and I've seen a few. Do not miss this gem!

A surrealistic road trip with hairraising extended gunfight duels, death defying heroism and several rounds of russian roulette. C-noir drama that is an absolutely unique masterpiece. It really doesn't get better than this.

 A son of a rich family returns to China tasked with secretly delivering 3 gold bars to the communist fighters and to find his fiance in Shanghai. During the trip, he finds guides and allies who fight on his side - and sometimes against him - as the KMT has  already acquired knowledge of his mission and targets the gold with the intention to kill those who receive it.

The main characters of the drama are Xu Tian's 5 guides, truly larger than life characters. These are portrayed by some of the best Chinese actors with immense charisma. These characters are colourful and impressive to max.  Their fearlessness has no boundaries, hence the title "Fearless Blood".  

Full review: https://kisskh.at/profile/roddib/reviews/438898

Riveting adventure sci fi drama. A train is kidnapped and the passengers find themselves fighting for survival  in a mysterious deserted town. This should be very famous indeed, it's that good. The suspense is not too heavy. This is just very enjoyable like old skool sci fi dramas. The main leads are excellent in their roles. I just love dramas with realistic heroes. Lots of interesting twists and turns. Director and writer did a fantastic job. There are plot holes but those didn't bother me at all, probably bc there's a clear direction in the plot from the beginning to the end.

Sci fi drama that is deep, meaningful and emotional. The government has decided to eliminate humanoids bc humans have begun to get too dependent on them for their various needs. The ML is a humanoid hunter who comes across various incidents that turn his philosophies around. FL is a psychologist who uses her empathy skills to handle cases. The cases are simultaneously sad and beautiful. There are twists in the drama that are unexpected but so good. The drama could have been longer to allow for more background on the creation of the humanoids. But I liked the short form and absence of filler scenes.

A fascinating, gripping drama. Psychological suspense drama done perfectly is a rare thing.  All characters were grey, which I truly appreciate.

Unusual police and crime drama. The heavy focus on aethetics and ambiance makes this different from the usual police procedural dramas. This doesn't try to be realistic and isn't, in the way the crimes are solved. The pacing is excellent. When the most interesting aspects of  a criminal or a case are revealed, the plot moves very quickly on to a new case. Much of the drama revolves around Shen Yi's thought processes and visual observations, which are very unique and fascinating. Du Cheng is the more solid bread and butter police. Their teamwork is one of the enjoyable aspects.

Producer Zhang Yiyun explained:
“Traditional crime dramas often focus on realistic styles, hardcore reasoning, and strong plots to tell stories. But we’ve been exploring how to create a non-traditional crime drama in terms of narrative style, visual aesthetics, and thematic expression. For example, we avoid overly complicated cases, gruesome criminal methods, or overly brain-twisting reasoning processes. Instead, we focus on the dramatic changes in character fates and relationships, using them as the core suspense and plot twists. The show emphasizes the emotions and humanity behind the cases.”

A very good noir crime / police drama. Not too violent or too gritty, although it touches dark themes. The police team's friendship is close to the "found family" trope, which I like always. The villains in this drama are not painted as purely bad characters, which I also appreciated. I almost wanted the main villain to be able to escape, bc we could always see the abused child in his eyes. The only thing I didn't like was the romance side plot. However, that didn't take too much time. The whole story arc was very logical and well written from start to finish.

The Bad Kids is completely unpredictable with so many twists that you really didn’t even know what to believe.  A crazy good psychological thriller with excellent child actors, suspenseful intelligent storytelling, and beautiful cinematography. Highly recommended.

An adventure drama that is intense and gripping to the max. The location and setting in the rain forest is magnificent and means a lot for the watching experience. We are practically there, in the jungle, at the deserted gold mine at the riverside, far away from roads and human habitation. The plot focuses on how the prospect of finding the big gold nugget drives people to extremes. It gets in their head, and never lets them go.  

This is  very fast paced, and I felt this could have easily been twice as long.   The editing is somewhat choppy, and the shifts between scenes often feel quite abrupt. That's why I'm only giving this 8.5. although it could have easily been 10/10 with better editing and less rushing. Yet, Gold Panning is a magnificent and realistic drama about gold fever. 

"The dark side of human nature. Everyone has it."

As the quote reveals, this is on the darker side or noir crime dramas. There's a closed room murder mystery with only 3 possible suspects. Police officer Chen who has kep himself busy guarding sheep from sandstorms and robbers is called in to reinvestigate, as not everything seems right with the previous investigation. This sets off a chain of events which ends the same scenario repeating itself. 

Chen Jiang He is delightfully temperamental but also a broken humbled man, due to an accident involving his senior police officer. He believes that patiently finding out about the lives and motives of the people surrounding the murder mystery will eventually lead to a breakthrough. We gradually get to know the families of the 3 suspects and their histories. One thing I particualrly liked about the drama is how there were no boring psycho killers. The sad incidents resulted from partly accidents, partly deceptions and selfishness. 

The plot tightens toward the end, and the last 3 episodes are particularly heartbreaking.    

The mountaineous half-desert location is very beautiful and also very harsh.  We see and almost feel the dust and sand in the air. Watching Sandstorm felt like being there. Highly recommended for friends of c-noir.

A fast paced crime & detective drama. We get attached to the 2 main characters. Zhuang Wen Jie is a Sherlock Holmes type and Captain Luo an authority but protective type. There's something fundamentally satisfactory about how well they and rest of the police work together. Entertaining and refreshing.

Exactly in my taste. Starts slowly, but gets more and more intense towards the end. This is dark but not depressing. Plenty of twists and turns that keep the suspense up troughout. We really get attached to the characters. There may be a ton of plotholes, but that didn't bother me.

A highly sophisticated crime and detective drama. The plot is fairly predictable, but there's a lot to recommend it. Cinematography,music, acting, dialogues, all of this has a pull-in power that's hard to resist. There's virtually no action, it's all about psychology. There were some Hitchcockian undertones to enjoy. I found the middle part jarring, and this would have been better if it had been 10-12 episodes. The female detective's home troubles didn't get a credible a treatment, and seemed superficial additions.

Another c-noir drama that is simply amazing. This is truly clever writing.

A sad story of wrongfully accused two brothers. A police officer working in a contention center instinctively knows they are innocent and tries to get to the bottom of what really happened. We see Du Xiang Dong courageously pedalling on his bicycle for hours on the misty mountain roads. The case strecthes for decades and Du Xiang Dong's life is always shadowed by it. The cinematography in A Life For a Life is simply breathtaking. The location and the feels it provides  always have a big role in the Light On series and for the viewing experience. This one's in a lush mountaineous region and the main settings are the prison and a steel factory. The order in which they portray the story is unusually well thought out. A dark and heartbreaking story yet I enjoyed every minute of it. Some melodramatic touches and music further underline to the arthouse-cinematic qualities of this drama.

Calmly paced, sad drama depicting the pain of families whose kids have gone missing. No action, violence, flashiness or shock effects. I love how they relied on the weight of the story alone to grab watchers. And the personalities and dedication of the police officers. This was very emotional, especially the relationship between Seven and Officer Wang was precious. This didn't end the way I expected it to, but I didn't really mind. A very good, different drama.

The charms of this drama are quite unique and difficult even to describe. The undercurrent of gentle humor is priceless. Characters are all ordinary and very sympathetic. The fall of the steel factory which affects is wellbeing of the whole town is the backbone carrying the drama. There is not much in terms of suspense or action. The murder mystery unravels slowly but intensity increases towards the end as dark incidents from the past come into light. Excellent drama.

A grim, suspense filled c-noir crime drama. Maybe these dramas are underrated because there's no flashiness; no rich people problems, no idol actors. The whole thing relies on the story and characters. The location is a middle size factory town, where the people are struggling and it rains most of the time. The main character is a young (17 years old) girl who is dead set on finding out what happened to her friend. Nothing stereotypical about the main characters. The twists and turns of the plot are completely unpredictable. You can't foreshadow anything really. I wasn't bored for a minute, I was pulled in from the start and invested in the story

A well written detective drama. Gets more and more intense as it proceeds. We think we can guess who the murderer is, but actually can't. Yet it is all very logical.  I was invested through the entire drama. The two detectives' family life is well knit together with the serials murders plot. The police team is another family in itself.  The two timelines (1997, 2010) show not just change in characters, but the whole city and its skyline. Cinematography is great.

A finely crafted crime drama with some of the best acting I've ever seen. It's a sad story of 3 childhood friends whose lives and dreams get shattered by unfortunate events, poverty and sheer bad luck. The 3 friends are so fully fleshed out as persons whose lives and circumstances get out of their own control that we don't get to judge them as either good or bad people. We try to understand them, watch them, and study them, with sympathy. Whether they had a plan or worked things out together or just deceived each other, whilst still remaining each other's closest friends, is what makes up the suspense in Let Wind Goes By. It seems like a small thing but if you're into character based dramas, this one is just fascinating.

Solidly told story with complex timelines (3). The last episodes are heartbreaking.