High quality substance pairs with high quality delivery
It's hard not to look at the synopsis and the protagonist's actor, Bai Jingting, without thinking of 2022's Reset where he was one half of the leading pair that uses the time loop mechanism to solve a mystery. Both consist of tightly-written scripts and superb acting, but to me they are completely different stories. With Reset, the time loop is more of a narrative device that feeds information to the audience in a strategic manner, but within Mobius, the time loop is both a weapon and a game-defining parameter that the protagonist, Ding Qi, has to both master and defend against in order to win. This creates a plot with a profoundly different energy and immerses the audience into the problem-solving along with the characters.
Mobius, unlike a lot of Asian dramas, assumes its audience consists of those with high intelligence and keen observation. It helps you recall certain vital bits of information that may have been revealed earlier on, but it does not spell things out for you as if you possessed no deductive reasoning of your own. Everything fits together smoothly and flows in a logical manner.
What's incredible about the way Mobius does this is that pretty much anything the audience, as neutral observers, might think of, the script also thinks of. There's very little frustration in regards to characters being stupid and getting away with something because the writers forgot a key consequence of their own world-build.
The characters themselves feel very real despite this drama being relatively short and not the type that's focused on profound characterizations. The audience is given just enough to sympathize and wonder about all the characters without inflating anyone's importance. Everyone had believable motivations and interesting dynamics, and there are bits of humor and teasing sprinkled in which feel authentic to life rather than being inserted just to fulfill some quota. Ding Qi was a very likeable hero and I instantly rooted for him, both because of Bai Jingting's natural charisma and because the drama showed enough of his good qualities without making them feel forced. I felt invested in the story behind the mystery and everyone within it even without the flashiness of the time loop mechanic and the way this series was shot.
Having finished the show, I feel like if I were the sort that liked to rewatch stuff, I definitely would, but I'm not and it's hard for me to gauge whether mystery shows in general are the sort people tend to rewatch. I wouldn't mind rewatching with someone who hadn't seen it before, but because of the thinking aspects of some episodes, some parts might feel slow on the second runthrough, which is the only reason I lowered my rewatch score just a tiny bit. I think in terms of pacing, the show generally does very well especially for the first watch. There were only a handful of parts that felt dragged out (to fit the time quota, I assume), which I wouldn't pick on it for; ideally that shouldn't happen, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect any drama to forget about timing and duration, and for the most part when it slows down, it makes sense for it to slow down, and they serve to increase the effectiveness of the action scenes when the drama does pick up the pace again.
Overall, an incredible series that I'd argue is easily as good as any Hollywood production, if not better. I encourage anyone who hasn't seen this series to check it out!
Mobius, unlike a lot of Asian dramas, assumes its audience consists of those with high intelligence and keen observation. It helps you recall certain vital bits of information that may have been revealed earlier on, but it does not spell things out for you as if you possessed no deductive reasoning of your own. Everything fits together smoothly and flows in a logical manner.
What's incredible about the way Mobius does this is that pretty much anything the audience, as neutral observers, might think of, the script also thinks of. There's very little frustration in regards to characters being stupid and getting away with something because the writers forgot a key consequence of their own world-build.
The characters themselves feel very real despite this drama being relatively short and not the type that's focused on profound characterizations. The audience is given just enough to sympathize and wonder about all the characters without inflating anyone's importance. Everyone had believable motivations and interesting dynamics, and there are bits of humor and teasing sprinkled in which feel authentic to life rather than being inserted just to fulfill some quota. Ding Qi was a very likeable hero and I instantly rooted for him, both because of Bai Jingting's natural charisma and because the drama showed enough of his good qualities without making them feel forced. I felt invested in the story behind the mystery and everyone within it even without the flashiness of the time loop mechanic and the way this series was shot.
Having finished the show, I feel like if I were the sort that liked to rewatch stuff, I definitely would, but I'm not and it's hard for me to gauge whether mystery shows in general are the sort people tend to rewatch. I wouldn't mind rewatching with someone who hadn't seen it before, but because of the thinking aspects of some episodes, some parts might feel slow on the second runthrough, which is the only reason I lowered my rewatch score just a tiny bit. I think in terms of pacing, the show generally does very well especially for the first watch. There were only a handful of parts that felt dragged out (to fit the time quota, I assume), which I wouldn't pick on it for; ideally that shouldn't happen, but I don't think it's reasonable to expect any drama to forget about timing and duration, and for the most part when it slows down, it makes sense for it to slow down, and they serve to increase the effectiveness of the action scenes when the drama does pick up the pace again.
Overall, an incredible series that I'd argue is easily as good as any Hollywood production, if not better. I encourage anyone who hasn't seen this series to check it out!
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