Surprising dose of wit and humor in a clever revenge story
The Double was one of the top hits of 2024. Everyone was raving. I was afraid it would be really dark, since it is a revenge story, but I ended up surprised by its excellent sense of humor. Don’t get me wrong, this isn’t a lighthearted story, but it’s definitely got some really funny bits.
The dialogue between the ML and FL is particularly clever and witty, and really fun to watch while you gush over them. There is a lot of wordplay and elegant speech, so unfortunately much of it is lost in translation. The language is also on the fancier side, making it harder to pick up if your Chinese isn’t as good (like mine). But translation aside, I think some of it is also hidden meanings. A lot of the dialogue felt like it had some double or triple meanings, and I felt a little dumb as I struggled to follow it all.
Both the FL and ML in this show are really admirable. I’ll refer to the FL as Xue Fang Fei (XFF), though she goes by a few things. She is brilliant, eloquent, and has her head screwed on straight. Her schemes are complicated and clever, and although she can’t control everything, she thinks quickly and always pulls through (some plot armor doesn’t hurt). There were definitely some really sad parts in the story, but I felt comforted knowing that my girl XFF would take revenge on those who deserved it.
XFF shows some strong emotions- not a robot- but she never behaves stupidly. Although the revenge is hers to take, she still acts with compassion, so I had no hesitancies about supporting her 100%. She pretty much just stands up for justice. Any of her enemies that I felt bad for, she seemed to feel a little bad for also.
I also like that she has random moments of being carefree and cheerful, reminding us that she was once a normal person and can still feel joy. Not like some archetype of a femme fatale.
For the ML… I feel like a lot of MLs are written to be as attractive as possible, like they are always handsome, smart, good fighters, supportive of FL, etc. But they really outdid themselves here- this one is a total dreamboat. Xiao Heng is lethal, capable, and composed, a mastermind playing chess (it’s a theme… XFF is smart; she won’t get used against her will).
I’m convinced that a lot of this show’s popularity is due to Xiao Heng fangirls obsessing over him. I totally get it, but also… why bother? Someone like this is way out of my league.
But you know who’s in his league? Xue Fang Fei. So while the two of them are not relatable to average mortals like me, they are such a great match, making it a delight to watch their interactions. They’re not mushy, they have some great banter and a mutual respect, and they are actually good enough for each other.
The side characters showed a lot of promise, but ultimately I was a bit disappointed. There were so many characters I’d liked to see more of- for instance, her pack of four friends- but they mostly just disappeared beyond their story arc. Even recurring characters, like the Ji boys, don’t get much development for themselves. It’s a shame that they made such likeable side characters, only to deny them any extensive stories of their own.
The villains is where I think they put more effort into making multidimensional characters- for better or for worse. It creates some complicated feelings. I personally liked this, although I wouldn’t say it made me feel good. It’s a little spoiler-y so I’ll hide my rant at the end of this review.
As an aside, this emperor is refreshing. He’s young and a real friend to our ML; even more, he’s playing politics like everyone else rather than just wielding a lot of power. This makes him a more sympathetic character than most emperors.
Plot-wise, in addition to the ongoing saga of injustice and revenge, this show relies a lot on squeal-worthy interactions between the ML and FL. These fade a bit in the last quarter or so, and the show gets darker. Like so many other shows, I enjoyed this one a little less as it was approaching its end, but the effect was not as pronounced as some others.
Acting-wise, this cast did well. Wu Jinyan looks a bit older, I think it is hard because a lot of other actors are younger. But she did well- so many lines to memorize! I also don’t think her styling was the greatest- she looks prettier as herself- but the end result was as they said in the show, “not bad looking and your own unique look”.
Many other actors did well too, but I think Wang Xingyue as Xiao Heng stood out. He is a young actor and his career is on the rise after this. He has great facial microexpressions. He also has great presence, and he does this kind of confident, commanding character well. And he did his own voice- that sexy drawl is his own! He could probably work on swordfighting a little, it wasn’t as clean and crisp as I expected.
Stylistically, the director liked to shoot close-ups of peoples’ talking heads with a sort of fisheye lens look. At first I thought he was trying to capture a certain feeling, like the viewer is a little disoriented or the person is too close to their face… but it happened so often, I think it was just director’s style. Personally I wasn’t a fan, but I got used to it.
There are also some plotholes… too many coincidences… I don’t know why I bother mentioning it; it’s every show.
ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS
I had read some other reviews which warned me I might want to ignore the second half of the last episode. But I figured it couldn’t be that bad, since there is also a 5 min special showing them happily married afterwards.
Well, the reviews were right. The ending is really wtf, like big things happening out of nowhere. The new conflict introduced was only peripherally related to the other 39.5 episodes, but it had big consequence for our beloved characters.
In the book, it’s an entire story arc, much better developed and with a better outcome. I don’t know why the show thought it was a good idea to cram it into 30 min. But on top of this, they seemed to also really want an open ending, so they forced one. IMO, it wasn’t even so much an open ending as it was incredibly confusing and leaning towards sad.
Then, for whatever reason, they tried to backpedal with a Happily Ever After special that completely doesn’t explain how we got there from the ending.
This is one of the worst endings I’ve seen, so I decided to ignore it. I read some summaries of the book ending (and am reading the book now) and will stick with that.
While I’m here, I’ll just rant a bit more about the villains. This show really spun things around in circles. I started out feeling sorry for Shen Yurong, but he kept making so many bad decisions. XFF is fair; she understood he had no choice about some things, but pointed out that he did for others. Although I disliked him by the end, I still appreciate that he is this sort of realistic character- not inherently bad, just made some bad choices that led to more bad choices.
On the other hand… both major female villains, Ji Shuran and Wanning, started out as classical archetype evil characters, not very interesting. I was ready to just hate them 100%. But this turned around too. It was an interesting choice to make them both victims of men… they made choices too, of course, a sad backstory doesn’t absolve them, but I still sympathized.
Wanning’s story in particular hit me hard. Her theme song fits so well, with its major-minor key changes. Although I’m always on XFF’s side, and Wanning was a real psychopath, I still felt that trick with the drug was pretty cruel.
The dialogue between the ML and FL is particularly clever and witty, and really fun to watch while you gush over them. There is a lot of wordplay and elegant speech, so unfortunately much of it is lost in translation. The language is also on the fancier side, making it harder to pick up if your Chinese isn’t as good (like mine). But translation aside, I think some of it is also hidden meanings. A lot of the dialogue felt like it had some double or triple meanings, and I felt a little dumb as I struggled to follow it all.
Both the FL and ML in this show are really admirable. I’ll refer to the FL as Xue Fang Fei (XFF), though she goes by a few things. She is brilliant, eloquent, and has her head screwed on straight. Her schemes are complicated and clever, and although she can’t control everything, she thinks quickly and always pulls through (some plot armor doesn’t hurt). There were definitely some really sad parts in the story, but I felt comforted knowing that my girl XFF would take revenge on those who deserved it.
XFF shows some strong emotions- not a robot- but she never behaves stupidly. Although the revenge is hers to take, she still acts with compassion, so I had no hesitancies about supporting her 100%. She pretty much just stands up for justice. Any of her enemies that I felt bad for, she seemed to feel a little bad for also.
I also like that she has random moments of being carefree and cheerful, reminding us that she was once a normal person and can still feel joy. Not like some archetype of a femme fatale.
For the ML… I feel like a lot of MLs are written to be as attractive as possible, like they are always handsome, smart, good fighters, supportive of FL, etc. But they really outdid themselves here- this one is a total dreamboat. Xiao Heng is lethal, capable, and composed, a mastermind playing chess (it’s a theme… XFF is smart; she won’t get used against her will).
I’m convinced that a lot of this show’s popularity is due to Xiao Heng fangirls obsessing over him. I totally get it, but also… why bother? Someone like this is way out of my league.
But you know who’s in his league? Xue Fang Fei. So while the two of them are not relatable to average mortals like me, they are such a great match, making it a delight to watch their interactions. They’re not mushy, they have some great banter and a mutual respect, and they are actually good enough for each other.
The side characters showed a lot of promise, but ultimately I was a bit disappointed. There were so many characters I’d liked to see more of- for instance, her pack of four friends- but they mostly just disappeared beyond their story arc. Even recurring characters, like the Ji boys, don’t get much development for themselves. It’s a shame that they made such likeable side characters, only to deny them any extensive stories of their own.
The villains is where I think they put more effort into making multidimensional characters- for better or for worse. It creates some complicated feelings. I personally liked this, although I wouldn’t say it made me feel good. It’s a little spoiler-y so I’ll hide my rant at the end of this review.
As an aside, this emperor is refreshing. He’s young and a real friend to our ML; even more, he’s playing politics like everyone else rather than just wielding a lot of power. This makes him a more sympathetic character than most emperors.
Plot-wise, in addition to the ongoing saga of injustice and revenge, this show relies a lot on squeal-worthy interactions between the ML and FL. These fade a bit in the last quarter or so, and the show gets darker. Like so many other shows, I enjoyed this one a little less as it was approaching its end, but the effect was not as pronounced as some others.
Acting-wise, this cast did well. Wu Jinyan looks a bit older, I think it is hard because a lot of other actors are younger. But she did well- so many lines to memorize! I also don’t think her styling was the greatest- she looks prettier as herself- but the end result was as they said in the show, “not bad looking and your own unique look”.
Many other actors did well too, but I think Wang Xingyue as Xiao Heng stood out. He is a young actor and his career is on the rise after this. He has great facial microexpressions. He also has great presence, and he does this kind of confident, commanding character well. And he did his own voice- that sexy drawl is his own! He could probably work on swordfighting a little, it wasn’t as clean and crisp as I expected.
Stylistically, the director liked to shoot close-ups of peoples’ talking heads with a sort of fisheye lens look. At first I thought he was trying to capture a certain feeling, like the viewer is a little disoriented or the person is too close to their face… but it happened so often, I think it was just director’s style. Personally I wasn’t a fan, but I got used to it.
There are also some plotholes… too many coincidences… I don’t know why I bother mentioning it; it’s every show.
ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS
I had read some other reviews which warned me I might want to ignore the second half of the last episode. But I figured it couldn’t be that bad, since there is also a 5 min special showing them happily married afterwards.
Well, the reviews were right. The ending is really wtf, like big things happening out of nowhere. The new conflict introduced was only peripherally related to the other 39.5 episodes, but it had big consequence for our beloved characters.
In the book, it’s an entire story arc, much better developed and with a better outcome. I don’t know why the show thought it was a good idea to cram it into 30 min. But on top of this, they seemed to also really want an open ending, so they forced one. IMO, it wasn’t even so much an open ending as it was incredibly confusing and leaning towards sad.
Then, for whatever reason, they tried to backpedal with a Happily Ever After special that completely doesn’t explain how we got there from the ending.
This is one of the worst endings I’ve seen, so I decided to ignore it. I read some summaries of the book ending (and am reading the book now) and will stick with that.
While I’m here, I’ll just rant a bit more about the villains. This show really spun things around in circles. I started out feeling sorry for Shen Yurong, but he kept making so many bad decisions. XFF is fair; she understood he had no choice about some things, but pointed out that he did for others. Although I disliked him by the end, I still appreciate that he is this sort of realistic character- not inherently bad, just made some bad choices that led to more bad choices.
On the other hand… both major female villains, Ji Shuran and Wanning, started out as classical archetype evil characters, not very interesting. I was ready to just hate them 100%. But this turned around too. It was an interesting choice to make them both victims of men… they made choices too, of course, a sad backstory doesn’t absolve them, but I still sympathized.
Wanning’s story in particular hit me hard. Her theme song fits so well, with its major-minor key changes. Although I’m always on XFF’s side, and Wanning was a real psychopath, I still felt that trick with the drug was pretty cruel.
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