Interesting, but could have benefited from character development
First, how depressing is this show?
Human trafficking is a heavy topic for sure. And they wanted to focus on the victims and their families, so a large portion is devoted to telling their stories. The first child abduction story in particular goes in depth in showing how a family can fall apart after something like this, and is rather heartbreaking to watch.
That said, it IS a story about the police catching criminals and bringing them to justice, which is a good thing. And these police are remarkably successful. Their success snowballs and they catch criminal after criminal, saving victim after victim. They end up solving every case that’s introduced, even decades-old cold cases.
It doesn’t seem that realistic to me. All the outcomes seem a little too good; somehow everyone gets saved in the nick of time. Some victims, of course, have PTSD, but they are shown to be healing and/or their stories get dropped.
It bothered me a little that everything goes well, because real life isn’t like that. But at the same time, the show became much less stressful after I picked up on this pattern that things usually end up working out. It’s not all fun and games, for sure- I still cried a lot- and not everything is casualty-free. But considering its subject matter, it’s nowhere near as dark as it could be.
That aside, I was initially very interested in this show because it has a strong female lead with no romance. This means the story is actually about her as her own person (think about how rare this is in Cdramaland).
However, it ends up being not really about her at all. Deng Yan has her backstory, but it doesn’t factor too differently than any of the other cases; it’s just the biggest and most central one. There isn’t much focus on developing her character or showing her personal journey. She does seem a bit out of her depth at first, but there’s no real transition from that to being incredibly capable. At some point you just realize that she’s quite good at knowing what to do next and assigning responsibilities.
The other members of the team are all very likable, and we see them a lot, but we don’t actually get to know them that well. They’re just doing business. Chang Rui is listed as a lead, but he’s honestly just another team member- a very capable one who does some undercover work at the beginning, and gets maybe half an episode’s worth of character development, but by the middle of the show he’s already not that important.
There is no drama between team members. They’re coworkers who get along. There are some meaningful and supportive conversations between them, which I liked, but they are few. As mentioned before, no romance- which I found to be a good thing.
Although it was a conscious choice not to focus on the team’s personal stories, I think the show would have benefited from at least a little development. That would have given me something to emotionally invest in. We’re probably supposed to get an emotional hit from the victim stories, but I personally couldn’t feel too attached to any one, because there are so many. One story ends and it’s onto the next, rapid fire with little follow-up. It almost gets repetitive (they are very successful!), which might be why they stop showing the rescues after awhile. Instead, we are simply informed that so and so was found.
The other part of the plot is police solving crimes. It’s rather procedural, eg lots of interrogations at the police station, or team meetings showing their train of thought. I thought it was interesting but sometimes a little repetitive. For example, they use each captured perpetrator to find the next, and we hear over and over again the same arguments to make them talk. I agree the interrogations need these exchanges, but there are perhaps one too many layers in the web of criminals.
Eventually, the story settles down to just a few big fish. So there is a little more focus towards the end. The show does a good job hinting at the mastermind, keeping us in suspense before the reveal.
I’m not sure how many of the cases are based on true stories (all?)- maybe there are so many because, that way, more peoples’ stories are told. The lack of follow-up mirrors the police’s perspective in that, when one victim is recovered, it’s onto the next. The multitude of victims and criminals gives us an idea of the scope of the problem.
Still, from a narrative perspective, I would have preferred fewer stories and more in depth for each. I think it makes a better story when we can emotionally invest in characters who reappear throughout the show- whether those are the police or the victims- and follow their journeys all the way through. The Ranran case is the only one that achieves that in this show.
Acting-wise, I found Dilraba’s acting to be very natural here, I thought she did a good job. The other actors all did well too, for example the rest of the police team, the victims and their families that had to do so much crying, and especially the criminals who had to act all shifty and seedy. Imagine landing that kind of role!
Production-wise, this show seems nowhere near as polished as the dramas I’m used to. I guess it was rather low budget. I actually really liked all their clothing, very sensible. They don’t use background music that often, but it was nice when they did; I think the show would have benefited from more.
There was something weird with the sound mixing. Music would start and stop abruptly, and the sound effects, voices, background static, etc had inconsistent volume. An unverified online source said that this show uses on-set recorded sound, except for some dubbing they had to do to pass censorship. I wonder if censorship explains why everything goes so well for these police.
Overall, although this show didn't have me as emotionally invested as I would have liked, I still found it to be interesting and informative. It highlights an issue I wasn’t all that familiar with, and made me only slightly more scared to walk outside alone at night.
ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS
I found the ending really disappointing.
They do catch the final criminal (still confused how they sniped him without killing him) and everyone makes it out alive. The only notable death in this show is Officer Yin, who dies somewhere in the second half. Chang Rui’s story, which I had almost forgotten about, gets a little wrapup. And they do finally find Ranran, working in the fields of a remote village.
However, they only really show us a brief glimpse of Ranran. After that we get a bunch of pretty propaganda words and random flashbacks. A quick montage shows us that some of the victims seem to be doing well.
Ranran’s story is the central case of the show, and the lack of further detail or follow-up is a glaring omission that probably leaves every viewer staring blankly at their screen with a “wtf” look on their face. I don’t know who thought this was a good idea. If you look online you can probably find somebody justifying it as bittersweet artistic or something. But after so much emotional investment in this case, such an ending definitely left me feeling empty and unsatisfied.
Human trafficking is a heavy topic for sure. And they wanted to focus on the victims and their families, so a large portion is devoted to telling their stories. The first child abduction story in particular goes in depth in showing how a family can fall apart after something like this, and is rather heartbreaking to watch.
That said, it IS a story about the police catching criminals and bringing them to justice, which is a good thing. And these police are remarkably successful. Their success snowballs and they catch criminal after criminal, saving victim after victim. They end up solving every case that’s introduced, even decades-old cold cases.
It doesn’t seem that realistic to me. All the outcomes seem a little too good; somehow everyone gets saved in the nick of time. Some victims, of course, have PTSD, but they are shown to be healing and/or their stories get dropped.
It bothered me a little that everything goes well, because real life isn’t like that. But at the same time, the show became much less stressful after I picked up on this pattern that things usually end up working out. It’s not all fun and games, for sure- I still cried a lot- and not everything is casualty-free. But considering its subject matter, it’s nowhere near as dark as it could be.
That aside, I was initially very interested in this show because it has a strong female lead with no romance. This means the story is actually about her as her own person (think about how rare this is in Cdramaland).
However, it ends up being not really about her at all. Deng Yan has her backstory, but it doesn’t factor too differently than any of the other cases; it’s just the biggest and most central one. There isn’t much focus on developing her character or showing her personal journey. She does seem a bit out of her depth at first, but there’s no real transition from that to being incredibly capable. At some point you just realize that she’s quite good at knowing what to do next and assigning responsibilities.
The other members of the team are all very likable, and we see them a lot, but we don’t actually get to know them that well. They’re just doing business. Chang Rui is listed as a lead, but he’s honestly just another team member- a very capable one who does some undercover work at the beginning, and gets maybe half an episode’s worth of character development, but by the middle of the show he’s already not that important.
There is no drama between team members. They’re coworkers who get along. There are some meaningful and supportive conversations between them, which I liked, but they are few. As mentioned before, no romance- which I found to be a good thing.
Although it was a conscious choice not to focus on the team’s personal stories, I think the show would have benefited from at least a little development. That would have given me something to emotionally invest in. We’re probably supposed to get an emotional hit from the victim stories, but I personally couldn’t feel too attached to any one, because there are so many. One story ends and it’s onto the next, rapid fire with little follow-up. It almost gets repetitive (they are very successful!), which might be why they stop showing the rescues after awhile. Instead, we are simply informed that so and so was found.
The other part of the plot is police solving crimes. It’s rather procedural, eg lots of interrogations at the police station, or team meetings showing their train of thought. I thought it was interesting but sometimes a little repetitive. For example, they use each captured perpetrator to find the next, and we hear over and over again the same arguments to make them talk. I agree the interrogations need these exchanges, but there are perhaps one too many layers in the web of criminals.
Eventually, the story settles down to just a few big fish. So there is a little more focus towards the end. The show does a good job hinting at the mastermind, keeping us in suspense before the reveal.
I’m not sure how many of the cases are based on true stories (all?)- maybe there are so many because, that way, more peoples’ stories are told. The lack of follow-up mirrors the police’s perspective in that, when one victim is recovered, it’s onto the next. The multitude of victims and criminals gives us an idea of the scope of the problem.
Still, from a narrative perspective, I would have preferred fewer stories and more in depth for each. I think it makes a better story when we can emotionally invest in characters who reappear throughout the show- whether those are the police or the victims- and follow their journeys all the way through. The Ranran case is the only one that achieves that in this show.
Acting-wise, I found Dilraba’s acting to be very natural here, I thought she did a good job. The other actors all did well too, for example the rest of the police team, the victims and their families that had to do so much crying, and especially the criminals who had to act all shifty and seedy. Imagine landing that kind of role!
Production-wise, this show seems nowhere near as polished as the dramas I’m used to. I guess it was rather low budget. I actually really liked all their clothing, very sensible. They don’t use background music that often, but it was nice when they did; I think the show would have benefited from more.
There was something weird with the sound mixing. Music would start and stop abruptly, and the sound effects, voices, background static, etc had inconsistent volume. An unverified online source said that this show uses on-set recorded sound, except for some dubbing they had to do to pass censorship. I wonder if censorship explains why everything goes so well for these police.
Overall, although this show didn't have me as emotionally invested as I would have liked, I still found it to be interesting and informative. It highlights an issue I wasn’t all that familiar with, and made me only slightly more scared to walk outside alone at night.
ENDING – READ AHEAD ONLY IF YOU WANT TO KNOW, CONTAINS SPOILERS
I found the ending really disappointing.
They do catch the final criminal (still confused how they sniped him without killing him) and everyone makes it out alive. The only notable death in this show is Officer Yin, who dies somewhere in the second half. Chang Rui’s story, which I had almost forgotten about, gets a little wrapup. And they do finally find Ranran, working in the fields of a remote village.
However, they only really show us a brief glimpse of Ranran. After that we get a bunch of pretty propaganda words and random flashbacks. A quick montage shows us that some of the victims seem to be doing well.
Ranran’s story is the central case of the show, and the lack of further detail or follow-up is a glaring omission that probably leaves every viewer staring blankly at their screen with a “wtf” look on their face. I don’t know who thought this was a good idea. If you look online you can probably find somebody justifying it as bittersweet artistic or something. But after so much emotional investment in this case, such an ending definitely left me feeling empty and unsatisfied.
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