This review may contain spoilers
Sets, costumes, music. It's standard for Chinese dramas, meaning very high quality. The fights are superb, with all the swirling fabrics and blades slicing through the air. And then killing by piercing the body with wires is inventive and very beautiful visually. (My God, what am I saying ?) The first two episodes follow a frenetic pace, after which things calm down a bit, but it maintains its framing, slow motion, high-energy inserts, mini-flashbacks, etc. (Long-focus close-ups, on the other hand, are still illegal. Forbidden !) The most frenzied conspiracy in history. And the editing doesn't give you a second's respite. Great art.
There is virtually only one woman in this world, the fierce Zhong Xueman, but on the other hand there are many men obsessed with Xiao Beiming, the “wanted detective”. Men who are extremely devoted or willing to do anything to find him and prove that he is not dead, lost as they are in imagining him gone. Lost to the point of dreaming about him, in a friendly way, of course. These Chinese dramas and their queer baiting are trying; we suspect that they can't do any more, but still, it's trying. Do or do not.
Xiang Hanzhi, aka Xueman, looks very young, and it's quite strange to see a character like hers evolve in this world of men as an equal. That said, the actress is very good in her role as an invincible fighter.
The Mission Impossible-style masks are brilliant ! And very practical. They quickly abandon them, too. You never know what to do with them. Apart from that, the humour is sparse but always effective; we would have liked to see more of these scenes.
There are some minor oddities worth noting, such as Xiao Beiming, who is too ill to move in one episode, then jumps in to save his friends in the next ; and at one point he has to hide or risk being identified and put in prison, but ends up walking around freely among the crowd. Quantum camouflage. Then, when he is taken prisoner, he walks around everywhere with his hands cuffed, but he gives instructions to his former fellow inspectors, which is funny. In France, we have a former president (a scumbag) who was sentenced to wear an electronic tag to avoid rotting in prison like everyone else, but because it annoyed him and he didn't respect any of the restrictions (being at home after 10 p.m.), the courts decided to take it away. Take a leaf out of his book, Xiao Beiming.
It's a shame about the slump in the middle, as episodes 17-18 are more like summaries of the story than anything else. After that, it picks up again, at its own pace, with numerous reminders of where we are in the investigation. So this is not a series to binge-watch, as I did. The series loses momentum towards the end. What a shame. I was a huge fan of the first half.
There is virtually only one woman in this world, the fierce Zhong Xueman, but on the other hand there are many men obsessed with Xiao Beiming, the “wanted detective”. Men who are extremely devoted or willing to do anything to find him and prove that he is not dead, lost as they are in imagining him gone. Lost to the point of dreaming about him, in a friendly way, of course. These Chinese dramas and their queer baiting are trying; we suspect that they can't do any more, but still, it's trying. Do or do not.
Xiang Hanzhi, aka Xueman, looks very young, and it's quite strange to see a character like hers evolve in this world of men as an equal. That said, the actress is very good in her role as an invincible fighter.
The Mission Impossible-style masks are brilliant ! And very practical. They quickly abandon them, too. You never know what to do with them. Apart from that, the humour is sparse but always effective; we would have liked to see more of these scenes.
There are some minor oddities worth noting, such as Xiao Beiming, who is too ill to move in one episode, then jumps in to save his friends in the next ; and at one point he has to hide or risk being identified and put in prison, but ends up walking around freely among the crowd. Quantum camouflage. Then, when he is taken prisoner, he walks around everywhere with his hands cuffed, but he gives instructions to his former fellow inspectors, which is funny. In France, we have a former president (a scumbag) who was sentenced to wear an electronic tag to avoid rotting in prison like everyone else, but because it annoyed him and he didn't respect any of the restrictions (being at home after 10 p.m.), the courts decided to take it away. Take a leaf out of his book, Xiao Beiming.
It's a shame about the slump in the middle, as episodes 17-18 are more like summaries of the story than anything else. After that, it picks up again, at its own pace, with numerous reminders of where we are in the investigation. So this is not a series to binge-watch, as I did. The series loses momentum towards the end. What a shame. I was a huge fan of the first half.
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