viraleksa

Let go of the past or drown in it

I decided to watch because of Dou Xiao (Shawn Dou) being in a leading role. He is a really talented actor that I first came to know from his amazing role in Princess Agents as Yan Xun gege. However unfortunately he has previously had several roles in dramas that were not really super good, the plots and directing were not excellent, he deserved better. Lately he has been having much better roles that allow the viewers to see his skills and talent (The Lichi Road, small role, but still awesome; Kill My Sins, lead role, very good). After watching this drama I am happy he got yet another role and drama that allowed him to show off and to stretch his scope. This was first of his roles I have watched where he plays the bad guy. I felt a bit uneasy seeing him in such a role, but soon enough he swept me away with incredible acting and impeccable interpretation of his role. He manages to make the viewer understand him and even care about him, feel the heart ache for him, even though he is at the same time extremely evil. This is something that only an excellent actor or actress can achieve.

I am also happy to have gotten to know a new Chinese actor through this drama, Duan Yi Hong, who plays the other male lead. He immediately became a favorite actor, absolutely genius acting. He really brings to life his character with all the little details he shows, characteristics and habits of his that make his role feel so realistic and geniously explain what it is like for him to be this weird criminal study genius who can understand the minds of the criminals and easily notice things others miss and this way catch the criminals who otherwise would slip through the police's fingers. Very pleasant to watch him acting, and his relationship with his ex-wife was just the cherry on the cake for me, the couple that were divorced but yet still loved each other and kept being drawn back to each other in the middle of all the investigation and dangers without being annoying or stealing away from the main plot.

I noticed some comments in the comment section saying viewers were confused by the plot and found it difficult to understand. I myself had no such problems, maybe because I've watched so many crime dramas and movies before, so I find it easy to follow even a complicated case depicted in a crime drama. I would recommend watching this in one go or almost in one go, maybe within a couple of days, so the plot stays fresh in your mind and it is easier to remember and keep in mind what happened, so as to not get confused. This does require using those brain cells in your head, you need to pay attention and follow closely to form a full perspective of what's going on. It's not really a lazy half hearted watch while at the same time doing something else or a drama where you can just skip scenes and still easily follow the plot.

SPOILER ALERT, DO NOT CONTINUE IF YOU DO NOT WISH TO KNOW THE PLOT!
Here come spoilers, so if anyone finds it difficult to follow the plot, one can read this and better understand:

Back in the day a boy called Xu Jing Zhi got kidnapped and given a new name, Lu Yuan, as he was sold to a family that already had a younger boy named Lu Ran. They encountered bad things, but kept each other company and had a brotherly connection. Lu Ran's mother was a kidnapped lady herself, and had gotten pregnant with Lu Ran after being molested by her kidnapper, who was also Lu Ran's father. With such a beginning, Lu Ran did not experience love at home. His father was an evil criminal, his mother hated him because of how he got concieved, him being a constant reminder to her of her sufferings. After some time had passed, the intelligent boy Xu Jing Zhi (aka Lu Yuan) found a way to escape. Unfortunately he could not manage to save Lu Ran and take him with him but was forced to leave him in that disfunctional family, as he himself was rescued and brought back to his family.

Xu Jing Zhi had done everything he could to help catch the human traffickers, drawing their faces for the police. He kept coming to the police station trying to ask for help for Lu Ran, but other than Lu Ran's father, the human traffickers were not caught, and Lu Ran's nightmare continued. As his father was in prison, Lu Ran then grew up with his mother who took out all her anger and resentment on him torturing him psychologically and emotionally.

Xu Jing Zhi, affected by his kidnapping experience as a child, grew up into a very intelligent man and applied to the police academy ending up being a detective. He kept in touch with Lu Ran, trying to teach him and guide him. Unfortunately Lu Ran had grown in such a crooked environment that despite of Xu Jing Zhi's care he started to become twisted already at a young age. While Xu Jing Zhi was interested in crimes from the perspective of catching criminals and preventing crime, Lu Ran took interest in his "older brother's" Xu Jing Zhi's notes and studies about crimes as a way to learn how to commit perfect crimes.

One time as a young boy Lu Ran realises his mother's hatred towards him has gotten to the point that she actually wants him gone for good by trying to poison him to death. The viewers never find out if this suspicion of Lu Ran's was true or if it was the product of his tortured twisted mind, however, it was real for him. Something then happens that leads to Lu Ran's mother's death. Xu Jing Zhi is called to the scene by Lu Ran. With his intelligence he notices small little hints and details that something is off but he is unable to piece the truth together because of his personal attachement to Lu Ran. The case becomes his obsession for years, leading even to his divorce from his detective wife, as his own mental health started to suffer and he began to see paralysingly disabilitating nightmares, even when awake. Lu Ran picks up on the fact that Xu Jing Zhi saw something about the death of his mother that didn't fit the official explanation, and finally decides to go abroad to study to get away from him.

While abroad, Lu Ran's mind keeps getting more twisted, as he realizes he is good at noticing people with dark secrets and desires and manipulating them into doing what he wants them to do. From the university he finds a suicidal student, and manipulates him into allowing him to switch identities with him after he has switched the data of their DNA's with each other. The official story is Lu Ran has died abroad even though it was the suicidal student Zhuang Ming Cheng, and after finishing his studies, the one who returns to China is now called Zhuang Ming Cheng, even though he is actually Lu Ran.

Obsessed with his past, unable to escape the cage in his mind, Zhuang Ming Cheng aka Lu Ran begans hunting down everyone who he wants to pay for his sufferings. He often seems to be a good samaritan, helping other suffering people, even rescuing sometimes someone, but everything he ever does is motivated by his incredibly strong need for revenge. In his mind, Xu Jing Zhi is a brother to him, someone he needs and loves, the only one who ever cared about him and the only one who ever made him feel safe, but also someone he blames for leaving him behind, feeling that he should be punished for abandoning him. He doesn't understand love, only obsession, and he finds ways to get close to Xu Jing Zhi and following him around, as if playing a game with him.

Zhuang Ming Cheng (Lu Ran) orchestrates elaborate crimes through manipulating other people to work for him. Xu Jing Zhi returns to the police force to help with the peculiar cases with his keen insight. Xu Jing Zhi follows the trail left behind by Zhuang Ming Cheng, who uncovers the evidence of the crimes committed by the human traffickers leading the police to catch them, and for a while it almost seems like he is helping the police and doing good deeds. That illusion does not last long, as he intentionally leads Xu Jing Zhi to uncover his real identity, wanting to pull him into his world of revenge with him and give him his acceptance despite of the choices he has made. He longs for Xu Jing Zhi's unconditional family love but when he can not get it due to Xu Jing Zhi having a conscience and rejecting him (telling him he is not his brother), Zhuang Ming Cheng finally snaps and attacks Xu Jing Zhi, and then later kills someone innocent as collateral damage, abandoning entirely any and all concepts of right and wrong. He tries to push Xu Jing Zhi into choosing between him and his ex-wife, and the confrontation escalates until finally Xu Jing Zhi finds a way to get through to him.

The story highlights the need of caring loving adults in the lives of young children to help them grow right and prevent their minds from being broken. At first, it seems that Xu Jing Zhi and Lu Ran experienced the same bad thing happening to them as children, but later one realises that Lu Ran went through much worse than Xu Jing Zhi ever did, starting from his identity being the product of a sexual assault and the target of his mother's bitter hatred, all the way to Xu Jing Zhi getting rescued and taken away from the nightmare whereas Lu Ran felt completely abandoned even by the one person who promised to be there for him. Xu Jing Zhi himself later mentions, that he had thought perhaps Lu Ran could come around and let go of his past just like he had until he realized that Lu Ran never had the opportunities and the good adults around him to allow him to be pulled out of the darkness.

The story also asks the question, whether Lu Ran really ever even had a choice, or if he was inevitable going to end up becoming the criminal master mind that he became. He constantly drowns into his past sufferings, unable to move on, stuck in the injustices and self-destructing his own life. Despite of the horrific incidents happening, Xu Jing Zhi manages to find a way out of his nightmares and back to his beloved wife. Finally, it seems like everyone else also eventually finds some sort of peace, as the criminals are brought to justice and punished for what they did. However, whether it was revenge or letting go of the past that more effectively brought the victims closure remains unclear.

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Glad I watched it despite low MDL ratings

I've watched (from start to finish, I might add) so many C dramas that sometimes even if the drama was pretty decent I get bored because the dramas can often repeat very similar storylines and have a lot of cliches in them. Perhaps that's why I was positively surprised when I watched this one because it definitely was not what I expected and gave me a nice change in the middle of the usual same old plots of C dramas.

I will first address the poor quality of the subtitles, then get into the story itself:

I understand that as international fans - especially if one is not fluent in reading Chinese characters and understanding Mandarin Chinese - the subtitles become very important and get an even bigger role than what they are supposed to. When choosing a drama to watch and while watching it, the choice what to watch and the ability to enjoy the acting and the plot shouldn't be dominated by whether or not the subtitles were good enough. After all, the point should be how well the actors are acting, how well the drama was directed and how well the story was written. However, watching something in a language you do not understand can be extremely exhausting. Many watch dramas to relax, perhaps after a stressful and tiring day of work. So, having to put in so much effort to understand what the characters are saying in order to follow the story is truly asking a bit too much.

This is why I understand why many give a low rating here on MDL just because of the poor quality subtitles. I wish Mango TV would make a change in this matter soon. This isn't the first, the second, or even tenth time I've come across people commenting on MDL how they will skip a drama because it is Mango TV drama and has horrendous subtitles. That is such a shame, especially if the drama itself would've been enjoyable but gets passed because of, well, technical issues.

But worse than the poor subtitles is that Mango TV would release a drama with absolutely below the bar audio. This affected my viewing experience much more than the subtitle issue. If I am watching a drama, I expect that the drama is a finished work. And if it is a finished work, I expect it to be of good quality, precisely technically. This drama has a huge issue, since the audio of the characters speaking and surrounding voices will disappear every now and then during the drama. The music comes and goes very mystically; I wonder what on earth went wrong with the recording of the audio? Is the person or persons who were responsible even professionals? Or do they deliberately damage the audio for when they release it on a YouTube channel? It's not the first C drama I've come across with this peculiar problem.

I watched this on YouTube on MangoTV Short Play channel, and just for your information if anyone else plans to watch, the episodes were in the wrong order on the list, they were not arranged chronologically which will cause some annoying misunderstandings and problems with the timeline. I unfortunately did not notice this until I had already watched almost all of the drama! I just thought maybe the drama has a weird flow where they jump backwards and forwards. I am considering making my own list for this drama and posting it here in case there are others who would like to watch this, so that this will not happen to them, and they can watch in the intended order.

I started studying Chinese some years ago. By now, I understand already some basic conversations and vocabulary. Maybe that's why I didn't pay so much attention on the subtitles as others and just kept going forward with watching it because I was able to keep up with the plot and understand what was going on. The subtitles aren't that bad when they are there (except for calling the little girl Beckham!) but they sometimes disappear entirely in a few episodes and at least in one episode the video, the subtitles and the audio are not timed correctly, so you will see the video and hear the audio but the correct subtitles appear later to the screen making it hard to follow that episode. Luckily, it doesn't happen in every episode.

Now, to the storyline itself. WARNING: THIS WILL CONTAIN SPOILERS!
I will explain the plot quite a lot so if you do not wish to know and want to be surprised, do not continue reading forward. However, I will leave the ultimate finishing surprise unrevealed, so if you want to know what happens in the end, you will have to watch the drama yourself.

So, the atmosphere of the drama is mysterious, a bit creepy and dangerous. The feeling of something is off and something is going on, and we the viewers are being brought to look for clues with the main character Gu Shi Yu played by actress Lin Zi Lin. In my opinion she does a phenomenal job with portraying her character, it is not over the top, nonsensical and is quite enjoyable and relatable to watch. From how the drama is presented at the very beginning, the expectation is built that this is going to be a tragic, dangerous love triangle story about betrayal of lovers with elements of a crime drama. They get you hooked and because of the expectation, you follow through and fully expect this to be what you will be watching.

Gu Shi Yu has a steady relationship with businessman Li Jun played by Huang Tao. They have a young daughter Xiao Bei together (played bu Du Sun Yu Yu), live in a nice house. However Gu Shi Yu is haunted by fragmented memories of something bad that had happened. It was explained to her that she was in a car accident and as a result has partially lost her memories. She visits a psychiatrist who watches over her mental health and medicates her. Family life isn't as wonderful as it should be, something is off. Li Jun has not married her and it creates friction and doubts in Gu Shi Yu's mind. The viewer is made to believe that her viewpoint is the truth of what is going on. She is suspicious and troubled. Through her nightmares and flashbacks of memories we see that something more happened than just a car crash. And now weird things are happening in her home. A ghost perhaps?

Li Jun assures her it's nothing, everything is fine, downplaying and belittling Gu Shi Yu's anxiety and observations. This further arouses her doubts and she starts to fear Li Jun is hiding things from her. Has he done something bad? Meanwhile a reporter is also snooping around and aids the viewers of the drama to gather bits and pieces of what must have happened in the past and what could really be going on in their house and relationship. Despite Li Jun's assurances, Gu Shi Yu is not convinced by him and starts to dig into matters, slowly finding pieces of clues here and there. The viewer starts to build a picture in their head that this Li Jun guy is not good at all and that she is in big trouble. Some intruder seems to be appearing in the house every now and then and disappears just as fast. This rocks Gu Shi Yu's already unstable mind even more. Also Xiao Bei has issues, refusing to speak, getting scared, crying and not wanting her mom to leave her. Grandma doesn't trust Gu Shi Yu and wants to take the child away, which makes her think she despises her, which is not the case.

One day Gu Shi Yu incidentally meets a man who calls himself Qin Zheng, played by Cheng Lei, who seems very caring and kind. Especially since things are not so rosy with her partner Li Jun, Qin Zheng's presence seems appealing to Gu Shi Yu. At first, Qin Zheng's approaches are innocent and he seems to encourage her and understand her in a wonderful way. This is what she has been missing. Then however, Qin Zheng seems to be advicing her to leave Li Jun, saying he doesn't deserve her, quite clearly indicating that he also has feelings for her and wants her for himself. She is offered a chance to become a concert pianist traveling around the world, and at first she consideres it, since Li Jun and his mother have taken Xiao Bei away from her. At the last moment she can't do it and she returns home to Li Jun and Xiao Bei leaving the seemingly disappointed Qin Zheng behind.

However things do not get better but worse. After Gu Shi Yu sneaks into Li Jun's locked room in the house, Li Jun confesses to her that he was married before and that the woman Gu Shi Yu thought he was having an affair with is actually his ex wife. Finally Gu Shi Yu regains her full memories of the night of the accident and realizes it is she and not Li Jun who has done something horrible, something criminal to someone who looks exactly like Li Jun's ex. The guilt weighs on her and she confesses to Li Jun planning to turn herself in to the police. Surprisingly, Li Jun takes her into custody locking her up in an insane asylum. Now she has completely lost her trust in him. She cleverly manages to escape custody and finds her way to Qin Zheng's home. Qin Zheng comforts her and now reveals his emotions towards her asking her to give him a chance. Her love for her daughter prevents her from giving in and she plans on going to the police station to take responsibility.

Right in front of the station she is shocked by seeing Li Jun's ex alive and well passing by. She follows her finding out she went to Li Jun's company. This leads her to believe Li Jun had planned and orchestrated everything with this lady to get Gu Shi Yu out of the way and replace her as Xiao Bei's mother. She confronts the lady at her house letting her know that she is fully aware of what's going on. For some odd reason, the lady doesn't recognize her at all, neither does she know what Gu Shi Yu is talking about. Things escalate and end badly. Suddenly, Qin Zheng arrives at the house and takes the passed out Gu Shi Yu away with him to his own house. Still, she doesn't suspect a thing, not even when he keeps her in the basement behind a locked door.

Ultimately Gu Shi Yu finds out not even Qin Zheng can be trusted as she finds out he works in the same company as Li Jun. It dawns on her even Qin Zheng is in on it, whatever 'it' exactly is. As she tries to get out of the room, all of a sudden the door is opened by a mysterious person not revealed to the viewers and she escapes. Who helped her and why? When she runs out, she realizes this is the very house of the intruder who has been tormenting her with slipping in and out of her home leaving threatening messages and moving things around to scare her. She returns in the house and looks around, finding this person has been monitoring her home through cameras installed in her very own home. She contacts her best friend telling her everything and saying she is going to end it all. Now the viewers are let in on the true secret that EVERYONE around Gu Shi Yu is in on 'it': the best friend, the psychiatrist, the boyfriend, the intruder pretending to be Qin Zheng who is actually called Dr. Chang, everyone. What is going on?

Gu Shi Yu returns home, preparing to face Li Jun, who runs home worried after being alerted by one of the people who are in on what ever is going on. Distraught Gu Shi Yu is preparing a meal for Li Jun but is not being careful with whatever is boiling on the stove. The feeling of danger increases. Li Jun and Gu Shi Yu argue. He offers yet another unsatisfying so-called explanation of what is going on. Meanwhile Gu Shi Yu is fully convinced of her own theory that Li Jun has betrayed her getting his ex-wife and this Qin Zheng guy to deceive her, just so Li Jun could get rid of her for good. She first seems to threaten Li Jun but then on herself. Li Jun stops her at the last moment promising to tell the truth, finally. She follows Li Jun out of the kitchen leaving the boiling kettle overflowing on the stove. Obviously, this will not end well.

Li Jun reveals the truth of who Xiao Bei actually is. This comes as a complete shock to her. But that does not compare to the really big secret Li Jun has been hiding. With the click of a button he opens up a pair of sliding doors hiding behind it a secret storage room. Now the whole truth of Li Jun's ex wife is also revealed. But Gu Shi Yu has no time to process the revelation because a major accident occurs and the house is set on fire, instantly engulfed in flames. While trying to save Xiao Bei and Li Jun's mother, Li Jun is unsuccessful but Gu Shi Yu succeeds. The fire collapses a wall behind her, revealing yet another secret room, now making everything crystal clear to her. Now she knows everything. What happens next, I will not share, watch for yourselves.

The drama now enters a surprising ending, revealing a jaw dropping plot twist. Suddenly the whole story and everything that has happened and what people said makes complete sense to the viewers. Suddenly, everyone's true colors are revealed, and nothing is what it seems. A love triangle? A crime story? Think again. They leave you with a troublesome question about humanity and the true nature of people. The very last seconds of the drama are mysterious, hinting that it isn't quite over.

I recommend for everyone to watch for themselves. At least for me it was an enjoyable ending. The plot was quite good, it held water and stuck together all the way to the end. Yes, it was a bit out there, kinda quirky, but sometimes it's nice to have something different. Eat a dragon fruit once instead of the same old apple. Actors did a pretty decent job, Lin Zi Lin, Cheng Lei, Shao Zhuang, even Du Sun Yu Yu did well (in comparison, just finished watching another drama with a child actor who they could not get to cry in the crying scene so they had to not show the child's face and just record fake crying sounds to the scene). Huang Tao was a bit rigid and could have expressed a bit more emotions, but then again, in real life too, not everyone is super emotional and expressive, so I will just take it as his character was meant to be a bit aloof, cold and reserved. Rewatch value for me is low, but then again, I usually don't rewatch dramas a lot, I'm always chasing the next one. Music was just okay, nothing special about it.

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