The Rebel is basically a beautifully made third-rate telenovela disguised as a prestige spy drama.
I wrote a comment after episode 14 saying that almost everything about this series was excellent except for one minor detail: the plot. Having now finished all 43 episodes, I can report that the situation did not substantially improve.
This is what makes The Rebel so frustrating. It had great potential. It looks wonderful. The period atmosphere is convincing, the production is polished, the cast is good — although, to be fair, most of the roles do not require extraordinary acting skills — and individual episodes can be genuinely tense. I was rarely bored while actually watching an episode.
The problem appears when you step back and ask the dangerous question: what has actually changed?
For enormous stretches of the series, the answer is: surprisingly little.
Characters discover something, almost expose someone, almost change sides, almost understand what is happening — and then the script finds a way to reset the board so that everybody can continue being suspicious for another few episodes.
Episode 24 contains perhaps the purest example. Lin finally obtains a witness who can directly implicate Wang. This should be a major turning point. So what does our supposedly talented intelligence officer do?
He effectively delivers the witness straight into Wang's hands.
And Wang, without hesitation, in front of Lin, puts a bullet in the man's head.
Problem solved.
For Wang, anyway.
And Wang is another problem. By then, both Lin and Gu have more than enough reason to understand that something is seriously wrong with him. Yet the series repeatedly behaves as though everybody has developed selective amnesia. Information exists when the plot needs tension and disappears when acting on it would make the story move too quickly.
Chen Moqun may be the greatest waste of all. He begins as the strongest characters in the drama: intelligent, dangerous, competent, a great patriot, and genuinely interesting. Then the writing forces him through a series of increasingly dubious decisions until a character who began like a tiger ends, as a Chinese expression perfectly puts it, with a snake's tail.
His decline could have been tragic.
Instead, it is simply unconvincing.
Even the central transformation of Lin, the "rebel" of the title, takes an extraordinarily long time to become the story the title promised us from the beginning. The series spends so much time preparing to become The Rebel that by the time it finally does, I had already spent dozens of episodes wondering whether the rebellion had been delayed by administrative paperwork.
And yet, I must give the series credit where it is due.
The single greatest scene in all 43 episodes may be in episode 11 — and naturally, it has nothing to do with espionage.
Lin is in a bakery buying pastries for his girlfriend — the supposedly 20-year-old student played by a 35-year-old actress. He hears a record playing, recognizes music connected with her, and asks whether he can buy the record for her.
The baker is appalled.
You come into a bakery to buy a record? What about the pastries? They might be offended.
This is delivered with complete seriousness.
And then, of course, it turns out that the baker actually has records for sale.
It is absurd, perfectly deadpan, completely unexpected, and funnier than anything a comedy writer could have achieved by trying too hard. The scene never explains the joke and nobody winks at the audience. The possibility that pastries possess dignity and can be personally offended by the sale of records in their shop and in their presence is simply accepted as part of the natural order of things.
Forty-three episodes later, I remember the offended pastries more vividly than a considerable portion of the almost non exsisting espionage plot.
That may be the most accurate review of The Rebel I can give.
Afterthought: I still believe a much more appropriate title for this shitty telenovela would have been The Traitors.
I do not regret watching it. There is too much talent here for that. The production is handsome, the performances are generally good, and the series knows how to create suspense inside an individual episode.
But suspense is not the same thing as narrative movement.
The Rebel constantly creates the sensation that something important is about to happen.
The Rebel is basically a shitty telenovela disguised as a prestige spy drama: beautifully made, very well acted, genuinely suspenseful in every single episode, yet the plot stubbornly refuses to move — and the supposedly 20-year-old student is played by a 35-year-old actress.
As an added bonus, the subtitles sometimes — or, more accurately, most of the time — flash by for 0.2–0.4 seconds, with a single sentence chopped into what feels like eight separate pieces — which, of course, makes following the plot an absolute breeze.
Fourteen episodes in, I’ve realized that this is a beautifully made spy drama in which everything happens except the plot. The pot, meanwhile, is still promising: “Any minute now.”
Lol Man's Inhumanity to Man is definitely not a remake of that movie. I don't think you need to watch the movie…
my guess that mainly in china ppl talk or even know about 731. most westerners no absolute nothing about the fareast japanese atrocities in ww2 n before, podcasts or no podcast. quite a few dont even know why the americans threw the atom bombs on hiroshina n nagasaki. they also dont know much about the nazis atrocities. n i am ashamed to say that even my own ppl, who suffered the most from teh nazis r ignorant to sum it up- most ppl , especially the young ones r ignorant bu t i do hope more n more ppl will learn a little history
Lol Man's Inhumanity to Man is definitely not a remake of that movie. I don't think you need to watch the movie…
i agree the film is not at all easy to watch or digest but i am afraid the the series suffers from a similar fate. this is not the kind of things ppl "with a sensitive stomach" as if, prefer. i see it in my country where i have already posted 6 translated episodes.. hardly any views
Lol Man's Inhumanity to Man is definitely not a remake of that movie. I don't think you need to watch the movie…
sure, MAn inhumanity is much more accessible to the audience. afyer all a film is a film. there is a limit on how much u can stuff in it. they preferred to focus on the atrocities of the nazo-janapese n gave upon a plot completely. each n every scene n the film is echoed in the series apart from the fictitios pats both in the film n the series yes, i prefer the series, but i do think the film is important dont forget it was done 38 yrs ago, when nobody had a clue about 731
i have just the discovered the hng-kong 1988 film "MAN BEHIND THE SUN". looks like Mans inhumanity is a remake of that film more characters ofcourse, plot but all in all' each scene in the film find its expression in the series. although the film is much more graphic and even i had hard time watcging it but those who think this drama is a must, so is the film
Subtitles on captionfy will be back soon. Youku set some videos on youtube to private, that's why they don't show…
i for one, think that this drama particularly should be free for all, since its historical with real trial recordings of the japansese crimes against humanity committed against the chinese ppl, n very few ppl r aware of that
I wrote a comment after episode 14 saying that almost everything about this series was excellent except for one minor detail: the plot. Having now finished all 43 episodes, I can report that the situation did not substantially improve.
This is what makes The Rebel so frustrating. It had great potential. It looks wonderful. The period atmosphere is convincing, the production is polished, the cast is good — although, to be fair, most of the roles do not require extraordinary acting skills — and individual episodes can be genuinely tense. I was rarely bored while actually watching an episode.
The problem appears when you step back and ask the dangerous question: what has actually changed?
For enormous stretches of the series, the answer is: surprisingly little.
Characters discover something, almost expose someone, almost change sides, almost understand what is happening — and then the script finds a way to reset the board so that everybody can continue being suspicious for another few episodes.
Episode 24 contains perhaps the purest example. Lin finally obtains a witness who can directly implicate Wang. This should be a major turning point. So what does our supposedly talented intelligence officer do?
He effectively delivers the witness straight into Wang's hands.
And Wang, without hesitation, in front of Lin, puts a bullet in the man's head.
Problem solved.
For Wang, anyway.
And Wang is another problem. By then, both Lin and Gu have more than enough reason to understand that something is seriously wrong with him. Yet the series repeatedly behaves as though everybody has developed selective amnesia. Information exists when the plot needs tension and disappears when acting on it would make the story move too quickly.
Chen Moqun may be the greatest waste of all. He begins as the strongest characters in the drama: intelligent, dangerous, competent, a great patriot, and genuinely interesting. Then the writing forces him through a series of increasingly dubious decisions until a character who began like a tiger ends, as a Chinese expression perfectly puts it, with a snake's tail.
His decline could have been tragic.
Instead, it is simply unconvincing.
Even the central transformation of Lin, the "rebel" of the title, takes an extraordinarily long time to become the story the title promised us from the beginning. The series spends so much time preparing to become The Rebel that by the time it finally does, I had already spent dozens of episodes wondering whether the rebellion had been delayed by administrative paperwork.
And yet, I must give the series credit where it is due.
The single greatest scene in all 43 episodes may be in episode 11 — and naturally, it has nothing to do with espionage.
Lin is in a bakery buying pastries for his girlfriend — the supposedly 20-year-old student played by a 35-year-old actress. He hears a record playing, recognizes music connected with her, and asks whether he can buy the record for her.
The baker is appalled.
You come into a bakery to buy a record? What about the pastries? They might be offended.
This is delivered with complete seriousness.
And then, of course, it turns out that the baker actually has records for sale.
It is absurd, perfectly deadpan, completely unexpected, and funnier than anything a comedy writer could have achieved by trying too hard. The scene never explains the joke and nobody winks at the audience. The possibility that pastries possess dignity and can be personally offended by the sale of records in their shop and in their presence is simply accepted as part of the natural order of things.
Forty-three episodes later, I remember the offended pastries more vividly than a considerable portion of the almost non exsisting espionage plot.
That may be the most accurate review of The Rebel I can give.
Afterthought: I still believe a much more appropriate title for this shitty telenovela would have been The Traitors.
I do not regret watching it. There is too much talent here for that. The production is handsome, the performances are generally good, and the series knows how to create suspense inside an individual episode.
But suspense is not the same thing as narrative movement.
The Rebel constantly creates the sensation that something important is about to happen.
Any minute now.
After 43 episodes, the pot is still simmering.
At least the pastries had character development.
They may have been the only ones.
As an added bonus, the subtitles sometimes — or, more accurately, most of the time — flash by for 0.2–0.4 seconds, with a single sentence chopped into what feels like eight separate pieces — which, of course, makes following the plot an absolute breeze.
Fourteen episodes in, I’ve realized that this is a beautifully made spy drama in which everything happens except the plot. The pot, meanwhile, is still promising: “Any minute now.”
most westerners no absolute nothing about the fareast japanese atrocities in ww2 n before, podcasts or no podcast.
quite a few dont even know why the americans threw the atom bombs on hiroshina n nagasaki.
they also dont know much about the nazis atrocities. n i am ashamed to say that even my own ppl, who suffered the most from teh nazis r ignorant
to sum it up- most ppl , especially the young ones r ignorant
bu t i do hope more n more ppl will learn a little history
the film is not at all easy to watch or digest
but i am afraid the the series suffers from a similar fate.
this is not the kind of things ppl "with a sensitive stomach" as if, prefer.
i see it in my country where i have already posted 6 translated episodes.. hardly any views
they preferred to focus on the atrocities of the nazo-janapese n gave upon a plot completely.
each n every scene n the film is echoed in the series apart from the fictitios pats both in the film n the series
yes, i prefer the series, but i do think the film is important
dont forget it was done 38 yrs ago, when nobody had a clue about 731
looks like Mans inhumanity is a remake of that film
more characters ofcourse, plot
but all in all' each scene in the film find its expression in the series.
although the film is much more graphic and even i had hard time watcging it
but those who think this drama is a must, so is the film
although at the ens it wandered off to the fantasy unreal realm, all in all a great drama, great acting, not a boring minute
does anyway know where i can get the opening song n lyrics
it appears in full in the last episode from minute 39 onward
PLS
REALLY APPRECIATE IT
so it wont let me download, nor had english subs
i am really pissed
TNKS
COULD U EMAIL THEM TO ME
SAW MANY BAD REVIEWS ABOUT THE APP
ALSO FOR 17-20 U CAN DOWNLOAD?