Reviews

Criminally underrated

I don't normally post reviews, but the scoring for his BL is so damn unfair that I just had to. This is one of the BLs that make me question my previous scores for other series. You can tell that every aspect of the series is very well thought and designed. From the opening titles and the custom made font, to the wonderful b-rolls. The production is way above your average BL drama, with a truly beautiful cinematography and an amazing, rich OST. The story is well written, sensitive, with very natural and realistic elements, such as interactions and everyday moments only a really good screenplay can provide. All the characters are fully developed and their relationships aren't the superficial, one sided, one note ones we usually see in BL. The acting is very good from all the cast and of course, last but certainly not least, the chemistry of the main couple is so damn adorable!SPOILERS-I would say one of the things I could exclude from the series is the stereotypical evil ex (it would have worked so much better if she was more of a grey zone character, flawed but still human).-I wish we had more resolutions and information about certain issues addressed, such as Jae Won's past and decisions about his career, but that leaves great room for a sequel 😅-I LOVED how the addressed and showcased depression and mental illness. It's not something we usually see in detail in BLs, and they handled it with empathy and honesty. It reminded me of "Skam" season 3.

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Interviewing dumb and dumber😂

Still in 1997 and He gets it right in the face with red paint.😂 he is coated head to toe. Ran is the surprise because he pulled a gun and shot in the air. That stops them in their tracks and interrogation begins. I have not seen a spiked bat like the one had before. They are thug wannabes who are trying to make their criminal mark collecting debts. For now it is more a show since the father and daughter are not there to collect from. They know the daughter is indebted because of dad’s medical bills but they don’t know what illness to track it down. It is a laugh out loud moment watching the first few mins as the paint hits and tempers rise. The two officers have a good sense of comedic timing and it’s just fun watching it. When leaving, He confronts Ran about the gun who uses it for the sound effects.😂🤣There was another fun interaction of He and his daughter. She is precocious and likes his new hair style. 😂 It skips to a scene with her in 2015 She has put in for field work and her cpt wants her to use that energy to look after her father.😝🙄 She is wasted sitting around doing nothing. There are 4 more missing children and he slinks off pretending to be too busy to further respond about her application. There is a mystery fortune teller that has been the only one to locate any of the missing kids. So young officer He heads their way to find out more. In the building there’s a whole lot of empty because it is being prepped for demolition. He notes the red tricycle missing and wants to investigate but Ran is staring at a vacated apartment door. He left for Beijing and the pretty local girl moved without telling him. He asks about what happened and the clock is turned back to 1997 again. Officer He isn’t happy to still be teamed with Ran. They are chasing down Xu Meng’s relatives and it reveals a sad story. There was a serious accident on a mountain that caused the father’s health decline. With no means of good income, the daughter had become a money pit to the family and resorted to adult themed work. A cousin lending her money had a falling out with his fiancée and he never got married. The aunt admitted happiness that her brother was missing. It’s not that they don’t care about him. But they see him as having no quality of life and all their money is going to keep him in that condition with no real hope of him getting better. Another lead goes to the loan shark that has an adult video shop. The officers get minimal clues from him and the owner of shop is later threatened by another knife guy when time shifts again to 2015. He and Ran discover a room that has accumulated all the missing items from the floors they explored. While they are discussing things they hear cries for help and run upstairs. Two vagrants are found and the missing boy is coming at them with a kitchen cleaver. As the boy is being hauled off, He is yelling for Ran and Ran is nowhere to be seen. The officers arriving tell the daughter to take him home and look after him while they investigate. He continues to yell for Ran as he is taken away from the scene. Time shifts back to 1997. Ran and He raid a small gambling joint to get the gang leader who promptly denies knowing anything about such a small debter. Ran gets a bit beat up being the leader this time. He runs pretty fast and ya had to appreciate him finding the leader with the clues he was given. 😂 He then goes to dumb and dumber demanding to know why they led the cops straight to him. The episode ends with a guy cleaning up a car and finding brain splatter on the window. Note to self, ostrich plume duster does not remove it from window.😝The car leaves the parking garage for undisclosed destination. I am enjoying the puzzle pieces from both timelines. It puts figuring things out on a whole different level.

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Plans being made

MiYu has a full write up of the school exam project and tries to give it to Mr Bai who totally rejects the idea without looking at it. At the board meeting everybody is out of ideas and Mr Bai actually brings MiYu’s idea up. Ji is seeing opportunity but Mr Bai can’t really answer any in depth questions about the project. He finally admits it was a group effort and runs out to get MiYu.😂 He is biased against her because of his fave employee, but I got to give him credit at wanting to butter up the boss more than have a grudge, MiYu presents her idea and when sales dept tried to stymie her with details she backed it up with common sense management. He finally had to back off and her idea was going to be implemented. ZhenZhen does not want the lobby to get credit so she burns herself out working overtime to have contracts ready for all phases of project. I don’t like her, but she really came through for the hotel with her efforts. What she did not come through for was her family. They did a good job of making Nie look like death warmed over. He presents himself now like a man realizing the consequences of his self indulgence. He no longer expects support from his wife and understands there is no time for little boy comforts. His mother forgets all she wanted was grandchild from ZhenZhen. So she can’t whine and complain that the corporate woman refuses to fall in line with the cooking cleaning and babying husband. She does not consider any of these things in her purview. While the two women are battling verbally ZhenZhen starts bleeding and is rushed to the hospital. They do not reveal gender but do say the child is in NICU. It is worrisome that she wants to transfer hospitals. For what purpose? To escape the mother or to leave husband and child to the mother? She is looking spent from childbirth and finds herself alone with no visitors while husband and mother in law are with the baby. She wants everybody to stay in their own lanes so it will be interesting to see the results of that choice. Duan has caught wind of the project and decides to implement it in his family’s hotel first. He even wines and dines ms influencer to top off his thievery. 😝He thinks he has things set up to demolish MiYu’s plans and wants to see Ji fail in a big way. Duan is kind of an empty character. No idea has been from his efforts or energy. He should actually go for sponsoring a gaming team because that is where most of his energy goes. 😝He is not even a cute incorrigible. He is a spoiled diva that thinks money and currying favor are the only means of conducting business. He is surrounded by sycophants rather than friends and truly has a rather empty life devoid of real purpose. Zhen Zhen worked very hard to be on livestream but now she is in hospital and it falls to MiYu to be the hotel rep on livestream. They do not discover Duan’s sabotage until too late to change things.

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Diva Duan gets duped 😂😝

Duan gets ahold of MiYu’s idea and not only steals it, he manages to get ms influencer on board with his hotel. Ji encourages MiYu to trust him. He goes along with Duan’s family hotel going first and explains why to MiYu. He saw a celebrity entering their hotel and knew that those events would be in direct conflict with the school schedule. In very few minutes their 25 rooms invested are sold and MiYu finds herself on air. She had taken notes while the other hotel’s rep stumbled with questions, so when she got on air she addressed them thoroughly. She also sold out 200 rooms.🥳 Ji has plans with MiYu but they are interrupted by lady influencer trying to mark her territory. It is an awkward meal and even more awkward when Ji leaves like a trained puppy to get dessert leaving the two women alone. MiYu is put on the spot by the manipulative women but holds her own. She is gone by the time Ji returns and he flags her down trying to assure her what his intentions were with ms influencer. MiYu basically tells him to get his own house in order before he tries to be interested in her.👏🏻 I have to admit to a lot of satisfaction as Duan had his diva meltdown. He was beat at his own game and then got a tongue lashing from daddy too. He is having a crappy night and for whatever reason chef is delivering his food. She gives him some sympathy and leaves him with his dinner. These two would make great colleagues whether opposite or same side. They have similar impish dispositions in how they approach life and work. I still hope whole heartedly that Rui is end game because diva Duan is not grown up enough for her. Chef has the cooking skills and Rui could handle business side so they perfectly complement work wise. Everything is very busy with the school project and other than one family demanding an executive suite things are going smoothly for the number of people going through. That all changes when the same obnoxious mom demanding an executive room is now complaining about a lost valuable. She is loud, rude and physical. 😝MiYu arrives in time to rescue the employee and calm the loud mom down. Her son is missing his hearing aid and she blames the staff for its loss. The search is on to find it before the exam next day.

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i knew that nick name Kaji gave Fukami would…

i knew that nick name Kaji gave Fukami would come back to bite him... feel bad for Fukami cause he really didn't do anything wrong. Kaji is the one all up in his feelings, cause he is scared of relationships & how Fukami makes him feel. & after sleeping with him in this ep & realizing it is more then a hook-up he lashed out at Fukami & in the next ep he is gonna drive the stake in deeper. as there 6 more eps to go i am guessing it's him trying to make Fukami forgive his stupidity. he needs to work for it, that's for sure, but Fukami himself wasn't really looking for love & his treatment of Kaji now doesn't mean he has fallen in-love, he might just be cordial to the guy he is f*cking - like a friends with benefits situation. but Kaji misread & lashed out idk.. time will tell

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Analyzing the evidence

In 1997, knife brother gives a reasonable rendering of what he was guilty of and what not. However, his conversation with brother indicated he was hired to get rid of the two and would be paid 40k upon completion. He received 10k up front. There is another witness who says he saw the girl with blue shoes. The only thing confirmed is that the two missing persons were seen heading for an illegal clinic in the building. The samples were tested and the cigarettes were knife brother’s but the blood samples were all from the chickens. No human blood discovered. Ran gets the I told you so look from He. There now is a skip to 2015. They are looking through the building and He keeps pointing out things from the unresolved case. Ran is getting annoyed not seeing any connection. For once He is the one thinking there is a connection between the two cases that needs investigated. He shows Ran the keepsake tin of knife brother. What is very weird and interesting is that all the items inside are in the same condition they were in 1997. This puzzles them but Ran is ready to leave and get his class schedules completed. He wants him to finish going through the building first and Ran reluctantly agrees. They find the old apartment of the man that saw blue shoe lady. What is odd here is that he was very invested in his detective stories and all his books were left behind. There is a blood covered witness watching them from behind the wall which seems to be the missing boy. He looks terrified but not making his presence known. Then a return to 1997. Ran wants in the criminal division and He wants out of it. Ran manages to get a referral from He for a spot.😂 He takes Ran to a night market to get less cop like clothes. What is sweet is he gets replacement items for the local he accidentally cut with glass from fallen pane. They go to meet an informant and she turns out to be a pretty girl in the massage industry. I think Ran wished he were in his old clothes for this interview.😂 She is very flirty but does have a nickname for the missing girl. She also is pleasantly surprised when Ran returns her lost family photo. They are referred to a foot massage place called Muse. The raid was a bit of a cluster with Ran getting to sample the foot water.😂 They did learn her real name was Xu Meng and they found family photos including a clear photo of her and her dad. The apartment had been deserted a while with spoiled food as evidence. A wall was removed for mysterious reasons and the episode ends with a shower of red paint. Things are taking an interesting turn.

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Captive audience

There is a brief stint in 2015 where they start the hunt for the missing boy. It then goes back to 1997. He and Ran definitely have different approaches to their work. He gives all the local miscreants posters of the missing father and daughter and makes them do the legwork. He even commandeers a ‘class’ and the captive audience are shown the posters and asked if seen or not. There are children chanting about 18th floor and 18 heads. Turns out there was a posting of rhyme on village board. The locals were treating it like a chain letter and spreading the verse rather than risk bad luck. Ran returns to the window where he noted the cigarette butts and sees many more. While trying to collect samples, he knocks out a window pane and almost takes out a local. He runs to her rescue and they have an interesting exchange in her apartment. He is very funny focusing everywhere except for the drying undergarments in her bathroom.😂Pagers are making timely communication difficult. The old man that took the poster to call is being followed by the missing thug brother who thought the old couple had witnessed what he’d done. Just when they are about to get knifed, Officer He shows up. While this is happening Ran does something new…he looks up rather than down and sees the rooftop but no access. He finally gets a criminal team there and on the rooftop they find out that the 18 heads refer to some slaughtered chickens. Ran stays behind because he considers the possibility of human blood being hid by chicken blood. Nobody takes him seriously. When samples are submitted at least He did not negate them, but he did change the request to Ran’s name. At the end of episode when the brothers reunite, knife brother is told to take them out and the picture is of father and daughter. Now we know something did happen and who we just don’t have the evidence to prove it because nobody believes Ran’s samples have any value to the investigation.

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