Last week there were plenty of new Asian shows released on Netflix that all looked promising. But after checking them out, I found only this...
Brief Story Line
He Shan (Zhou Yi Ran - Flaming Cloud, Go East TV series etc) was working as a journalist and invited to the memorial service of her old friend Fei Ke (Jing Bo Ran - Monster Hunt 2, A League of Nobleman TV series etc) held in a remote island. There she met with other people who were also invited including the businessman Chen Su Fa (Wang Yan Hui - Are You Lonesome Tonight?, Nobody Knows TV series etc), the hedge fund VP Cheng Hao (Huang Jue - Dr. Tang TV series etc), the mysterious Su Qian (Peng Yang - The Longest Promise TV series etc) and the cheerful Xuan er (Zhang Yi Fan - Cute Wulin TV series etc).
As they spent a bit of time before the ceremony, they started to share their own experience with Fei Ke and found there was completely different side of him.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in this series.
End of Brief Story Line
The synopsis on Netflix was very brief but enough to make me intrigued as I have always been interested in mystery genre. The early part of the first episode was quite surprising as it was pretty fast paced and immediately raised my curiosity. As the story continued to the memorial service, understandably the pace was slower as it focused more on the mysterious nature of the ceremony that was held in a weirdly remote location. When the people started sharing their relationship with Fei Ke by way of story telling, we would be shown on the person's characteristic and got to know them better.
The part that fascinate me was the connections that were smartly shown. And it would not be fun without major plot twist. It's a good thing that it did not happen at the very end cause prior to it, I was getting a bit bored, especially when the story was told from Xuan er's point of view. Not that I am disinterested with her experience but probably because it was told after Su Qian whose story was more engaging, even if the actress was not too convincing in her acting. Personally it was a bit disappointing considering Peng Yang had a lot of acting credits compared to her junior Zhang Yi Fan. Anyway after that twist, the story became more exciting and I was enjoying it better.
What came after that felt like a revelation which would give us better understanding on why things happened. But what surprised me though was the existence of another twist before the end that I knew I should have known but did not make a connection till it was shown. Which was a good thing and made me appreciate the series better. I was a bit worried in the middle of the final episode as it seemed to be heading in the direction that I did not like. Fortunately it did not. The ending was satisfying for me, although some people might prefer differently.
From what I read, the series was based on Chinese webtoon titled Fei Ke De Wan Yan (literal translation: Fei Ke's Dinner) by Luo Jia. It was directed by Shen Ao whose prior experience included directing the critically acclaimed No More Bets and My Dear Liar. He was also credited as one of the writers of the series. Not sure why Netflix did not classify this 10 episodes series under Limited category which I think is a good information for people searching for mini series that has no cliffhanger ending. Btw, aside from the main cast that I mentioned above, there were also some support characters like the driver Liu Mo (He Liao Lu Yun - Ray of Light TV series etc), Su Fa's daughter Chen Jiajia (Chen Yu Xian - Pegasus TV series etc) and few others. But obviously the lead star was Jing Bo Ran who managed to show his capability of showing multiple sides of his character.
Overall this was a pretty interesting mystery thriller series with few surprising twists. Its story was quite engaging, especially as we were slowly shown what kind of man Fei Ke was. Through intelligent story telling, we were given some shocking truths that were revealed before the end and still got some intriguing parts in the final episode. I think it should satisfy fans of psychological thriller but might not be exciting enough for those hoping for suspenseful and intense mystery solving series. And if you are those who admired Jing Bo Ran, I think you would be more in awe with his performance here. So you can certainly give this a try if you are interested in a series with attributes I mentioned.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars