Very high standard production.
But after watching the whole thing,
I couldn't identify with any of the major characters.
Everyone, everything is so 100% expected.
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Ni Jun
Danger Zone is a 24 episodes drama that's produced by Iqiyi
it is led by Zhou Yumin, Li Mingshun
Zhu Xuanyang, Zhang Rongrong
It first started airing at the beginning of september this year
and it's been updated very slowly, 2 episodes per week.
I made a decision to wait till it fully
finished airing then to watch a drama in one go.
And I have recently completed that
I debated a lot with myself about how to rate this drama.
It is overall a very high quality production,
but they still have a couple of things.
That i just can look over that held back my rating.
So after a long debate,
I will put it as a one gold mine drama,
more specifically probably a 1.5.
And it's a rather strict rating,
because if you compare that to a lot of other dramas,
i've seen this year that i've given higher ratings.
Probably this is a higher quality production,
but I think because it sits in the particular
category and genre of drama
crime,
then it has to fulfill some of the hard requirement
in the crime drama department that in my opinion,
it hasn't fully completely succeeded at doing.
Therefore, the rating is a rather strict and lowered rating
This is a very unique production.
It's fully produced in taiwan,
but it's done by iqiyi
this drama took over half a year to film.
Usually you see that in big epic period setting drama
where it's like 60 episodes with like 50 major characters
for a contemporary drama to have that
Extensive production period means it has a lot of money
put into it and supposedly it involved over 2 thousand people
probably not simultaneously,
but at different stages,
very big production.
For a contemporary drama,
it is based on a novel written by the author qian yu zhi cheng.
The original title is Zhui Xiong Zhe, literally means crime chaser.
It is adapted by the script writer Yu Shangmin
and there's significant changes that has taken place.
To put it very simply.
This is a multiple character leading crime drama
that has multiple cases running at the same time,
but they're all linked in a way to the main characters'
personal background story type of crime drama.
You have the leading character played by Zhou yumin, Liang Yandong,
who is a lawyer who got wronged and put in prison and waiting
for his final trial of murder that he didn't commit.
He was previously a policeman,
and because of a personal tragedy,
he left the force and became a lawyer.
Then you have another main character played by Zhu Xuanyang, Ren Fei
who is a newbie policeman,
the classic newbie policeman that you probably have seen 1 million
times in all kinds of different productions
this character and Zhou Yumin's character had a previous
crossing of their fate many years ago,
but that will get later reviewed as a story progresses.
The drama starts with a murdering case happening in the city,
which is already the 4th one consecutively
of dismembered body parts being discovered.
Zhou yumin's lawyer character now already in prison waiting for the trial.
Heard the news about this case and due to his
profiling experience and his brain power,
he realized that policeman probably are looking in the wrong direction.
So he wants to join investigating this case in
exchange of the help from police to find an,
important person who can prove that he is not the murderer
as the story progresses,
you'll see more character coming into views such as the
team leader of the police task force that's led by.
Li ming shun very vetran actor.
I still remember back in the days of his Yang Guo
such as Zhang Rongrong playing a new deputy chief that got
helicoptered into their police station and stuff like that.
And it's pretty much divided into two parts.
The first 12 episodes is considered as the first arc of the story,
the second 12 episodes and it has different chapter names in the drama.
But really it's pretty much just how they do it,
in post production.
And in the titling of each episode,
if you ignore that,
you can still look at it as a 24 episodes drama
that can be divided into smaller chunks.
Now let's talk about first,
the positive things about this drama
first and foremost
and immediately noticeable is very high standard production,
all kinds of hardware department considered.
If you watch a lot of crime dramas,
particularly in the us very industrialized way of
doing it at a very acceptable professional level.
This is very close to that type of drama.
And for everybody who has suffered endlessly at the shitty
stylistic look or color grading or unreasonable skin smoothing,
and just no design and no motivation of lighting in chinese dramaland
This is the polar opposite.
It is the gritty,
classic crime drama.
Look that you want.
There's no intentionally brightly lit scene just to make people look younger.
And it's reasonably contrasty
When it needs to be dark,
it's reasonably dark.
While I was watching this drama,
I was also chasing a couple of other.
Very typically super filtered chinese dramaland drama
and it's such a change
when you click between those dramas
It's day and night difference,
then everything else is also very,
very high quality.
You really can't pick up it, sound design, music,
editing, props,
warning here is
if you're very sensitive to brutality, to blood,
to dead body,
decayed body, peeled off skin,
brutal force of violence, all that,
be careful,
this drama has a lot of it.
You see it coming just look away.
It will not make you feel good about life
when you see those shots or maybe it will,
I don't know
some people dig at it.
The second thing about this drama is,
although not throughout the entire drama
that you can say this
parts of it is well done.
The pacing, a particular plot point,
a particular cliffhanger.
There are a few episodes that ended up on a very big cliffhanger.
that make you wanna see immediately what's the next episode
I would not liked had I chased this drama weekly that
I have to wait for next week and i'd be very pissed.
Third good thing about this drama is overall i'm happy with
the casting choice and the performance of all the actors.
But the funny thing is none of the main characters really impressed me, zhou yu,
Zhou yumin, Zhu Xuanyang, Li Mingshun, Zhang Rongrong
They served their purpose.
They didn't bring me out of the story.
It is this supporting roles that are impressive,
particularly the first culprit in the first major case,
the lady who played that role, very good acting.
And then the young actor who played,
uh I don't want to spoil it for you
that young guy is good, too.
These are the positive points
Then let's talk about things that held me back.
They're very hard to actually clearly explain.
So i'll try my best to convey my points.
First, a small thing.
After watching the whole 24 episodes,
it gives you the impression that the police force is just so useless.
It's a very common thing for dramas to in order to make the
main character stand out as the special and powerful one.
They make the peripheral people
less capable,
but that's not that major,
just one point that I get after watching the drama.
Like most of the time the people are supposed to be able to do jobs,
just can't quite do it.
The second thing after watching the whole drama,
I realized I actually haven't been fully
with any of the particular main characters.
I think it's by design,
they hope audiences will identify with at least one person.
If not the whole team,
either you identify with the lawyer character,
Zhou Yumin playing or you identify with a rookie policeman character,
I think those are clearly the two characters that
they are setting up to be the audiences' entry point.
But after watching the whole thing,
I couldn't identify with any of the major characters.
I feel most of the time I am just the on looking bystander.
Watch things unfolding.
I'm like okay your story your story your story,
but it's
none of my business.
I just feel most of the time i'm detached from their reality,
never for a moment I was in the story.
I was just looking at it from outside.
That's how the whole story worked on me.
The third thing is due to the story is totally
set up in a fictional city called dong lin
And it never fully explains what is the particular, let's say,
structure of this city.
You have the impression because it's made in taiwan.
Everybody speaks with taiwan accent.
And of the particular political type of people
and military people and business people,
you have an impression of.
okay It probably is that type of political system,
but then it never gets it fully explained.
And as the story progresses,
somebody has to become the big bad boss behind the whole game of it.
And as it becomes clearer who this person is and what he
represents and why he does the things he does and who are
the other people that are linked to him that are in this whole big,
bad plan, it starts to become very
two dimensional.
If you watch a lot of korean dramas such as Healer,
I can think of a lot of dramas similar to that where you have
a main leading character that represents the young people,
the young generation who wanna change the corrupted system and who
are fighting against the evil that are represented by the older generation,
very typical in south korean drama.
And eventually when they confront each other,
the bad boss character,
the middle age or above bad guy.
This drama has the exact south korean typical setup of the bad boss guy.
And it's such a familiar setup.
And i've seen it being iterated on screen for too many times.
Immediately,
the attraction of this bad guy disappears
because I already know what he is like,
and it's yet another one that i've seen before.
And it's so not interesting.
Then the 4th thing that is not ideal about this drama and i
think biggest problem is kind of dividing it into two parts.
First, as a crime drama that has many cases,
has many typical process of seeing something happening,
trying to figure out why and find the bad guy culprit
and move on that procedural crime stuff is very
normal.
There isn't a case that's surprisingly well written,
with a lot of twists,
unexpected moments,
super clever way of the good guy figuring out what the bad guy is doing
and why , all that I didn't get any of that adrenaline rush of.
oh wow That's how ~wow ~cool ~I didn't see that~
Those moments didn't quite happen.
There are a couple of trying to rescue somebody
moments that happened in the drama that was exciting,
but it's more to do with the action
adventure type of plot instead of the
crime plot.
Then on the other hand,
I think the biggest problem of this drama is
every major character in this story is a super archetypical character
of their character setup.
When you first watch this drama,
you may not realize fully what they are in the very standard crime drama,
sort of narrative you've seen before.
Because a lot of information are hidden
1/3 of the drama, by that point,
you already know what are the major characters'
Classic setup, fully.
If at that point
you predict what would be the outcome of their fate,
how their relationship would develop at
what stage and who is gonna be the
sacrifice,
who is gonna be the winner,
who would be the bad person and why they do it
all that
By the point, you have enough information to know which character is,
which archetypical character.
The the story will unfold exactly to your expectation
and even how their relationship would develop,
for example,
between Li Mingshun and Zhu Xuanyang's character
between the team leader and the rookie.
oh It's so typical.
The type of teacher and student,
father and son relationship.
the I see the younger me in you.
You are the person who is gonna be my spiritual successor,
and to complete that standard narrative.
Therefore, the end, spoiler,
the teacher has to die to propel the student
for the final jump to move on to his second
stage of the being the more mature policemen
that arc is so typical,
even like after the death of the team leader and close to the end of the drama,
there is a memory scene of like what happened to them.
When they were having a conversation on the roof of the building,
i'm like oh that's so classic
for Zhou Yumin's character, same thing.
Particular,
his Liang Yandong lawyer with Zhu Xuanyang
playing the rookie policeman 12 years ago,
they were both the victim of the mass shooting.
As soon as that information is explained to you,
as you're watching this drama,
you immediately know there's gonna be a scene at the end of it,
and they're gonna put it at the very end of it.
Because any time before that is not the ... let's say,
standard expectation,
narrative timing of that plot.
And Zhjou Yumin is gonna be is gonna be the person is like,
I know all along,
and he is gonna be,
you knew it all along,
but you didn't tell me, you are waiting for me to realize
that is the thing
that happens too.
Then for zhang rong rong,
the deputy police chief role,
it's also she's such a standard,
because I suffered at the hand of unfairness and the exploitation from
people who have power and exploiting taking advantage of people who do not.
I wanna change the system.
So I use my abilities to enter the system.
I wanna overturn it.
But on the way of getting that goal achieved,
I become come one of you.
I become the bad person who does wrong things.
So classic, even the confrontation thing of people finding out who she is.
And the classic argument Of if you have a justifiable goal,
does that mean you can do anything you know to
achieve that
in a way your own expectation
When you're watching this drama becomes a hindrance of your excitement.
You are constantly hoping at least some parts of the story
will go on a different route than your expectation,
give you something that you didn't expect,
unfortunately doesn't happen for this drama, everyone.
Everything is so 100% expected.
I feel it's very wasted.
They've put so much money.
This is expensive production.
You can tell they put so much manpower.
It already looks brilliant with all that effort already in.
You ended up with this textbook story that offers zero,
surprise,
just lacks the final kick.
So this is my honest opinion on the drama Ni Ju
I would still say it's a very worth watching drama.
It would not offend you and there are definitely
moments of it that are super exciting.
I mean the part where they rescue the policewoman,
I was worried about her,
so it did work at points and I enjoyed it.
But overall, when you consider the whole story as one thing,
right at the moment,
you need to kick the ball and make it go into the net.
It kind of just doesn't do that.
Do you have similar reactions as I do?
Will be interesting to see how other people
react to the drama
now it has finished airing.
You can watch the whole thing.
Definitely a better way of enjoying this drama
than having to wait 2 episodes every week,
you probably would forget about certain plot
The next week when something updates
that should conclude my review on the drama Ni Ju
Danger Zone.
Thank you for watching AvenueX
I'll see you in my next video.
Meanwhile, live long and happy drama watching.