To be honest, I’m not sure what’s going on yet in this first episode, so I will just try my best to recap what happens.
First impression: that’s a weird title. Will it be explained later on?
EPISODE 1 RECAP
A female agent, Guan Xue (Yang Mi), is on a mission. She fakes an injury and gets into the house of a man who thought she was on his team. What’s up with the outfit ensemble, by the way?
The clothes are nice and chic but the hat looks like something my aunt wears when she goes out in the garden to pull weeds.
Or maybe this girl is disguised as someone with a weird sense of fashion to reduce suspicion?
The man soon realizes who Guan Xue is and locks her out of his room while he burns all the important documents that might give away his organization’s plan.
Guan Xue gets up and starts hitting on the door with a wooden chair to get it open. Her team soon arrives, the man escapes through the window and some shooting begins.
Guan Xue gets shot in the arm but they catch the paper-burning man in the end and bring him back to their headquarters for interrogation.
Now, you’ve gotta know that Guan Xue is tough, OK? How tough? So tough that she doesn’t let anyone handle her bullet wound for her.
That’s right, she does it allllll by herself. Despite seeming like she has no idea what she’s doing.
Seriously, though, what IS she trying to do? Making a mess with her blood? I’ve seen this type of female character before, most of them, when they insist on taking care of themselves, are shown to be pretty efficient at taking care of themselves.
Anyway, they interrogate the man they just caught. They even pay a doctor to carry out some torture form with acupuncture needles. But then the doctor pokes a needle in the wrong place, I guess, and accidentally kills the man. OK, that’s kind of funny.
But it turns out, the doctor did not kill the man! The doctor is on the man’s side all along. When they dump the man’s body somewhere far away, the doctor follows, and saves the man by performing acupuncture in a moving car — kudos to you, sir; is that even possible? It’s a real question.
The doctor follows his comrade’s instruction and acquires a smoking pipe from an apartment, which contains some crucial information about… things we don’t know yet.
Guan Xue realizes that they’ve been duped by the doctor, so she leads her squad to a train station, where they suspect the doctor is. With this hair.
So… it’s not just a disguise. She really walks around all day working as a secret agent with that hair? You know, if it’s a man-hunt, you might want to dress a little more convenient for the job. At least put those curls up in a bun or something.
They get to the station, but instead of catching the doctor, they run into a crazy guy with a sword who claims to be a Japanese soldier (I might be wrong about the Japanese part, feel free to correct me).
With the help of an officer and another team, Guan Xue’s squad successfully contains the crazy sword guy. The doctor and the pipe are still gone, though.
Guan Xue recognizes the new officer as someone who saved her life a long time ago. They devote more time to these two staring than I’d expected a serious spy drama to.
COMMENTS
Since I only checked out the first few episodes out of curiosity, I will not be continuing with this drama. It isn’t a terrible, unwatchable show, but it definitely is not a good one, either. While the costumes and film sets are eye-catching, for a show about espionage, crime, and rebelling against the government, there are too many flaws that make the plot difficult to believe; and as a result, it’s impossible to sympathize with the characters, even if they get tortured, slap alcohol on their open wounds or get run over by a car.
The action scenes are over-the-top and the drama relies more on music, special effects, and camera work than they do on good writing to make you care. The female lead Guan Xue is said to be a smart leader, but mostly I’ve only seen her snap at people for being wrong while she herself hasn’t come up with any brilliant ideas yet. Maybe she will, we don’t know for sure. But so far, she hasn’t.
About Yang Mi, like always, she is a pretty actress who draws eyes in pretty clothes. She usually chooses aloof, awkward, and indifferent characters who transform into beautiful ladies to play because that’s what she does best, but expecting more and you’ll likely be disappointed.
Her acting here is not any worse than it is in her other dramas, but the problem is that in other dramas, there would usually be an exceptional lead actor to cover up for her — except Pearl Eclipse, we all know how that went — while here it looks like she has to lead. And Yang Mi being herself is just not enough to bring a ruthless, brutal, and cunning character to life.
I haven’t seen much of the lead actor yet. If he is good, maybe the drama can be better in later episodes.
If Yang Mi is your idol actress, you might just have a blast watching her be a big espionage boss. Just be warned that this show is particularly more gory and violent than typical action shows.
Anyway, here’s the best thing so far that caught my attention: this very authentic-looking kitchen.
