RECAP
A ruthless murder happens during a banquet in a city. Men get torn apart by assassins with cat-like skills.
The female lead Jiu’er (Li Yitong) works as a constable alongside her godfather and this case falls upon her squad to solve.
Jiu’er is smart and responsible but she has been physically weak since childhood, she also gets sick more easily than other people. So the manager of her department usually gives her servant’s stuff like cleaning up after her colleagues and making sure everyone has enough snacks to go on during the day. All things aside, we can appreciate how they didn’t try to put a bad boy-disguise on her. Jiu’er is a girl and everyone she works with knows it.
The squad soon catches the man whom they believe is the murderer. They have to investigate him now, but due to how the dead victims are reported to have severed limbs, none of these guys want to go near the convict. They push the task onto fragile Jiu’er and her clumsy godfather instead.
So the two enter the interrogation room where the man has been bound to a chair with giant chains.
Due to Jiu’er and the godfather’s complete lack of skills, the convict ends up interrogating them instead. But after a while, Jiu’er realizes that this man seems to be in the dark about the murder cases. She gets close and exposes the fake scars on his face. Just red sharpie marks, it seems.
His blue eyes are real though. He belongs to the cat clan.
It turns out, the chains were useless because this man just goes ahead and breaks them and then escapes, knocking over all the officers on his way. So it isn’t just Jiu’er and her godfather who are embarrassing, this ENTIRE TEAM is.
Humiliated and dejected, Jiu’er thinks about leaving her job. She goes home to visit her mother for a while, whom she has the best relationship with.
The mother is also a doctor but even she doesn’t know what’s wrong with Jiu’er that makes her so fragile and weak. So she can only buy expensive herbs and make Jiu’er bathe in them frequently.
Taking in her family’s financial situation, Jiu’er decides to stick with her job and try to catch the real murderer. A promotion may put their family in a better place. But first of all, she needs to catch that cat guy again.
One day, she nearly has the man arrested by setting a clever trap. She even successfully ties him up using metal chains. The same chains that he broke like Rice Krispies last time.
But in the middle of it all, Jiu’er’s illness hits and she faints, half-conscious, knocking over a fabric rack which catches fire.
The man initially thinks she is faking it, but then who would set fire to the room they’re in and not try to escape it? He freaks out and breaks the chains. He briefly wants to abandon Jiu’er there but due to her adorable “save me” whimpers, he heads back.
The moment the man’s hand gets ahold of Jiu’er’s, she feels better. Cat magic flows into her and her senses are sharpened. Definitely works better than those expensive ginseng baths.
COMMENTS
I went into Warm in a Cold Night with no expectations – mainly due to the English title — but this turns out to be not so bad for a beginning. This drama doesn’t seem to take the crime aspect too seriously, so if you’re here for a logical plot or the thrill of difficult criminal cases, you might be disappointed. The crime scenes may look serious, but the comedy more than balances it out.
Here are the things I find engaging about this drama instead.
The relationships between the female lead and the people around her are humorous and complement their characters well. Li Yitong tends to overact a bit in this role, but little harm is done (for now).
The first and second encounters between the lead couple are good enough to make you want to root for a third. Hopefully Jiu’er will do better than just wrapping breakable crispy chains around the man. Another thing to appreciate is that they seem to have picked the right actor for the Cat prince outlook-wise, we can easily believe that this is a guy who can hiss, glare, and scratch.