asian drama review | Wretched and Divine

Light on Series: The Long Night is a highly-rated, dark, and suspenseful crime thriller. I really enjoyed this Chinese series and finished in two or three days.

Light on Series: The Long Night (2020) - MyDramaList

Synopsis: Zhang Chao creates a scene at a subway station, and the bomb squad is called. When they open Zhang Chao’s suitcase, they find that there’s no bomb, but a body inside. On the surface, there is overwhelming evidence that Zhang Chao murdered the victim, Jiang Yang. There is a problem: Zhang Chao was hours away from the time of Jiang Yang’s death. To make matters worse, an anonymous person is sending a piece of a photograph to the media every few days; a building will explode if the media refuses to print it. To unravel the cause of Jiang Yang’s death, Yan Liang is called to help the police force. He must learn everything about Jiang Yang before the complete photograph is released to the public.

The show alternates between three stories and time periods.

Story #1: In the modified reports, Hou Gui Ping raped a woman and killed himself out of guilt. This story tells what actually happened.

Story #2: Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei investigate the true cause of Hou Gui Ping’s death.

Story #3: Present day; Yan Liang and his team investigate Jiang Yang’s murder.

I’ve never seen a story told in this format. You get to know all three stories in-depth, and I felt attached to all the characters.

Bai Yu plays Jiang Yang. I’ve seen a few of his earlier dramas (Detective L, Guardian, Fairyland Lovers, Love O2O) and this drama is nothing like them. It’s serious, dark, and more realistic. His acting is brilliant in this one.

If you are like stories about a person dedicating their entire life to something, this show is for you. To clear Hou Gui Ping’s name, Jiang Yang pours his life into this case. He meets so much resistance and pushback from different parties. He is stubborn, so incredibly stubborn. He loses so much, yet he never gives up. There were many times when I wondered if it was even worth it. He wasn’t even close to Hou Gui Ping, but he believes in his work. He believes in justice.

This is not a “happy” show, but it’s still very suspenseful and entertaining to watch. The show is artful in how they split up the three stories. You don’t learn everything at once, as it switches back and forth between the stories. Like the photograph puzzle mystery, you don’t learn the complete story until the end of the series.

I absolutely recommend The Long Night.

In my last post, I reviewed a drama and gave it a lower rating. I thought that I would review an amazing drama this time. Someday or One Day is a Taiwanese drama.

Synopsis

Huang Yu Xuan is a 27-year-old woman who misses her boyfriend Wang Quan Sheng, who went missing two years ago. She is unable to accept that he is gone and is still searching for him. One day, she receives a walkman and cassette from a mysterious sender. As she listens to the music, she wakes up in the year 1998. She is now a 17-year-old girl named Chen Yun Ru, who looks exactly like her. In Chen Yun Ru’s body, she meets a schoolmate who looks exactly like her missing boyfriend, except… he’s not her boyfriend. His name is Li Zi Wei!

Huang Yu Xuan soon discovers that Chen Yun Ru will die in the year 1999. She needs to find a way to prevent Chen Yun Ru’s death before she dies in her body.

Thoughts

Three words: Just watch it.

For you anime fans out there, I know what you might be thinking. It’s kind of like Erased, right? Kind of! It’s different from Erased in some ways because Huang Yu Xuan goes into someone else’s body instead of her own. I think that this is really unique. There is also a heavy romance component in Someday or One Day, which is done extremely well.

You’ll most definitely like this series if you like the Taiwanese movies, Our Times and You Are the Apple of My Eye.

What I like about this drama is that it is not predictable. As someone who has watched a lot of anime and Asian dramas, I can practically guess how shows will end. This drama kept me on the edge of my seat.

When I watched the first episode, I felt like I was watching a movie. The cinematography is on-point, the music is memorable, and the acting is realistic. I felt very emotional and balled my eyes out… just by the first episode.

This drama covers mature themes so I wouldn’t recommend it to younger audiences. It covers topics that are taboo in Asian culture and you don’t see many dramas talk about these topics.

As mentioned earlier, the music is memorable. The songs are so good. A lot of the scenes are pleasing to the eyes and look really aesthetic.