The Double (2024) - Final Review

Final review/rating: The Double (2024) - Revenge is a dish best served doubled and with theatricality 

This is 8.5/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮✮✮ from Pandafan🐼

Overall rating:         8.5 Stars Plot:                       8 Stars Acting/cast:            8.5 Stars Couple chemistry:   8.5 stars Music:                    8 Stars Re-watch value:      8 Stars Enjoyment factor:   8.5 Stars

The Double (2024) is a melodramatic rollercoaster of a revenge story, told with lush visuals and an OTT theatricality that may cause the occasional eye roll but somehow works to keep the viewer seated. The narrative is darkly compelling with one high stakes gambit after another, there is the 爽/satisfaction of seeing just deserts being meted out, the villains are interesting, and there is a sensuous slow-burn chemistry between the 'fei chang xiao zhang' '菲常蕭張' CP which made me wish I could borrow Xiao Heng's fan. In concert, this makes for some addictively good viewing.   

There is more than a passing nod to Chinese opera and the gong an公案 'crime case' literary tradition as well. Xue Feng Fei's devious ex-husband scholar Shen Yu Rong has obvious parallels with the infamous scholar Chen Shi Mei 陳世美 from the《鍘美案》/'execute Mei case' who bigamously became Prince Consort and then tried to murder his first wife and two children, and Xue Feng Fei's pet name A'Li 阿狸 and her ultimate switecheroo of identities with the real Jiang Li evokes the《狸猫换太子》/ 'civet cat exchanged for Crown Prince' case. Both are staples of the Justice Bao repertoire. 

However, in The Double (2024) there is no Justice Bao to ensure that justice is served. Instead, there is only Wu Jin Yan's audacious Xue Fang Fei, who must ensure that she and her dead double are avenged. Luckily for the audience, Xue Fang Fei knows how to put on a damn good show as she plays everyone around her like a virtuoso. As for Wang Xing Yue's sexily smoldering Xiao Heng, he is first spectator and than participant in their joint revenge drama, which also doubles as a political chessboard with ramifications beyond the settling of personal wrongs.    

The Double (2024) is far from perfect. There are logic flaws, issues with pacing, places where less would definitely have been more, and some questionable directorial/writing choices, especially in the final arc which left me shaking my head. And while I agree that revenge was taken, I am not certain that justice was truly served in the end. But in the face of these imperfections I found myself imagining Xue Fang Fei cheekily breaking the 4th wall and asking me "are you not entertained?" My answer? Definitely.

SPOILERS AHEAD

  

The Double (2024) - Synopsis

Drama info:

Title:                      The Double

Chinese title:         墨雨雲間 / 墨雨云间 (Eng translation: "Inky rain amidst clouds")

Episodes:               40

Genre:                    Revenge, mystery, romance

Original network:  Youku

Release date:        2 June 2024

Airing schedule:    2 June 2024 - 22 June 2024

Synopsis:

Xue Fang Fei is the talented and much loved daughter of a country magistrate, and wife to scholar Shen Yu Rong.  But one memorable evening, Xue Fang Fei wakes to find herself framed, betrayed, and buried alive...

  

Yong An Dream (2024) - Final Review

Final review/rating: Yong An Dream (2024) - A sweet adaptation that eschews the darkness of the source novel in favour of light fluffiness 

This is 7/10 stars ✮✮✮✮✮✮✮ from Pandafan🐼

Overall rating:         7 Stars Plot:                       7 Stars Acting/cast:            7 Stars Couple chemistry:   6 stars Music:                    6 Stars Re-watch value:      6 Stars Enjoyment factor:   7 Stars

Jeremy Tsui/Xu Zheng Xi as Lu Shi Yan

So I watched Yong An Dream (2024) after Jeremy Tsui/Xu Zheng Xi's recent 15 March 2024 announcement on Weibo that he was retiring from acting. 

I've always wanted a magnum opus from Xu Zheng Xi - a drama that showcases the full extent of his considerable abilities. The man has a gravelly low voice (criminally under used alas!), the ability to swing from high comedy to tormented angst, and the acting chops to carry off nuanced morally grey anti-heroes. Sadly, he has not had much luck with the scripts that have come his way and more often than not, he has been paired with much younger actresses who are not in his league acting wise, and/or he is casted in some generic idol romcom. 

Yong An Dream (2024) is more of the same, rather than magnum opus material. Notably, the source novel《長安第一美人》Chang'an's First Beauty goes down some very dark Stockholm-syndrome-on-steroids pathways and was a did-not-finish for me, but the drama adaptation sanitises this in favour of light fluffiness. 

SPOILERS AHEAD

  

Yong An Dream (2024) - Synopsis

Drama info:

Title:                      Young An Dream

Chinese title:         永安夢/ 永安梦 

Episodes:               24

Genre:                    Romance, mystery

Original network:  Tencent

Release date:        28 Feb 2024

Airing schedule:    28 Feb 2024 - 7 Mar 2024

Synopsis:

When the West Canal of Yong An City collapses causing death and destruction, Shen Wen Qi, the Minister of Works is thrown into prison.  His two daughters, Shen Ran and Shen Zhen, find themselves in desperate straits as they try to vindicate their father.