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

  

Scent of Time (2023) - Final Review

Final review/rating: Scent of Time (2023) - A suspense-laden reverie on regret, redress, and redemption

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

Overall rating:         8.5 Stars Plot:                       8 Stars Acting/cast:            8 Stars Couple chemistry:   7 stars Music:                    7 Stars Re-watch value:      8 Stars Enjoyment factor:   8.5 Stars

Scent of Time (2023) poses the tantalising question of what, if anything, one can do to redress past wrongs and to change fate if given a second chance. 

I didn't realise it at first, but the twist in the tale is obliquely hinted at in the Chinese title of the drama, 《爲有暗香來》/Because of the Subtle Fragrance, which is derived from a poem by Song Dynasty poet and statesman Wang An Shi王安石. Elsewhere, the twist is also foreshadowed throughout the drama, which makes it difficult to miss.

Despite this, the way the drama unfolds skilfully dials up the suspense - it is almost impossible not to root for Zhou Ye's Hua Qian in her high stakes quest to atone for and rewrite the past. The hook is in what choices she makes, what actions she takes, and the unintended fallout of those decisions.   

Viewers who are watching this drama for the romance may well be disappointed - it is protagonist rather than romance focused. Three potential love interests are presented, but Scent of Time (2023) is one of the rare dramas in which I truly did not care who, if anyone, the endgame would be.  I just wanted Hua Qian to be living her best life.  Although some of the scriptwriting in the later episodes was noticeably weaker, I stayed until the very end to find out how Hua Qian's story would conclude...

SPOILERS AHEADS

  

Scent of Time (2023) - Synopsis

Drama info:

Title:  Scent of Time

Chinese title:   為有暗香來 / 为有暗香来  (Eng translation: "Because of the Subtle Fragrance") 

Episodes: 30 (+ short animated clip)

Genre: Suspense, romance, historical  

Original network:  Youku

Release date:        13 Oct  2023

Airing schedule:    13 Oct 2023 - 1 Nov 2023

Synopsis:

What happens when you have taken one wrong step after another? Hua Qian, who has used the most unscrupulous of means to arrive at her ends, finds out that the consequences are deadly. As she lies dying, she is offered a second chance at life...