From the team behind The Message (recommended!). Now with Justifiable Defence, director Li Yun Liang has dabbed in suspense dramas across all eras, including the historical Judge Dee Mysteries (not quite recommended...). The screenwriter Jia Dong Yan also worked on the hit series Under the Skin (S1 for extra clarification).
Wrapped on December 28, 2023.
[Ending] Justice is served. Happy for Fang Ling Yuan and Duan Hong Shan.
Firstly, I genuinely enjoyed how confusing the mystery was, especially how 3 different self-defence cases overlapped. Gao Ye, the prosecutor, investigates both the MLs while her own story slowly unfolds within theirs. The scattered pieces felt impossible to make sense of, and I really appreciated that the confusion never came from misdirection. Every strange clue had its place to get us closer to the truth. Even as late as Episode 12, the show still had real shock value
Favourite scene: Ep10 because of the ladies. T___T
Biggest disbelief: Gao Ye's character is younger than Bai Jing Ting's T______T
However, the ending can be (or is?) a dealbreaker. If you're familiar with crime/legal Cdramas, you might already be braced for the pattern: no matter how carefully a show explores the traumas and humanity of the "wronged ones," the final act snaps back into a rigid black-and-white frame. The moral gavel clicks, and justice must be served, neatly, coldly, and without exception. Moreover, for this drama specifically, the grand motive behind all that elaborate manipulation felt so very flat. And I think the motive is rather crucial to the premise...
Anyway, it doesn’t quite stick the landing, but I was sucked into the the feeling of constantly being one step behind the truth. If you're going in, just know the ending doesn’t quite measure up to the ride. (What's new anyway?)
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