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Watching "Unriddle"
Aug. 23rd, 2020 06:54 amI had a few days off that I would normally have used to go to Convergence (it does have a few online events this weekend) and decided to do a little binge watching. I stumbled across the 2010 Singapore crime drama "Unriddle", available on Crunchyroll and U.S. Netflix. Not done with the first season yet, but here's a few thoughts.
Hu Xiaoman is a police officer, head of a squad that initially specializes in kidnapping investigations. Their investigation of the abduction of an Indonesian woman leads them to the hideout of a human trafficking gang. But someone tips off the gang just before the police arrive. The victims are rescued, but the gang escapes. The leak turns out to have come from Hu's colleague and potential love interest Zhang Yuze, who turns out to have done it to protect his inside informant in the gang, Da Bao ("Bun") who he is using to capture the gang's foreign connections as well.
Bun's true nature is kind of spoiled by her being in the opening credits, but in the show, the big clue is that she deliberately passes the key to the victims' cage to the victims when the hideout is raided so they won't die in the fire gang leader Savage has ordered to destroy the evidence.
When Zhang mysteriously disappears, Bun is forced to go to Hu to become her informant and wrap up the investigation. The two women initially hate each other, but as Bun helps Hu with other cases, they become bickering buddies.
There are heavy soap opera undertones between the cases--all the main characters have sad backstories. Bun's family in particular turns out to be "found family" as none of the members are blood relations but were kind of adopted by Bun due to their circumstances.
Hu of course is a "good" cop, though she's cold-blooded towards suspects and remember, the cops can and will lie to you to get you to incriminate yourself. Zhang seems like a good cop initially, but there's a certain case from fifteen years ago that's the myth arc of the season that suggests otherwise. Their superior Andrew* is super shady from the get-go; it's possible he's on the side of the angels, but he too was involved in the case from fifteen years ago and is clearly hiding things and routinely warns Hu off investigations that come too close. Hu's subordinates are earnest and don't seem to be abusing their power, but are not quite as smart/competent as she is.
*Due to Singapore's history, most of the characters have Chinese names and "English" names, and in addition many have nicknames. Which name they actually use depends on the character's preference.
Bun of course is more your streetwise, low level criminal type, though the "criminal" part fades out over the course of the story. She's got a warm heart behind her coarse exterior, and is respected in her seedy neighborhood. She's got a habit for giving people unpleasant nicknames though; she calls the conventionally attractive and slender Hu "Bony Shrew" and a suspect in one case "The Sissy."
The police don't get off entirely uncriticized; the basis of an early case is the catastrophic failure of the cops to properly follow up a missing persons report. (Insert "Cool motive. Still murder." gif here.) This inspires Hu to do better which comes in handy when Andrew dumps a bunch of missing person cases on her to distract from the Zhang investigation. On the other hand, there's several instances where following rules works to the disadvantage of the police and victims. And anyone who asks for a lawyer or a warrant is in fact guilty of something, not always the thing the police care about.
As you might expect from a crime drama, there's a fair amount of potentially triggering content: domestic abuse, harm to children, homophobia/transphobia, offscreen rape, drug abuse, suicide, and probably other things.
I'm finding it fascinating, but clearly not to everyone's taste.
eta: Full review now up. http://www.skjam.com/2020/08/24/tv-review-unriddle-season-one/
Hu Xiaoman is a police officer, head of a squad that initially specializes in kidnapping investigations. Their investigation of the abduction of an Indonesian woman leads them to the hideout of a human trafficking gang. But someone tips off the gang just before the police arrive. The victims are rescued, but the gang escapes. The leak turns out to have come from Hu's colleague and potential love interest Zhang Yuze, who turns out to have done it to protect his inside informant in the gang, Da Bao ("Bun") who he is using to capture the gang's foreign connections as well.
Bun's true nature is kind of spoiled by her being in the opening credits, but in the show, the big clue is that she deliberately passes the key to the victims' cage to the victims when the hideout is raided so they won't die in the fire gang leader Savage has ordered to destroy the evidence.
When Zhang mysteriously disappears, Bun is forced to go to Hu to become her informant and wrap up the investigation. The two women initially hate each other, but as Bun helps Hu with other cases, they become bickering buddies.
There are heavy soap opera undertones between the cases--all the main characters have sad backstories. Bun's family in particular turns out to be "found family" as none of the members are blood relations but were kind of adopted by Bun due to their circumstances.
Hu of course is a "good" cop, though she's cold-blooded towards suspects and remember, the cops can and will lie to you to get you to incriminate yourself. Zhang seems like a good cop initially, but there's a certain case from fifteen years ago that's the myth arc of the season that suggests otherwise. Their superior Andrew* is super shady from the get-go; it's possible he's on the side of the angels, but he too was involved in the case from fifteen years ago and is clearly hiding things and routinely warns Hu off investigations that come too close. Hu's subordinates are earnest and don't seem to be abusing their power, but are not quite as smart/competent as she is.
*Due to Singapore's history, most of the characters have Chinese names and "English" names, and in addition many have nicknames. Which name they actually use depends on the character's preference.
Bun of course is more your streetwise, low level criminal type, though the "criminal" part fades out over the course of the story. She's got a warm heart behind her coarse exterior, and is respected in her seedy neighborhood. She's got a habit for giving people unpleasant nicknames though; she calls the conventionally attractive and slender Hu "Bony Shrew" and a suspect in one case "The Sissy."
The police don't get off entirely uncriticized; the basis of an early case is the catastrophic failure of the cops to properly follow up a missing persons report. (Insert "Cool motive. Still murder." gif here.) This inspires Hu to do better which comes in handy when Andrew dumps a bunch of missing person cases on her to distract from the Zhang investigation. On the other hand, there's several instances where following rules works to the disadvantage of the police and victims. And anyone who asks for a lawyer or a warrant is in fact guilty of something, not always the thing the police care about.
As you might expect from a crime drama, there's a fair amount of potentially triggering content: domestic abuse, harm to children, homophobia/transphobia, offscreen rape, drug abuse, suicide, and probably other things.
I'm finding it fascinating, but clearly not to everyone's taste.
eta: Full review now up. http://www.skjam.com/2020/08/24/tv-review-unriddle-season-one/
