Catch me if you can!
Thirteen Years of Dust is the best Light On/Mist Theatre suspense thriller iQiyi has released since The Bad Kids and The Long Night in 2020. This tightly written mystery cum police procedural is gripping from the start. An eerily staged crime scene reminds Lu Xingzhi of a serial killer that had terrorised Nandu thirteen years ago, when he was just a rookie detective. Starting with his mentor Wei Zhengrong, he gets the old investigative team that had profiled and hunted the killer back together again. They have unfinished business to get down to. Thus begins a thrilling chase for the long hidden killer who seems to be taunting them, "Catch me if you can!"The way the narrative unfolds in parallel between the present and the past is mesmerising and immediately made me invested in the main characters, including potential antagonists. In the present, the characters are older yet wear unmistakeable vestiges of the past that make them seem still touchingly familiar. We see what they were like juxtaposed against what they have become. This invokes a haunting sense of nostalgia over what was lost and what could have been. This captures the essence of what made CBS's Cold Case one of my favorite police procedural series. Wei Zhengrong seems the most markedly affected. In sharp contrast to the rather rough, dismissive, and bitingly cynical cop in his prime, he becomes a muted, wiser and oddly broken shadow of his former self. Lu Xingzhi on the other hand has delivered on his early promise and come into his own but his family life is disrupted.
Chen Jianbin and Chen Xiao anchor the stellar cast in this production. Both are charismatic and convincing actors with such incredible chemistry that it evolves to reflect the passage of time. They each subtly take on some of the other's traits thirteen years later, indicating how deeply they influenced one another. It is not easy to play characters that have aged and changed over thirteen years, yet remain essentially that character. Beyond both leads, every main character in each of the many cases delivers riveting portrayals of both their younger and older selves. This brought the victims to life through the eyes of people who knew them, loved them, feared them, envied them and may very well have killed them! The side story that moved me most was that of the gangster and the dancer.
The plot is very well designed and is a lot more whodunit than howdunit. It is set in a time when use of forensic technology was nascent and primitive. So the cases had to be approached the good old fashioned way of narrowing down suspects to who had motive, means and opportunity. The evidence and clues are all presented in an even handed manner; there is no attempt to hide anything from the viewer. From early on, the audience has enough clues to credibly build a case around at least two suspects at any given time. While the solution is not a huge surprise as the killer is well concealed but far from invisible, it still comes with a decent twist. It is a surprisingly dark story with a chilling ending for a c-drama. The production maintains an unsettling tension of a disturbing and menacing presence throughout. If I have to criticise, the staged crime scenes are a bit pretentious and the explanation of the painting and its significance is on the weak side although it just passes muster.
Overall, this is a well written and nicely executed crime thriller that will satisfy exacting crime buffs. A highly recommended watch that I rate 8.5/10.0.
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This review may contain spoilers
Not quite there but getting so close to being perfect.
Acting: Cast were one of the winning cards of this drama, even small/guest roles were done very nicely. Main point of the story is a case and the people connected to it in 1997 and 2010 and characterization, make up and acting together make you feel the years passed and the changes in the appearance and personality of the people involved. I seldom remember a drama showing time change this delicately.Story: My problem with whodunit stories, either in writing or on screen is that they tend to spend more than 95% of their length circling around who has done it then the short remaining time is spent on a hasty "Why" and "How" . I don't know if it's because the creators are afraid it becomes boring after the culprit is exposed so they keep them hidden as long as then can or else but the important part here is "hasty wrap up". From 4th ep. and Yang Zhe's introduction until 21th ep. by emphasising on both his personal traits like interest in European paintings, amateur drawing, writing detective novels, etc and parallels between his behaviour and Lu and Wei's descriptions of a serial murderer doing things like asking around to get information on their case or going away and stop killing, the writers made him a perfect suspect, "The only suspect" for at least 18 eps. I lost believe in his guilt before his return in the '10 timeline but still they did everything they could, even the smallest details (e.g. having him living in the same neighborhood as the murderer and coming home at midnight, Ning being wary of him, killing Hong violently on the night YM stood him up to gave him anger) to keep us focusing on him, they even gave him a knife in an isolated place only to forget his existence after a harsh arrest just like Lu did. I didn't want a full story of his life or what did he do if he didn't have a company but his subplot could've been solved much earlier and more graceful. On the contrary a good unassuming suspect like Guapi was wasted away hurriedly like that. They could've very well use his similiar surname to Wu Jia to play this father and son game a bit more, instead of getting divine police instinct in the last 2 episodes and know the culprit on the spot. Two good plot twists was done with in a blink.
Anyway, the '97 timeline was wrapped up nicely by reaching the first episode point but at the end, the original murderer's thoughts and motives remained largely unanswered, like his interest in drawing, paintings, detective fiction, etc, Specially as he used the hole on his mother's face to compare how the victims' faces would look in her picture. How did he even chose them? Lu ordered his subordinates to investigate his background family but it was never mentioned again, there wasn't a glimpse of his notes too. Here we had a character that barely talked more than 5,6 sentences throughout the drama with a mysterious past but they killed him off in flashbacks without shedding anymore light on him other than being a monster.( personally when they said he disappeared, I thought WJ must've killed him)
Lastly: although the story took its time with pacing, going between the past and the present wasn't disjointed or boring but rather uneventful. I think the suspects were too few, there were barely one suspect for every death and they were cleared quickly. Copycat crime was a nice diversion but still there wasn't enough suspense to keep up the thrill. Also, I didn't understand why Lu and YM had to go through all the bothers to get an official divorce and stay a couple when they could easily just live separated. Ning only needed a relaxed home.
P.S: Out of seven deaths, two unattended ones excluded, I liked Liu Meng's posture the best. When Wei called the others to watch it from behind the frame, the lights, the set and the music were just great.
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13 years of no progress
The story line goes back and forth way too much that failed to deliver any kind of development. Everything happened in ep 22-24. As much as I am a fan of crime dramas this lacked the mystery and the progression that any good script requires. Burning Ice (2017) to me is still the gold standard for mystery with captivating characters.The only outstanding character to me was actually the wife of the young cop, a supporting character. The MLs:
1. The old cop's character was all around frustrating. He lacked any sensibility, discriminating against a suspect that should've clearly been ruled out ultimately indirectly caused the tragedy that followed.
2. The young cop (who I actually watched the drama for) was the only character that had any crime solving brains. He made connections where as the old cop to me made zero progress. I didn't even see the point why they needed the old cop other than he was on the case 13 years ago and provided flash back minutes. Still I felt the character was rather bland until last 2 ep.
If you think about the critical developments were:
1. (NOT a cop) that provided the origins of a painting
2. DNA technology improvement
3. Key Witness (memory coming back)
Not much to do with actual detective work.
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This review may contain spoilers
The Psyche of a Killer
It's always a delight for me to watch criminal investigation dramas. And it's always a murder, because the public is obsessed with the pathology of psychopaths who are obsessed with murdering young women. The team took 13 years to solve the case, hence the title - because the killer stopped murdering women during these 13 years.I have not watched Chen Xiao on screen since A Dream of Splendour, and while he was in that other cop series with Wang Yi Bo, To Be a Hero, I couldn't remain interested enough to complete it. However, I did enjoy this drama until the last 3 episodes. From there, it seemed to me that the writers were in a rush to wrap up the series at Episode 24, so they just haphazardly threw false suspects and questionable red herrings at the audience before finally willing to reveal the actual murderer.
I enjoyed watching the characters grew as people, and as detectives during these 13 years. A rookie cop climbed the ranks to become captain of his team. He went from moderately reserved to picking up quick-temperedness from his "master" due to stress and burnouts of investigating the case. His "master", on the other hand, went from a hot-tempered detective who clung to regrets of his first love to truly appreciating his current life. He went from someone who was shut to "foreign ideas" to be more accepting of the opinions of others. I also enjoyed how the women in the male leads' lives are ever so loving, understanding and supporting. These characters are beautifully written, because while they may not be unique in everyday lives - real life is full of amazing people - they're unique in the sense that we rarely see such characters in shows.
The drama also provides, with an accurate look into what forensic technology was like at the turn of last century. Many of the scenes had investigators lament how they're so close to catching the killer, yet so far - because technology hasn't caught up enough to yield definitive evidence. Basic investigation techniques still apply, with some hilarious and creative approaches, as evidenced in the final episodes where a group of townspeople were called into the station to identify suspects on the CCTV.
Towards the end of the show, I hated how Gua Pi was harassed to the point that he snapped and killed himself, and there wasn't any culpability for that. Yeah, he's a loser, he had lots of misdeameanour charges. But harassing someone is wrong. It makes it even worse that a veteran cop did this. The show did mention that this was a big mistake that they made earlier in the episodes, but to see it played out this way only at the end didn't make it better. So no one took responsibility for this? Yang Zhe was also implicated as one of the suspects, and he was just "there" conveniently to provide insights of the weird ass art as they were close to cracking the case. The art is reminiscent of lowbrow art made popular in the 1960s (still popular today and known as pop surrealism) but they put a fictional spin on it. Anyway the whole thing is a mess towards the end.
Nevertheless, I don't regret the time spent on this drama and would recommend it to detective or criminal investigation drama fans.
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Very Enjoyable
I have never been much of a crime/detective drama fan but I really enjoyed this one. It might be Chen Xiao, who is one of my absolute favorite Chinese actors but the remainder of the cast were stellar as well. It was 24 episodes so it did not really drag as much as those 30 episodes and longer dramas. It jumped between two timelines, the present 2010, and 1997. They did this very well in my opinion, it never got too confusing. I do not want to spoil anything by getting to deep into the drama but if you are a crime/police drama fan you should give this one a try.Was this review helpful to you?
Great Investigation Drama
This drama was not on my radar at all since I haven't watched a good Chinese crime drama in a long time. However, I heard some good things online so I gave this a try. The first couple of episodes do pull you in right away although the pacing could sometimes make you feel a bit tired. However, the main and supporting characters are introduced nicely and you get attached to them early in the drama because of the relationships on screen. These supporting characters are also a great source of comic relief to lighten up the mood. My favorites would be Wei and his 4 buddies in the station. The acting was also very great- from the entire cast. There wasn't only one person carrying the drama, which is what I hate.As for the crime and the main case, I was immediately intrigued by the case. I am a big fan of these serial killer cases in dramas and this one was quite different although also a bit cliche. I liked how the drama slowly revealed more information and narrowed down the suspects in each episode. The final reveal at the end was not completely unexpected but it did surprise me how we finally reached that conclusion. I wish that there was more of an explanation of the killer's motive and M.O. but it is true that there are cases in real life that do not get everything tied up neatly. It was also a neat touch that the Western serial killers and criminal psychology were mentioned throughout the investigation. The process of investigating the entire case was also done well and realistically. The flashbacks were helpful and not too abrupt or confusing.
Would recommend it for crime lovers as it has a solid storyline and superb acting!
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Enjoyable Crime- Mystery Series
Highly recommended for those who like Crime-Mystery-Suspense series. In the beginning it may seem like a normal series but the story will get deeper and deeper with each ep. Very interesting series.Plot: An unsolved serial ki*lling case of 13 years ago, comes before the police in a new way.
Why couldn't the police find the culprit 13 years ago? Why did this criminal not commit crime in 13 years? Will they be able to find the culprit?
They showed the past and present (of the series) little by little in a very beautiful way. The making style was great. That's why I enjoyed the series more. This series will give a very different vibe while watching, sometimes there was comedy and the family life of the detectives was also showed due to the need of the story.
The different color grading of past present was top notch. The acting of the main 2 actors was very good. The series created good suspense and mystery.
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A better crime drama in compared to "Who Is He". Chen Xiao performed great.
Thirteen Years of Dust tells the story of a series of serial homicides in Nandu 13 years ago, starting with Chen Xiao and Chen Jian Bin as they tried to solve the murders.Due to the limitations of CSI at the time, they failed to lock the suspect's case, so it became an unsolved case. 13 years later, the serial murder case resurfaced; the older and younger policemen joined forces again to investigate the cold case.
The flow of the drama alternate between 1997 and 2010; it is boring but not too bad. I think it is better than Who is He so far. The last 4 episodes reviewed more clues, and the unexpected suspect was eventually revealed.
I think it would be better for any crime drama to be cut short between 16-20 episodes so that it does not become draggy and dull. Otherwise, the theme and plot are repetitive as the policemen try to solve the crime.
I believe Chen Xiao performed better in this drama than last year, Being a Hero with Wang Yibo. Overall, it was not too bad; I give it a 7.0 rating.
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