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Bubbletea Reviews

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Bubbletea Reviews

Australia
A Murderous Affair in Horizon Tower chinese drama review
Completed
A Murderous Affair in Horizon Tower
3 people found this review helpful
by Bubbletea Reviews
Sep 6, 2020
16 of 16 episodes seen
Completed
Overall 9.0
Story 9.0
Acting/Cast 9.5
Music 9.0
Rewatch Value 8.5
This review may contain spoilers

Twists : The Murder Mystery

By far, this is my favourite murder mystery I've seen from Cdrama. Watched on recommendation from Zhang Ziyi (yes that famous actress), otherwise I wouldnt have given it a try (see AB)

But Angelababy does not disappoint. I even think Mei Bao is modelled after her. Don't let that stop you from giving this a go!

This drama is twists: The murder mystery. Every episode is a twist in an unfurling classic whodunnit story and has been crafted well - down to its music, cinematography, acting, you can tell everything has been planned down for consistency and detail (unlike the majority of cdramas, I'm sad to say) and I suppose its because this only has 16 episodes! From a cdrama point of view, wheres dramas go up 70 and above, thank god. and it shows, this show has structure, it makes sense. So yes I finished 16 episodes within 2 days, because 1) it wasnt draggy and the story mystery is compelling i.e. how did she really die? 2)the story is dark, so I wanted to finish it asap bc I was a bit sick afterwards (but not the gory kind dont worry)

Plot: I won't spoil too many details but as you can tell, the overall genre is similar to Murder of the Orient Express, but in a tower, and things are not what they seem, the inhabitants all share secrets that unfold in sometimes inexplicable logic. As the story unfurls, I like how we slowly begin to question everyone's dictation of the events - like a proper mystery. Even at the premise, where the directors planted a seed of distrust to the older detective who are meant to the uber-trustworthy guy (he is). There are multiple ways a story can be twisted, and that is the greatest point of this drama! Sometimes truth is weirder than fiction, and this definitely applies here. I'll have to watch it again, because I'm not quite sure what was really were lies even after the dust has settled, and the drama does not provide a full explanation, but maybe that was the point? The best part of this show was the anime interlude, which was very well done and unique, albeit melodramatic, as a metaphor for Mei Bao's pain.

Weakness: The ending, aka ep 16. Look I like happy endings, but although ep 15 where it seemed like all hope was lost, the resolution was amazingly fast and although clued in before, it seemed a bit far fetched. Could it really happen this way? It seemed too good to be true. All the characters especially Mei Bai and her friends were particulry kooky, but I guess they'd have to be to make this drama inexplicable events work and the evil guy behind all this - was just EVIL in all sense of the world with absolutely no humanity left in him and extremely motivated and smart from the very beginning, you begin to get sick everytime he shows on screen. Everyone seem to have explicable motives - but was I looking for reality in this show? Im not sure. The show really succeeds in dividing the line between good guys and bad guys (despite how they say the line is blurred), but I like the line about doing the right thing vs the righteous thing. However this line felt contrived with the ending - yeah they could the righteous thing ONLY because it was also the "right" thing by the law. Police don't have a choice but to be the hero at the end of the day.

TLDR: This show is dark and mysterious in the right ways, and you leave with a happy ending, so thats a proper mystery - better than any mystery you've probably watched recently.

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