mayhemf
Art with a dash of Crime! My new Cuppa!
Under the Skin
I absolutely loved this show to bits. From the first episode to the last episode. There was not a moment I felt a scene was unnecessary. The show had a very solid production, excellent music and perfect casting.
One of the biggest strengths of the show is the script. I thought it was a very intelligently written show and the direction surely brought the vision on screen. What differentiates this show from generic crime shows is that it took forensics as a focus, specifically artists/portrait sketchers in forensics and stuck to it. This helped get into the details of a single aspect of forensics and get to see cases from a very unique perspective. Sometimes, it felt a bit unreal, but as the show progressed a lot of it got explained or made sense to me. The show chose not to show the full spectrum of case solving and it was left to us audience to understand that there is more to a case solving than what is just shown. (e.g other detectives are doing their work finding past crimes or doing field work etc which wasn’t the focus of this show.)
One thing that struck me most in the show is how women were portrayed here. Be it the professionals, the criminals or victims. Women were not exploited or shown with intent to victimize women from a voyeuristic male gaze. Women were part of crimes at both ends. I would even say it was mostly a women-centric drama. What made is even more special to me was that it was not shown from a female viewpoint. Usually, women centric shows end up having women leads. This show did a great job in casting two men as the leads and still making this a women centered drama. Kudos to the team for this!
Shen Yi! My heart! When was the last time we had a male character who was sensitive and so empathetic?. I don't think I have seen one. I loved how they made him so sensitive to his emotions and others around him (very relatable to artists) yet not making him an emotional vulnerable mess, but a pragmatic police officer! Case in point, when he had to deal with his partner being a suspect - he was overcome with his emotions but he still did the right thing as a police officer and as a partner (asking and listening to him).
Art: I loved how much research went into tying the art pieces to cases. I loved reading up on the art and its meaning. It was all seamlessly done and really added a lot of depth to the cases. (Also made me go to the internet for research and slowing my drama watch). They also made a lot of subtle social commentary here, without coming across as preachy. This show made me realize how much female artists have been sidelined over the course of history and made me look up female artists in history and I am hoping to learn about their works over a period of time.
And like many have said, the art porn in this drama is insane. Truly phenomenal and inspiring. It makes me want to sketch/paint more.
Overall Rating - 9/10
I absolutely loved this show to bits. From the first episode to the last episode. There was not a moment I felt a scene was unnecessary. The show had a very solid production, excellent music and perfect casting.
One of the biggest strengths of the show is the script. I thought it was a very intelligently written show and the direction surely brought the vision on screen. What differentiates this show from generic crime shows is that it took forensics as a focus, specifically artists/portrait sketchers in forensics and stuck to it. This helped get into the details of a single aspect of forensics and get to see cases from a very unique perspective. Sometimes, it felt a bit unreal, but as the show progressed a lot of it got explained or made sense to me. The show chose not to show the full spectrum of case solving and it was left to us audience to understand that there is more to a case solving than what is just shown. (e.g other detectives are doing their work finding past crimes or doing field work etc which wasn’t the focus of this show.)
One thing that struck me most in the show is how women were portrayed here. Be it the professionals, the criminals or victims. Women were not exploited or shown with intent to victimize women from a voyeuristic male gaze. Women were part of crimes at both ends. I would even say it was mostly a women-centric drama. What made is even more special to me was that it was not shown from a female viewpoint. Usually, women centric shows end up having women leads. This show did a great job in casting two men as the leads and still making this a women centered drama. Kudos to the team for this!
Shen Yi! My heart! When was the last time we had a male character who was sensitive and so empathetic?. I don't think I have seen one. I loved how they made him so sensitive to his emotions and others around him (very relatable to artists) yet not making him an emotional vulnerable mess, but a pragmatic police officer! Case in point, when he had to deal with his partner being a suspect - he was overcome with his emotions but he still did the right thing as a police officer and as a partner (asking and listening to him).
Art: I loved how much research went into tying the art pieces to cases. I loved reading up on the art and its meaning. It was all seamlessly done and really added a lot of depth to the cases. (Also made me go to the internet for research and slowing my drama watch). They also made a lot of subtle social commentary here, without coming across as preachy. This show made me realize how much female artists have been sidelined over the course of history and made me look up female artists in history and I am hoping to learn about their works over a period of time.
And like many have said, the art porn in this drama is insane. Truly phenomenal and inspiring. It makes me want to sketch/paint more.
Overall Rating - 9/10
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