No Doubt in Us, Signal

[halfcactus]

两不疑 No Doubt In Us (S1)

STREAMING ON: Netflix (S1), Bilibili on Youtube (S2—not sure if S1 is still up)

Bodyswap donghua, 10 mins per episode—he is the delicate and scholarly Emperor, and she is the brash and warriorlike Empress. I started it a while back and it was a fun iddy romp at first, but I got bored in the second half when we progressed to war, haha. Ended up watching it at 1.5X speed (the fastest that Netflix will let me); I found it worth finishing because a scene at the finale pushed all the right buttons for me. XD


Signal (2016)

STREAMING ON: Netflix (+ Prime Video, it seems?)

I wish I'd written about this sooner when I'd just freshly watched it, because now I've forgotten all my thoughts. /o\ This was recced by Neigette, who described it as like a hybrid of Reset and Under the Skin.

Signal is a 16-episode crime kdrama with time loop elements and three primary characters:

Lieutenant Park Haeyeong: a hot-headed cop-hating profiler whose worldview has been shaped and shaken by the failure of the police, the injustice of society, and unresolved questions about his brother.

Detective Cha Soohyun: the first female detective in the force, formerly a wide-eyed newbie, and now a steely and tired veteran in the police who takes over the Cold Case Task Force. She is searching for the whereabouts of her missing mentor, Lee Jaehan.

Detective Lee Jaehan: a brash and righteous cop with zero people skills who went missing fifteen years ago.

At the present day (2015), Park Haeyeong finds a walkie-talkie and receives a mysterious transmission from Lee Jaehan from the year 2000, which leads Haeyeong to the site of a dead body. This is the final part of a time loop——in the next transmission, Lee Jaehan is in the year 1989. From that point on, both men work together to solve cases between 1989 to 2000 and uncover the corruption and conspiracies in the police force.

The first episode for this was a great hook! Right amount of tension (the time pressure, lol) and emotional stakes. Other than that, I found the first half of the show, during which Lee Jaehan and Park Haeyeong are still figuring out how "changing time" works, a bit weak and slow. It doesn't help that most of the victims/targets in the first half are women (one of these is a real-life serial murder case, so at least it's not victimizing women for no reason). It does really pick up a lot in the halfway mark, in Lee Jaehan and Park Haeyeong's first brush with the chaebols, and continues to gain momentum as they finally tap on the longer arc that comes together in the case that killed Park Haeyeong's brother.

In terms of characterization, I really enjoyed how the team dynamic of the Cold Cases team as well as the dynamic between the leads sidestepped several common tropes in the genre! It acknowledges that anger is an emotion; between Park Haeyeong and Cha Soohyun, Park Haeyeong is the emotional one with personality issues, and his self-righteous hot-headedness costs them. (I like that he's very flawed and presented as such.) Cha Soohyun gets all the cool car chase and fight scenes, and doesn't trust Haeyeong enough to trust him blindly. The romantic storyline is between Detective Cha and Detective Lee, while Lieutenant Park remains undateable, lol. I really didn't care for Lee Jaehan at first, but the emotional payoff between him and Park Haeyeong's cross-generational interactions (unlocked only when you get to the final case at Inju) was so good and worth the watch!!!!!!!!!!!

Overall, this is a pretty great crime drama with social critique that gets better in the second half, and stays within a reasonable scope! I did end up watching most of it in 1.5x speed because I can't stand suspense. XD Also handles sensitives themes better than I expected.


CONTENT NOTES
There are two cases that involve sexual violence and rape:

1) The 1995 Shin Dahye disappearance case, where some of the assault is onscreen: it continues past the moment where a character grabs a woman by her hair.

2) The 1999 Inju Female High School Student Case: the rape scene is brief and mostly offscreen but is central to the plot, AND there are scenes where she's victim-blamed or pressured to come forward (which the show handles sensitively).

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Thaaaaat's it for May!!! IDK if I should make a roundup of the stuff I watched in May. I feel like I should, just for the visual satisfaction, but... effort.

Recently finished media in June so far: Little Mushroom volume 1 (English + Chinese); Spider-Man: Across the Spiderverse; Little Mushroom audiodrama S1.

Soon to finish: New Life Begins; My Love Story with Yamada-kun at Lv999 (I caught up on the manga back in May, but the anime's still ongoing with a few episodes left).