Entry tags:
Review: The Drug Hunter (獵毒人) (2018)
I went into this show expecting very little, and it turned out average. Everything about this show was average. It wasn't god tier, but it wasn't the worst that I've seen. I would say that this was an okay show to watch if you're putting it on to do other stuff (which is what I did).
Spoilers.
Story
When I first started, I was expecting some propaganda-heavy story line disguised with Yu Hewei acting like an undercover bad boy. In my opinion, I wasn't totally off.
The first half of the story was about Lv Yunpeng hunting down Xiezi/Scorpion, who was his brother's murderer. I thought this part of the story was not that interesting because the police officers had too much screen time. I'll talk more about the police officers later.
The second half of the story was about Lv Yunpeng infiltrating the Chumen drug enterprise in Thailand. This was more interesting because Lv Yunpeng had less police backup and therefore had to play things by ear. The characters in this half of the story were also more interesting and complex as we saw them turn from friend to foe.
I didn't like the police officers because they were subject to some inconsistent writing in the context of the plan to take down the drug enterprise. When Lv Yunpeng was a one-man show hunting down Xiezi, the police officers were always a step late. It kind of rendered them unnecessary because Lv Yunpeng seemed to be able to handle everything himself. Later on, the police officers were able to infiltrate the drug industry way too easily. The way that Jiang Yinan was introduced to Chu Ying as a lawyer was way too smooth. There was no way she wouldn't have been vetted a million times over as opposed to just being introduced by one person and so quickly becoming Chu Ying's close friend.
In addition, the dynamic of the police officers was not very interesting. Jiang Yinan and Wei Hai used to date but now they were coworkers. This really only came into play at the end when Wei Hai decided to give up his life to protect Jiang Yinan. I thought this was kind of bullshit by the way. There had to have been an another. My major annoyance with the police force was Chen Tong. She was very annoying and too much screen time was focused on her crush and her supposed "maturation."
I didn't like Jiang Yinan very much. I tolerated her in the second half of the story, when she had a bigger role in the operations. The romance was also better in the second half, but in my opinion Yu Hewei was still doing more of the heavy lifting in terms of the acting. I didn't think Hou Mengshe was that charismatic of an actress.
There was some anti-drug propaganda. Zhao Yi was shown as someone who was never able to get clean and he died for it. He didn't even really have a redemption arc. Zha Lai's life was ruined because of drugs. At the end of the show, Chen Tong was pretty hateful against any drug addicts, but Lv Mengyao showed some sympathy to the guy who'd helped her and her mom escape. So I think the messages that the show was going for were
(1) don't do drugs because it'll control your life like Zhao Yi
(2) drugs are bad because they ruin lives like Zha Lai's
(3) We should still feel bad for drug addicts because they're still human
I was glad that the story didn't completely whitewash the story, and that we had some friends-turned-foes. Yin Ta and Chu Ying were the main characters that this happened to.
I won't lie, I expected Lv Yunfei to come back. His corpse wasn't even found, so I was really expecting him to turn up after being in hiding for months. I guess he was just in this show as a favour to Yu Hewei lol.
Production
Dialogue
The dialogue was kind of clumsy. It definitely wasn't anything that stood out. Near the beginning, the dubbing was pretty bad too. But I think it got better as the show moved on.
Cinematography
There were a lot of scenes that were "music video" scenes. These were scenes where we'd see characters doing some emotional angsting, and the theme song would play over, with the lyrics showing up on the screen.
This happened a lot near the beginning of the show, probably because the show wanted us to sympathize with the characters but we hadn't built up an emotional bond with them yet.
I thought this was over-used though, as we continued to see these sorts of scenes through to the end.
Acting
The only reason I watched this show was because of Yu Hewei and Wang Jinsong. I think they were fine, but definitely limited by the quality of their script. I'll talk more about their acting in their characters ections.
In comparison to those two, I felt that the rest of the supporting cast was a bit acting. The differences in acting quality were especially apparent in the first handful of episodes. I couldn't take Hou Mengshe seriously. I just felt that she didn't have a good presence that made her seem like a female lead.
That being said, the writing for most characters was average. No character was written to be very interesting, so it makes sense that the actors had their hands tied in terms of how they could interpret their characters.
Characters
Lv Yunpeng
I had a hard time pinpointing Lv Yunpeng's actual character. Like many action stars, he's stoic but bold, but blank enough so that he can be a self-insert character for fanboys. That was my interpretation of Lv Yunpeng, especially in the beginning when he was working his operation alone.
That was why I felt that Yu Hewei's acting was a bit restricted. He didn't have a lot of interesting character moments to work with. The most interesting moments were probably when he had to lie to others in the Chumen compound to gain their trust, but I never felt worried on his behalf.
So I guess in a way, I didn't care for this character because I didn't ever really feel that he was in danger. In addition, we saw him do science things maybe like 5 times. The show did not take advantage of his scientific background. So basically he was just a normal guy becoming an undercover agent. There just wasn't anything about Lv Yunpeng's character that I wanted to cheer for.
Jiang Yinan
I had some gripes with Jiang Yinan's character, but after thinking about it, I think I was too harsh on her character's writing. Jiang Yinan was always a bit emotional when it came to the Lv family, which makes sense considering she was living with them as a member of the family for years. I did think she was more interesting in the second half as a field agent, as opposed to just a member of Wei Hai's team.
However, I just didn't find Hou Mengshe very charismatic. I couldn't bring myself to care about Jiang Yinan other than hoping that she didn't die. At some points, I even felt that Chu Ying had a bigger presence than Jiang Yinan, despite having had more time to bond with Jiang Yinan.
Maybe it's also because Jiang Yinan was supposed to act opposite Lv Yunpeng, and I just didn't feel that her character was "epic" enough to match Lv Yunpeng's pace. I also just didn't find Jiang Yinan's writing too believable. Were we supposed to believe that Jiang Yinan had legal training? She was posing as a lawyer, but she had to be able to at least sound like she knew what she was talking about.
Overall, Jiang Yinan just fell kind of flat for me, just like Lv Yunpeng.
Wei Hai
Ever since I watched Day & Night, I compare every head police detective wtih Zhou Xun. Wei Hai wishes he was as smart as Zhou Xun, but as we saw in the first half of the show, he was always a step behind. In addition, he wasn't charismatic enough to be someone who could act opposite Lv Yunpeng. I might've taken Wei Hai a little bit more seriously if the actor was a little older, but the writing was still a little iffy.
Wei Hai took a bit of a back seat in the second half because he was in the office back in China.
While in Thailand, Lv Yunpeng was about to have his cover blown, Jiang Yinan asked Wei Hai to turn herself in to cover for him. Instead, Wei Hai put forth his own name as a spy to cover for Jiang Yinan and Lv Yunpeng. I felt that Wei Hai and Qiudui could've whipped up a smarter solution than to just offer Wei Hai as a sacrificial lamb, to be honest. Especially because the show spent a considerable amount of time in the first part of the show building up Wei Hai as a police officer with potential. I didn't feel that his death was heroic, I just felt that it was kind of a waste.
Wu Xinhe
Contrary to Wei Hai, Wu Xinhe would've been more believable if a younger actor had been cast. He was very clearly over 40, and Mengyao was a very young-looking girl, so him going after her was sketchy to begin with.
I think the concept of Wu Xinhe's character was interesting. He tried to get an in with Lv Yunpeng's family through softer means (i.e. via his niece). Wu Xinhe was also on bad terms with his uncle, who was the head of his family. Over time, we saw Wu Xinhe being pressured on both sides. His uncle wasn't happy with his work, and the Lv family were working together to get themselves out of his trap.
The writing was slightly more interesting than the rest of the characters, but I think better casting would've made this character more likeable.
Zhao Yi
Zhao Yi was actually my favourite character when he was still alive. His scenes with Lv Yunpeng were the most interesting because I felt that the actor could match Yu Hewei's level of acting, whether it was serious scenes or comedic scenes.
Zhao Yi was the kind of character who was supposed to remind us to stay away from drugs. He hated himself for being a drug addict, but he also wasn't able to get clean (not to mention not having the resources to get rehab and such).
I thought it was kind of lame that he didn't get a real redemption. He was captured while in withdrawal, and forced to give up information in exchange for drugs. He was then shot and died in Lv Yunpeng's arms. He insisted that he didn't tell them anything, which I guess was supposed to be his redemption, but I'm not convinced that it was a good one because he still revealed some information.
Sun Mo
One of the police officers. He died while in the field, liaising for Jiang Yinan, Lv Yunpeng, and company.
Chen Tong
Chen Tong had far too much screen time at all. Most of her scenes were concerned with her crush on Wei Hai which was not cute and not professional.
There were a couple of scenes that were supposed to show that she was actually a competent police officer, but being a competent police officer doesn't negate your annoying overbearing habits.
At the end of the movie, she showed hate towards the drug user who'd helpd Li Mei and Mengyao. She just had a general hate for drug users because Wei Hai had died while fighting the drug trade. This behaviour was not resolved in the story.
Chen Tong was a character that could've been toned down immensely and been a much more tolerable character.
Daliu
Another of the police underlings.
Li Mei
Alright, I am kind of impressed with Li Mei's character. At first, she was the mean sister-in-law who suspected Jiang Yinan (then Xu Li) of being too close to her husband. Then, she became the difficult-to-handle widow.
Over time, Li Mei came to terms with the tragedy in her family. Not only that, she started to notice the shady dealings happening around her family, and tried to protect Mengyao in her own way.
Mengyao
Mengyao's story line was super predictable. We all knew that Wu Xinhe was sketchy from the time we met him just because of his surname.
I didn't think that Mengyao would know about Lv Yunpeng's undercover activities until the very end, so I was pleased that it was not kept a secret for very long. I also expected Mengyao not to be able to accept that Wu Xinhe was just using her until the very end, but we also see that she started coming to terms with that after her mother started sharing her observations.
In the end, Mengyao fought back against Wu Xinhe the best that she could.
Chu Tiannan
Wang Jinsong was good in his role, but he was also so underutilized in my opinion. When Wang Jinsong was acting as a crime boss, I actually found him quite intriguing. See, I always associate Wang Jinsong with his kindly characters like Yan Que from Nirvana in Fire or Xun Yu from the Advisors Alliance. This was the first time I saw him as a ruthless crime boss.
I liked that Chu Tiannan was kind in front of his employees, but ruthless and honest in front of his daughter.
I thought it was a waste that Chu Tiannan spent like half of his episodes in a non-communicative state.
Chu Tiannan had killed his own son because he'd threatened to turn his own dad to the authorities for his drug activities. While Chu Tiannan was looking out for Chu Ying by investigating Lv Yunpeng and Jiang Yinan, she would not forgive Chu Tiannan for what he did to her brother, and also for repeatedly dragging her back into the drug industry. Chu Ying tried to frame her father for shooting Wang Yujiang (the bodyguard). I don't remember what the sentence was, but it didn't matter because Chu Tiannan was poorly anyway.
Chu Ying
I did think that Chu Ying was one of the more interesting characters. At first, she was the innocent daughter, but as she took on a greater role in Chumen, she had to become ruthless.
Chu Ying didn't like the drug trade becasue it deprived her of the life she wanted to live. That was why she'd spent so much time abroad in England. When Chu Ying finally took over her father's business, her plan was to shut it all down but also to get away with it. I thought this was interesting because while she didn't become her father, she still wanted to get away for crimes that she did commit.
By the end of the show, Chu Ying was a villain, as she'd killed people but posed as totally innocent in court. She was let go out by the court, but was killed in a car accident. I definitely think this was a conscious decision influenced by the censors.
Wu Xiong
Wu Xiong was Wu Xinhe's uncle, another drug kingpin, but he actually disproved of his nephew and didn't really value him as a member of his business. I thought this in-fighting was kind of interesting.
Xiezi/Scorpion
Xiezi was the big bad for the first half of the story. He'd built up notoriety because Lv Yunpeng was trying so hard to find him, but the character was ultimately just kind of average.
Zhao Wenna
Convesely, Zhao Wenna had more of a role than Xiezi, as she acted as a liaison between Lv Yunpeng and Xiezi. She met her end soon after Xiezi was killed though.
Guige
Guige was another villain in the first half of the story. It was interesting that while he sort of backed Xiezi, he wasn't totally on his side. He had his own reasons for doing what he did.
Yin Ta
Yin Ta was an okay character. There was nothing really good or bad about his character. Lv Yunpeng befriended him, which led him into Chumen, but Yin Ta discovered his ties to the police, so Lv Yunpeng killed him.
Overall
After writing the character portion, I noticed how so many characters in the story were doing things for their own reasons. What I mean by that was that instead of having a few "teams," it was everybody for themself, which was kind of interesting.
But again, this was by no means a good show. It was average at best, and works best when watched while doing other things.
I thought the acting would be worth it, but in hindsight I wouldn't say that it was. The story was average. It wasn't as cheesey as I would've thought, but there are still many cliches.
Spoilers.
Story
When I first started, I was expecting some propaganda-heavy story line disguised with Yu Hewei acting like an undercover bad boy. In my opinion, I wasn't totally off.
The first half of the story was about Lv Yunpeng hunting down Xiezi/Scorpion, who was his brother's murderer. I thought this part of the story was not that interesting because the police officers had too much screen time. I'll talk more about the police officers later.
The second half of the story was about Lv Yunpeng infiltrating the Chumen drug enterprise in Thailand. This was more interesting because Lv Yunpeng had less police backup and therefore had to play things by ear. The characters in this half of the story were also more interesting and complex as we saw them turn from friend to foe.
I didn't like the police officers because they were subject to some inconsistent writing in the context of the plan to take down the drug enterprise. When Lv Yunpeng was a one-man show hunting down Xiezi, the police officers were always a step late. It kind of rendered them unnecessary because Lv Yunpeng seemed to be able to handle everything himself. Later on, the police officers were able to infiltrate the drug industry way too easily. The way that Jiang Yinan was introduced to Chu Ying as a lawyer was way too smooth. There was no way she wouldn't have been vetted a million times over as opposed to just being introduced by one person and so quickly becoming Chu Ying's close friend.
In addition, the dynamic of the police officers was not very interesting. Jiang Yinan and Wei Hai used to date but now they were coworkers. This really only came into play at the end when Wei Hai decided to give up his life to protect Jiang Yinan. I thought this was kind of bullshit by the way. There had to have been an another. My major annoyance with the police force was Chen Tong. She was very annoying and too much screen time was focused on her crush and her supposed "maturation."
I didn't like Jiang Yinan very much. I tolerated her in the second half of the story, when she had a bigger role in the operations. The romance was also better in the second half, but in my opinion Yu Hewei was still doing more of the heavy lifting in terms of the acting. I didn't think Hou Mengshe was that charismatic of an actress.
There was some anti-drug propaganda. Zhao Yi was shown as someone who was never able to get clean and he died for it. He didn't even really have a redemption arc. Zha Lai's life was ruined because of drugs. At the end of the show, Chen Tong was pretty hateful against any drug addicts, but Lv Mengyao showed some sympathy to the guy who'd helped her and her mom escape. So I think the messages that the show was going for were
(1) don't do drugs because it'll control your life like Zhao Yi
(2) drugs are bad because they ruin lives like Zha Lai's
(3) We should still feel bad for drug addicts because they're still human
I was glad that the story didn't completely whitewash the story, and that we had some friends-turned-foes. Yin Ta and Chu Ying were the main characters that this happened to.
I won't lie, I expected Lv Yunfei to come back. His corpse wasn't even found, so I was really expecting him to turn up after being in hiding for months. I guess he was just in this show as a favour to Yu Hewei lol.
Production
Dialogue
The dialogue was kind of clumsy. It definitely wasn't anything that stood out. Near the beginning, the dubbing was pretty bad too. But I think it got better as the show moved on.
Cinematography
There were a lot of scenes that were "music video" scenes. These were scenes where we'd see characters doing some emotional angsting, and the theme song would play over, with the lyrics showing up on the screen.
This happened a lot near the beginning of the show, probably because the show wanted us to sympathize with the characters but we hadn't built up an emotional bond with them yet.
I thought this was over-used though, as we continued to see these sorts of scenes through to the end.
Acting
The only reason I watched this show was because of Yu Hewei and Wang Jinsong. I think they were fine, but definitely limited by the quality of their script. I'll talk more about their acting in their characters ections.
In comparison to those two, I felt that the rest of the supporting cast was a bit acting. The differences in acting quality were especially apparent in the first handful of episodes. I couldn't take Hou Mengshe seriously. I just felt that she didn't have a good presence that made her seem like a female lead.
That being said, the writing for most characters was average. No character was written to be very interesting, so it makes sense that the actors had their hands tied in terms of how they could interpret their characters.
Characters
Lv Yunpeng
I had a hard time pinpointing Lv Yunpeng's actual character. Like many action stars, he's stoic but bold, but blank enough so that he can be a self-insert character for fanboys. That was my interpretation of Lv Yunpeng, especially in the beginning when he was working his operation alone.
That was why I felt that Yu Hewei's acting was a bit restricted. He didn't have a lot of interesting character moments to work with. The most interesting moments were probably when he had to lie to others in the Chumen compound to gain their trust, but I never felt worried on his behalf.
So I guess in a way, I didn't care for this character because I didn't ever really feel that he was in danger. In addition, we saw him do science things maybe like 5 times. The show did not take advantage of his scientific background. So basically he was just a normal guy becoming an undercover agent. There just wasn't anything about Lv Yunpeng's character that I wanted to cheer for.
Jiang Yinan
I had some gripes with Jiang Yinan's character, but after thinking about it, I think I was too harsh on her character's writing. Jiang Yinan was always a bit emotional when it came to the Lv family, which makes sense considering she was living with them as a member of the family for years. I did think she was more interesting in the second half as a field agent, as opposed to just a member of Wei Hai's team.
However, I just didn't find Hou Mengshe very charismatic. I couldn't bring myself to care about Jiang Yinan other than hoping that she didn't die. At some points, I even felt that Chu Ying had a bigger presence than Jiang Yinan, despite having had more time to bond with Jiang Yinan.
Maybe it's also because Jiang Yinan was supposed to act opposite Lv Yunpeng, and I just didn't feel that her character was "epic" enough to match Lv Yunpeng's pace. I also just didn't find Jiang Yinan's writing too believable. Were we supposed to believe that Jiang Yinan had legal training? She was posing as a lawyer, but she had to be able to at least sound like she knew what she was talking about.
Overall, Jiang Yinan just fell kind of flat for me, just like Lv Yunpeng.
Wei Hai
Ever since I watched Day & Night, I compare every head police detective wtih Zhou Xun. Wei Hai wishes he was as smart as Zhou Xun, but as we saw in the first half of the show, he was always a step behind. In addition, he wasn't charismatic enough to be someone who could act opposite Lv Yunpeng. I might've taken Wei Hai a little bit more seriously if the actor was a little older, but the writing was still a little iffy.
Wei Hai took a bit of a back seat in the second half because he was in the office back in China.
While in Thailand, Lv Yunpeng was about to have his cover blown, Jiang Yinan asked Wei Hai to turn herself in to cover for him. Instead, Wei Hai put forth his own name as a spy to cover for Jiang Yinan and Lv Yunpeng. I felt that Wei Hai and Qiudui could've whipped up a smarter solution than to just offer Wei Hai as a sacrificial lamb, to be honest. Especially because the show spent a considerable amount of time in the first part of the show building up Wei Hai as a police officer with potential. I didn't feel that his death was heroic, I just felt that it was kind of a waste.
Wu Xinhe
Contrary to Wei Hai, Wu Xinhe would've been more believable if a younger actor had been cast. He was very clearly over 40, and Mengyao was a very young-looking girl, so him going after her was sketchy to begin with.
I think the concept of Wu Xinhe's character was interesting. He tried to get an in with Lv Yunpeng's family through softer means (i.e. via his niece). Wu Xinhe was also on bad terms with his uncle, who was the head of his family. Over time, we saw Wu Xinhe being pressured on both sides. His uncle wasn't happy with his work, and the Lv family were working together to get themselves out of his trap.
The writing was slightly more interesting than the rest of the characters, but I think better casting would've made this character more likeable.
Zhao Yi
Zhao Yi was actually my favourite character when he was still alive. His scenes with Lv Yunpeng were the most interesting because I felt that the actor could match Yu Hewei's level of acting, whether it was serious scenes or comedic scenes.
Zhao Yi was the kind of character who was supposed to remind us to stay away from drugs. He hated himself for being a drug addict, but he also wasn't able to get clean (not to mention not having the resources to get rehab and such).
I thought it was kind of lame that he didn't get a real redemption. He was captured while in withdrawal, and forced to give up information in exchange for drugs. He was then shot and died in Lv Yunpeng's arms. He insisted that he didn't tell them anything, which I guess was supposed to be his redemption, but I'm not convinced that it was a good one because he still revealed some information.
Sun Mo
One of the police officers. He died while in the field, liaising for Jiang Yinan, Lv Yunpeng, and company.
Chen Tong
Chen Tong had far too much screen time at all. Most of her scenes were concerned with her crush on Wei Hai which was not cute and not professional.
There were a couple of scenes that were supposed to show that she was actually a competent police officer, but being a competent police officer doesn't negate your annoying overbearing habits.
At the end of the movie, she showed hate towards the drug user who'd helpd Li Mei and Mengyao. She just had a general hate for drug users because Wei Hai had died while fighting the drug trade. This behaviour was not resolved in the story.
Chen Tong was a character that could've been toned down immensely and been a much more tolerable character.
Daliu
Another of the police underlings.
Li Mei
Alright, I am kind of impressed with Li Mei's character. At first, she was the mean sister-in-law who suspected Jiang Yinan (then Xu Li) of being too close to her husband. Then, she became the difficult-to-handle widow.
Over time, Li Mei came to terms with the tragedy in her family. Not only that, she started to notice the shady dealings happening around her family, and tried to protect Mengyao in her own way.
Mengyao
Mengyao's story line was super predictable. We all knew that Wu Xinhe was sketchy from the time we met him just because of his surname.
I didn't think that Mengyao would know about Lv Yunpeng's undercover activities until the very end, so I was pleased that it was not kept a secret for very long. I also expected Mengyao not to be able to accept that Wu Xinhe was just using her until the very end, but we also see that she started coming to terms with that after her mother started sharing her observations.
In the end, Mengyao fought back against Wu Xinhe the best that she could.
Chu Tiannan
Wang Jinsong was good in his role, but he was also so underutilized in my opinion. When Wang Jinsong was acting as a crime boss, I actually found him quite intriguing. See, I always associate Wang Jinsong with his kindly characters like Yan Que from Nirvana in Fire or Xun Yu from the Advisors Alliance. This was the first time I saw him as a ruthless crime boss.
I liked that Chu Tiannan was kind in front of his employees, but ruthless and honest in front of his daughter.
I thought it was a waste that Chu Tiannan spent like half of his episodes in a non-communicative state.
Chu Tiannan had killed his own son because he'd threatened to turn his own dad to the authorities for his drug activities. While Chu Tiannan was looking out for Chu Ying by investigating Lv Yunpeng and Jiang Yinan, she would not forgive Chu Tiannan for what he did to her brother, and also for repeatedly dragging her back into the drug industry. Chu Ying tried to frame her father for shooting Wang Yujiang (the bodyguard). I don't remember what the sentence was, but it didn't matter because Chu Tiannan was poorly anyway.
Chu Ying
I did think that Chu Ying was one of the more interesting characters. At first, she was the innocent daughter, but as she took on a greater role in Chumen, she had to become ruthless.
Chu Ying didn't like the drug trade becasue it deprived her of the life she wanted to live. That was why she'd spent so much time abroad in England. When Chu Ying finally took over her father's business, her plan was to shut it all down but also to get away with it. I thought this was interesting because while she didn't become her father, she still wanted to get away for crimes that she did commit.
By the end of the show, Chu Ying was a villain, as she'd killed people but posed as totally innocent in court. She was let go out by the court, but was killed in a car accident. I definitely think this was a conscious decision influenced by the censors.
Wu Xiong
Wu Xiong was Wu Xinhe's uncle, another drug kingpin, but he actually disproved of his nephew and didn't really value him as a member of his business. I thought this in-fighting was kind of interesting.
Xiezi/Scorpion
Xiezi was the big bad for the first half of the story. He'd built up notoriety because Lv Yunpeng was trying so hard to find him, but the character was ultimately just kind of average.
Zhao Wenna
Convesely, Zhao Wenna had more of a role than Xiezi, as she acted as a liaison between Lv Yunpeng and Xiezi. She met her end soon after Xiezi was killed though.
Guige
Guige was another villain in the first half of the story. It was interesting that while he sort of backed Xiezi, he wasn't totally on his side. He had his own reasons for doing what he did.
Yin Ta
Yin Ta was an okay character. There was nothing really good or bad about his character. Lv Yunpeng befriended him, which led him into Chumen, but Yin Ta discovered his ties to the police, so Lv Yunpeng killed him.
Overall
After writing the character portion, I noticed how so many characters in the story were doing things for their own reasons. What I mean by that was that instead of having a few "teams," it was everybody for themself, which was kind of interesting.
But again, this was by no means a good show. It was average at best, and works best when watched while doing other things.
I thought the acting would be worth it, but in hindsight I wouldn't say that it was. The story was average. It wasn't as cheesey as I would've thought, but there are still many cliches.