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Review: Love Me If You Dare (他來了，請閉眼) (2015)
This drama was...okay. There were good and bad aspects of it and they didn't cancel each other out and thus cannot be ignored.
The story was okay, and I see what they were trying to go for. I think the acting from the main cast was one of the biggest selling points.
In terms of the shortfalls, I had some issues with some of the production choices including casting and dubbing, and just everything to do with the atmosphere once the story moved to the US.
I'd recommend this drama if you like Ma Sichun or Wallace Huo, but don't expect anything spectacular. You can just consider this a run-of-the-mill drama.
Spoilers.
Story
The first half of the series was a procedural crime drama. The second half was focused on Bo Jinyan battling his nemeses.
I thought the first half was fine. The cases were typical, there was nothing mindblowing. But the acting made up for it so overall I felt like I had a good time as I watched those cases.
The romantic subplot was also mostly developed in the first half. I felt that the romance developed incredibly quickly and it didn't feel that convincing to me. And there was a long period of time between the second and third cases that were solely dedicated to romance, which I kind of half-paid attention to because romance usually isn't my favourite. But the upside to this was that the romantic parts of the story were over and done with rather quickly and the story didn't dwell too much on that afterwards.
The second half was about Bo Jinyan hunting down people from his past. This is when I started losing interesting in the story. The story was alright, and I get what it was going for, but the quality of production failed to support the story in a way that was convincing and/or interesting. There was potential there, and it was kind of wasted.
The end was kind of cheesy in that Jian Yao and Bo Jinyan got married, and all of the other characters kind of paired up too, though I really didn't care much for the American characters, so that part was really gratuitous with no value added for me.
So overall, the quality of the story was just kind of up and down.
Production
Acting
The cast of main and supporting Chinese characters was generally pretty good. A lot of well-regarded actors and actresses were cast in the supporting roles which surprised me.
My problem with acting came with the American characters, especially because the latter half of the story included so many English-speaking actors who clearly were not as good actors as the Chinese main or even supporting actors. I don't know if it's less noticeable for someone who doesn't understand English, but for me, it was really hard to take the English-speaking characters seriously, and that was probably one of the biggest reasons for me not being able to immerse myself in the second half.
Dubbing
The dubbing was also distracting. By this, I mean strange choices that the production team made with regards to what languages to dub. When the Chinese and American characters were speaking to each other, they were speaking in their own languages. So a Chinese character would say something in Mandarin and an American character would respond in English. This was extremely distracting and made it really hard for me to believe that these characters were actually having a conversation.
In my opinion, the main cast of Bo Jinyan, Jian Yao, and Fu Ziyu should've been dubbed in English when they went to the States. Bo Jinyan and Fu Ziyu are well-educated, and Jian Yao is a translator, so there is no reason their characters shouldn't be able to speak English.
The other acceptable alternative would've been to dub the American characters in Chinese. It's like how in anime, all of the foreign characters can speak Japanese. It's not realistic, but it helps preserve some continuity.
On a side note, some of the English-speaking characters don't speak with an American accent, which also distracted me, but I can't tell if I'm just being picky now.
Characters
Bo Jinyan
He was our main character. I think Wallace Huo did a good job considering the script he was given. He was supposed to be a cold genius who had a soft spot for Jian Yao. Realistically, he wouldn't be as romantic and mushy as he was with Jian Yao, but again, he was just working with what he was given.
In the first half of the show, his eccentricity was emphasized more, especially because he was often working alongside police officers who didn't use the same methods as him.
In the latter half of the show, we found out more about his backstory, about how he went through childhood trauma, and may have developed a split personality based on an unborn older twin. I'll be honest, I checked out in the last four episodes or so, so I wasn't really interested to figure out which parts of his biography were true or not.
I think it was interesting enough to see him chase down the antagonists without it necessarily being relevant to his personal history.
Jian Yao
I did like Jian Yao for the procedural crime part of the drama. She wasn't a helpless girl. She was well-educated, and smart (as we saw her improve in her investigativ skills). She initially had realistic expectations, just wanting to be a normal office worker at the shipping company, and her plans were only derailed when Bo Jinyan came into her life.
Granted, I was a bit pissed that Bo Jinyan was able to manhandle her into being his assistant so easily, but I'll allow it.
When the story focused on Bo Jinyan tracking down the antagonists, Jian Yao's character had very little to do. She was captured by Xie Han, yes, but I didn't really feel that she changed at all from the experience, nor did she play a role other than the damsel.
Li Xunran
Xunran was Jian Yao's childhood friend and a police officer. I was really hoping that he wouldn't become the second love interest in a love triangle and I'm really glad that that didn't happen. For most of the drama, he maintained a brotherly relationship with Jian Yao, assuring her when he thought that she was dating Bo Jinyan, and teasing her when Jinyan's attempts at wooing her were cheesy.
Xunran became relevant to the cases when he was captured by Xie Han, who attempted to brainwash him. He was kind of successful, as Xunran later became a murder machine for him at the American hospital he was healing at.
But he disappeared from the story after he was apprehended but was shown to be recovering.
Fu Ziyu
I liked Fu Ziyu's character. He was the more personable counterpart to Bo Jinyan. He was a more relaxed guy, but he was also a close enough friend to Jinyan that he could help out with any serious work that Jinyan needed done for him. Ziyu was also a tech expert, which came in handy in the cases.
I liked that he was a quirky character. He loved playing laser tag and he always teased Jinyan for his emotional immaturity and not knowing how to handle his crush on Jian Yao.
Yin Ziqi
Yin Ziqi was Bo Jinyan's stepsister and technically the boss of Jian Yao's previous company. I saw technically because she spent a lot of time away from her company later in the show.
I kind of wish we saw more of character. I thought she was intriguing. She was calm, mature, and responsible without being overly strict and unsympathetic. She cared for her stepbrother regardless of how he saw her, and she cared for her fiance despite the fact that she didn't love him.
Susan
Susan was an old friend of Bo Jinyan's, and she was heading the case to track down Xie Han.
Susan really bothered me because she was not a good actor, or the director wasn't able to direct her in a way that matched the story. She had one expression, except for one time she blew up at Jinyan for not following her orders because this was her case. Her voice was similarly not emotive, and it felt like she was afraid of speaking too loudly.
Anyway, this character made me realize that the story had too large of a focus on the American characters, because her acting stuck out like a sore thumb.
Tommy
Tommy was supposed to be kind of the first villain. He was portrayed as kind of a crazy guy, and he had a past with both Bo Jinyan and Susan. It was relatively easy for Susan to pry his secrets out of him. After Tommy broke out of jail with the help of Xie Han, he reunited with him, but was killed when Xie Han felt that he could finally take control of Bo Jinyan.
Xie Han
Xie Han was portrayed to be the main villain for most of the show. I think he was obsessed with turning people into his killing machines. It was what he'd done to Xunran, and he'd wanted to do it to Bo Jinyan as well.
Jinyan pretended to be Allen, his "evil" alter-ego, to get close to Xie Han and to make him believe that Jinyan had successfully turned bad. Jinyan took advantage of that closeness to get him cornered, and seeing that he had nowhere to go, Xie Han jumped off a cliff.
It was revealed that Xie Han himself was also a product of the murderer creation machine, and that Xie Han was a code name. I think Xie Han was the code name for some sort of "perfect murderer," and that was what this Xie Han had aspired to be.
Lin Yiyang
Lin Yiyang was Yin Ziqi's fiance, and the true villain. He was a mentor to "Xie Han," but I think he himself wanted to assume the mantle of Xie Han as he wanted to be the perfect murderer. Something like that. Again, I checked out at this point in the drama.
Overall
Like I said, this drama had good aspects and bad aspects. But unfortunately, they did not cancel each other out, and the bad aspects of the drama stuck out quite a bit towards the latter half of the drama.
The story was okay, and I see what they were trying to go for. I think the acting from the main cast was one of the biggest selling points.
In terms of the shortfalls, I had some issues with some of the production choices including casting and dubbing, and just everything to do with the atmosphere once the story moved to the US.
I'd recommend this drama if you like Ma Sichun or Wallace Huo, but don't expect anything spectacular. You can just consider this a run-of-the-mill drama.
Spoilers.
Story
The first half of the series was a procedural crime drama. The second half was focused on Bo Jinyan battling his nemeses.
I thought the first half was fine. The cases were typical, there was nothing mindblowing. But the acting made up for it so overall I felt like I had a good time as I watched those cases.
The romantic subplot was also mostly developed in the first half. I felt that the romance developed incredibly quickly and it didn't feel that convincing to me. And there was a long period of time between the second and third cases that were solely dedicated to romance, which I kind of half-paid attention to because romance usually isn't my favourite. But the upside to this was that the romantic parts of the story were over and done with rather quickly and the story didn't dwell too much on that afterwards.
The second half was about Bo Jinyan hunting down people from his past. This is when I started losing interesting in the story. The story was alright, and I get what it was going for, but the quality of production failed to support the story in a way that was convincing and/or interesting. There was potential there, and it was kind of wasted.
The end was kind of cheesy in that Jian Yao and Bo Jinyan got married, and all of the other characters kind of paired up too, though I really didn't care much for the American characters, so that part was really gratuitous with no value added for me.
So overall, the quality of the story was just kind of up and down.
Production
Acting
The cast of main and supporting Chinese characters was generally pretty good. A lot of well-regarded actors and actresses were cast in the supporting roles which surprised me.
My problem with acting came with the American characters, especially because the latter half of the story included so many English-speaking actors who clearly were not as good actors as the Chinese main or even supporting actors. I don't know if it's less noticeable for someone who doesn't understand English, but for me, it was really hard to take the English-speaking characters seriously, and that was probably one of the biggest reasons for me not being able to immerse myself in the second half.
Dubbing
The dubbing was also distracting. By this, I mean strange choices that the production team made with regards to what languages to dub. When the Chinese and American characters were speaking to each other, they were speaking in their own languages. So a Chinese character would say something in Mandarin and an American character would respond in English. This was extremely distracting and made it really hard for me to believe that these characters were actually having a conversation.
In my opinion, the main cast of Bo Jinyan, Jian Yao, and Fu Ziyu should've been dubbed in English when they went to the States. Bo Jinyan and Fu Ziyu are well-educated, and Jian Yao is a translator, so there is no reason their characters shouldn't be able to speak English.
The other acceptable alternative would've been to dub the American characters in Chinese. It's like how in anime, all of the foreign characters can speak Japanese. It's not realistic, but it helps preserve some continuity.
On a side note, some of the English-speaking characters don't speak with an American accent, which also distracted me, but I can't tell if I'm just being picky now.
Characters
Bo Jinyan
He was our main character. I think Wallace Huo did a good job considering the script he was given. He was supposed to be a cold genius who had a soft spot for Jian Yao. Realistically, he wouldn't be as romantic and mushy as he was with Jian Yao, but again, he was just working with what he was given.
In the first half of the show, his eccentricity was emphasized more, especially because he was often working alongside police officers who didn't use the same methods as him.
In the latter half of the show, we found out more about his backstory, about how he went through childhood trauma, and may have developed a split personality based on an unborn older twin. I'll be honest, I checked out in the last four episodes or so, so I wasn't really interested to figure out which parts of his biography were true or not.
I think it was interesting enough to see him chase down the antagonists without it necessarily being relevant to his personal history.
Jian Yao
I did like Jian Yao for the procedural crime part of the drama. She wasn't a helpless girl. She was well-educated, and smart (as we saw her improve in her investigativ skills). She initially had realistic expectations, just wanting to be a normal office worker at the shipping company, and her plans were only derailed when Bo Jinyan came into her life.
Granted, I was a bit pissed that Bo Jinyan was able to manhandle her into being his assistant so easily, but I'll allow it.
When the story focused on Bo Jinyan tracking down the antagonists, Jian Yao's character had very little to do. She was captured by Xie Han, yes, but I didn't really feel that she changed at all from the experience, nor did she play a role other than the damsel.
Li Xunran
Xunran was Jian Yao's childhood friend and a police officer. I was really hoping that he wouldn't become the second love interest in a love triangle and I'm really glad that that didn't happen. For most of the drama, he maintained a brotherly relationship with Jian Yao, assuring her when he thought that she was dating Bo Jinyan, and teasing her when Jinyan's attempts at wooing her were cheesy.
Xunran became relevant to the cases when he was captured by Xie Han, who attempted to brainwash him. He was kind of successful, as Xunran later became a murder machine for him at the American hospital he was healing at.
But he disappeared from the story after he was apprehended but was shown to be recovering.
Fu Ziyu
I liked Fu Ziyu's character. He was the more personable counterpart to Bo Jinyan. He was a more relaxed guy, but he was also a close enough friend to Jinyan that he could help out with any serious work that Jinyan needed done for him. Ziyu was also a tech expert, which came in handy in the cases.
I liked that he was a quirky character. He loved playing laser tag and he always teased Jinyan for his emotional immaturity and not knowing how to handle his crush on Jian Yao.
Yin Ziqi
Yin Ziqi was Bo Jinyan's stepsister and technically the boss of Jian Yao's previous company. I saw technically because she spent a lot of time away from her company later in the show.
I kind of wish we saw more of character. I thought she was intriguing. She was calm, mature, and responsible without being overly strict and unsympathetic. She cared for her stepbrother regardless of how he saw her, and she cared for her fiance despite the fact that she didn't love him.
Susan
Susan was an old friend of Bo Jinyan's, and she was heading the case to track down Xie Han.
Susan really bothered me because she was not a good actor, or the director wasn't able to direct her in a way that matched the story. She had one expression, except for one time she blew up at Jinyan for not following her orders because this was her case. Her voice was similarly not emotive, and it felt like she was afraid of speaking too loudly.
Anyway, this character made me realize that the story had too large of a focus on the American characters, because her acting stuck out like a sore thumb.
Tommy
Tommy was supposed to be kind of the first villain. He was portrayed as kind of a crazy guy, and he had a past with both Bo Jinyan and Susan. It was relatively easy for Susan to pry his secrets out of him. After Tommy broke out of jail with the help of Xie Han, he reunited with him, but was killed when Xie Han felt that he could finally take control of Bo Jinyan.
Xie Han
Xie Han was portrayed to be the main villain for most of the show. I think he was obsessed with turning people into his killing machines. It was what he'd done to Xunran, and he'd wanted to do it to Bo Jinyan as well.
Jinyan pretended to be Allen, his "evil" alter-ego, to get close to Xie Han and to make him believe that Jinyan had successfully turned bad. Jinyan took advantage of that closeness to get him cornered, and seeing that he had nowhere to go, Xie Han jumped off a cliff.
It was revealed that Xie Han himself was also a product of the murderer creation machine, and that Xie Han was a code name. I think Xie Han was the code name for some sort of "perfect murderer," and that was what this Xie Han had aspired to be.
Lin Yiyang
Lin Yiyang was Yin Ziqi's fiance, and the true villain. He was a mentor to "Xie Han," but I think he himself wanted to assume the mantle of Xie Han as he wanted to be the perfect murderer. Something like that. Again, I checked out at this point in the drama.
Overall
Like I said, this drama had good aspects and bad aspects. But unfortunately, they did not cancel each other out, and the bad aspects of the drama stuck out quite a bit towards the latter half of the drama.