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Review: The Long Night (沉默的真相) (2020)
This was a pretty good drama! Overall it was very good. I wouldn't say that the story was absolutely tight, because I think that it did drag at some spots, but overall, most things made sense. I think I would appreciate this even more on a second watch because I would be able to catch and understand the clues.
I would put a trigger warning on this show for the last episode, trigger warnings for sexual assault and suicide, though of course, this being a crime show, there is a content warning for death and suicide throughout. But the trigger warnings in the final episode are a bit more graphic and did make me uncomfortable. I will briefly talk about the trigger warnings in my write up too.
Spoilers!
(Obligatory messy writing warning because this is a word dump and it is now evening.)
Story
Let me try to explain this show chronologically.
Hou Guiping was a teacher who had gone to the countryside to teach at a remote school. He found out that his female students were being kidnapped and forced into prostitution. He tried to find evidence on the corporation Ka'en, who was hiring goons to kidnap these young women. He did get some photo evidence, but was eventually murdered, and his murder was framed as him having raped a woman and committed suicide afterward.
Years later, Hou Guiping's ex-girlfriend Li Jing asked Jiang Yang to help her uncover the truth behind Hou Guiping's death. He eventually teamed up with Zhu Wei and Chen Mingzhang to varying degrees, though Chen Mingzhang had retired early on into their friendship. Every time they uncovered new evidence or a lead, it would be destroyed. There was also another officer, Li Jian'guo, who was on Ka'en's payroll, and would stop Zhu Wei and Jiang Yang from investigating. Eventually, they both went to jail, Zhu Wei for disciplinary reasons I believe (?), and Jiang Yang was framed for bribery.
Meanwhile, one of the female victims of the prostitution ring, Li Xue, had changed her name to Zhang Xiaoqian and started a new life.
Jiang Yang had developed a bad illness while in jail. As his condition grew worse, he thought of a plan that would use his death to draw attention to the crimes. Since he couldn't solve it, he wanted to draw the attention of those who could. He got help from Zhu Wei, Chen Mingzhang, Li Jing, Zhang Chao, and Zhang Xiaoqian.
In the present, Zhang Chao was arrested for murdering Jiang Yang, but in actuality, Jiang Yang had committed suicide and Zhang Chao was only framed to look like a very possible suspect in order to gain the attention of Yan Liang, who was known as a very capable detective.
Yan Liang, Ren Mingting, Gu Yiming, and other police officers were simultaneously looking into the Jiang Yang case and the Hou Guiping case. Eventually, Yan Liang tracked down Zhu Wei, who told him the truth. Zhang Xiaoqian because a witness for the Hou Guiping case as well. The show ended with all of the bad guys getting arrested, and those who participated in the fake bomb plot were charged with minor crimes of perjury, etc.
I was more impressed by the story in earlier episodes, when all three timelines were a mystery. Hou Guiping was investigating the missing girls, Jiang Yang was investigating Hou Guiping's death, and Yan Liang was investigating Jiang Yang's death. There was one episode where we saw these three detectives face their challenges in rapid succession at the end and it brought chills.
I felt that the show did drag a bit in episodes 7-10. I think it was that the detectives had done a lot of detective work, but they hadn't had their breakthrough yet, so there was a bit of stagnation, like the characters were running but the plot wasn't. But overall, the story was still relatively strong.
I will talk about trigger warnings starting here
I just wanted to say a word about the trigger warnings. In the last episode, it did shock me when Li Xue had witnessed Hou Guiping being raped. Because that was what had happened. He had been plied with alcohol, held down, and forced to ejaculate into Ding Chunmei. It was very jarring and it left me extremely uncomfortable, because Hou Guiping had been ganged up on that way. And of course, he lost his life by being smothered to death. Poor guy :/
The suicide scene by Jiang Yang was also very freaky. We didn't see that on screen, but what we saw was already very hard to watch. All of the people who were in the room at the time watched the video, watched the very moment that Jiang Yang lost his life, and that is also very scary to me.
But I don't think this show was bad for including these scenes. I just thought it would be important to explain the trigger warnings from my perspective.
I have finished talking about trigger warnings here
As is the case with most Chinese crime dramas, it ended with a very patriotic statement. All the bad guys were caught, but more importantly, the glory of the nation is restored! But seriously, I think the patriotism stuff was really just slotted in real fast at the end. This show did not have a huge patriotism focus at all.
Production
The quality of production was very high. One of the first things that drew my attention was how nice to watch the cinematography was. All of the frames that were caught on camera were so visually stimulating. I will say that the majority of this show was very dark, lighting-wise, so at many points during the show, I had to turn up the brightness to see what was going on.
The cast was very good for the most part. I would say that it was largely an ensemble cast, with Bai Yu and Lu Siyu having the most parts.
Characters
Yan Liang
I'm still not convinced with the Yan Liang extended universe, because Yan Liang so far has shown very different characters and roles in each of the shows he's been in (Burning Ice, The Bad Kids, and now The Long Night). In Burning Ice, Yan Liang was the detective that goes at his own pace, and was far more cheeky. But he was very integral to the case. In the Bad Kids, Yan Liang was not a detective, just one of the major participants in the story. In the Long Night, I actually thought that Yan Liang was a very agreeable detective. He did butt heads a bit with Gu Yiming, but those differences were very easily smoothed over, and for the most part, the team actually liked him. So for now, I see these three Yan Liang characters as three different people.
As I said, this Yan Liang was pretty agreeable. Of course, he was smart and he noticed the small things, but he did not inconvenience the rest of the team to do his bidding with no explanation. Instead, he only recruited Xiaoma to do his bidding, while the rest of the team focused on other parts of the crime.
That being said, Yan Liang's personality was not as strong compared to the Yan Liang of dramas past. This Yan Liang did not have a backstory except that he had a deceased son, which is fine. I actually liked that he didn't have much backstory to get in the way of the story.
But combined with the fact that Liao Fan is not a naturally expressive person, it was kind of hard to think of Yan Liang as a character rather than just a solving machine. So I think that aspect of the show could've been improved. Maybe if we saw more interrogation scenes from Yan Liang, or if we saw him doing more of his own legwork instead of assigning most of it to Xiaoma, I think I might've gotten a better idea of who he was.
There were also parts of the show when Yan Liang was shown to be a cheesy guy, which I thought was endearing. Rarely do we get detective characters that are like that, characters that are more cheesy and cute in a way that's endearing.
That being said, I still found Yan Liang satisfactory. He wasn't brilliant or a standout, but there wasn't anything wrong with his character that made him uncomfortable to watch for me.
Ren Yueting
Ren Yueting was one of the other detectives in the police squad. I originally thought that she was going to play a role like Lin Qi in Burning Ice, in which she barely contributed to the case and...that sort of happened. Ren Yueting's contribution to the case was not significant, come to think of it. And it's a pity because I really liked the actress who played her, Lu Xiaolin, ever since I watched her in Day & Night.
Yes, her team did uncover connections between Ka'en and the like, but it didn't feel as significant, because these bits of information had already been revealed in the previous Jiang Yang timelines.
Gu Yiming
Gu Yiming was the police officer who butted heads with Yan Liang at first, but they got over their differences very early on. Gu Yiming was loud and brash but he yielded very easily. Perhaps it was because Ren Yueting was receptive to Yan Liang's ideas and Gu Yiming had no choice but to play along. But ultimately, like Ren Yueting, his character did not add that much in terms of the investigative work. So I feel like the show could've done away with one of Ren Yueting and Gu Yiming, like they did in Burning Ice (e.g. just have one other lead detective besides Yan Liang).
Zhang Xiaoqian/Li Xue
Zhang Xiaoqian was a journalist who had been receiving letters from a supposed terrorist. Yan Liang had been corresponding with Zhang Xiaoqian a lot, since she had spoken with several people who were releted to Jiang Yang. I don't remember if Yan Liang ever discovered that Zhang Xiaoqian was actually Li Xue, or whether Zhu Wei and co. had been the ones to reveal that.
I was surprised when I found out that Zhang Xiaoqian was Li Xue, mostly because I thought Zhang Xiaoqian looked very young, but I think the timelines still made logical sense. And after that revelation, I actually got very excited, even though it was already nearing the end of the show.
Logically speaking, her character was a little convenient, but I didn't mind, because I liked Zhang Xiaoqian the character, and I was really interested to know her secret.
Jiang Yang
Jiang Yang was probably the most important character of this show. He was the star of the middle timeline, and he was the link between the oldest and newest timelines. Only because of what he found with Hou Guiping was there a reason for what became of him.
Jiang Yang started off as a naive officer just helping a friend. Because of his good-hearted nature, he got sucked further and further into the case. He saw injustice in the face and he could not let it go ignored. The problem was that the powerful Ka'en group was behind the crime and would do everything to have Jiang Yang drop the case. I am kind of surprised that they never killed him, but perhaps they didn't have any good way to cover it up like they did with Hou Guiping. Jiang Yang was an officer and people knew he was investigating the Ka'en group. It would be too suspicious for him to die, after repeatedly being threatened.
The case slowly consumed Jiang Yang, first costing him his relationship with Wu Aike, since her father didn't want Jiang Yang getting her involved. He later married Guo Hongxia and even had a child Jiang Xiaoshu, but Hu Yilang had kidnapped him as a threat to Jiang Yang. Later, Guo Hongxia divorced him, probably because he was spending so much time on the case, and got their son in danger.
Then, Jiang Yang was framed and thrown into prison. He lost his career, and then he became very ill due to conditions in the prison. Jiang Yang was to die of this illness, and so it could be said that Jiang Yang gave his life to this case.
Bai Yu's acting in this show was outstanding. Up until episode 9 or so, I thought his acting was good, but episode 10, after he got out of prison, was when he wowed me. Up until episode 9, he was playing a very determined investigator. He was upright and moral, and he was going to get to the bottom of this no matter what happened.
After prison, he was a changed man. He lost his drive. He became so sick, so complacent. That scene when he lost his wallet was so important. Yes, it was just a wallet, but to Jiang Yang, that was not just a wallet. It was one of the few things in life that he had. Because of this case, he'd lost his family, he'd lost his career, he'd lost his drive, he'd lost everything. And Bai Yu convinced us perfectly that that was the same man.
I was very glad that we had a short scene between Jiang Yang and Jiang Xiaoshu. Though Jiang Yang had divorced from Guo Hongxia, I don't think it was bad blood between them, I think it was just stress from his job. So I think that Hongxia and Xiaoshu probably still cared for Jiang Yang a lot. What Jiang Yang felt for Hongxia maybe wasn't love, like how he cared for Aike, but I think that at the very least, it was appreciation. He said that he liked Hongxia because she was very supportive of him in his endeavours. And while we don't know who initiated the divorce, it seemed that Xiaoshu still had a good view of his father. That scene when Xiaoshu asked Jiang Yang about death was so good, because it showed us that other than the case, Jiang Yang did have a life, a family, and he had to let go of them for this case, lest he drag them down.
And the way that Jiang Yang went suited him perfectly. He knew that he had no chance of solving the case because the Ka'en group already had his number. They had run him into the ground, and they could continue to do so because he had been on their radar for long enough that they knew a lot about him. His only hope was to reach out for help, using his death as a way to draw attention, which was very altruistic, and very in line with the Jiang Yang that we knew at the beginning of the show.
Bai Yu really did well in this show. He has always seemed to show much respect for his roles, even if they were cheesy idol dramas (like Guardian), and so that is why I've respected him, and this drama has made me respect him even more, because it shows his range. Bai Yu can act funny and charming, but he can also be vulnerable and tragic.
Zhu Wei
Zhu Wei was one of the police officers who was working on the Hou Guiping case. He was more hotheaded than Jiang Yang, which was why he butted heads with Li Jian'guo more often, and landed in hot water earlier on.
In the present story line, he was basically one of the ringleaders of the plot to gain the attention of the police and the media. He had a lot of spite in his heart, and he missed Jiang Yang a lot, and even though he hated the idea of Jiang Yang dying for this case, now that he had, he would carry out the plan to the end in order that it would succeed the way Jiang Yang had hoped.
Chen Mingzhang
Chen Mingzhang was a forensic scientist. Originally, he was the man that Jiang Yang had to bribe to get Hou Guiping's autopsy documents, and it was through Chen Mingzhang that Jiang Yang first got proof that his death was fishy.
I originally thought that Chen Mingzhang was a mole, because he was so discouraging to Jiang Yang. He would tell him to stop investigating. Even after Jiang Yang got out of prison and became very sick, Chen Mingzhang would be discouraging.
But later, we saw that Cheng Mingzhang was not a mole, he was truly worried for Jiang Yang's health and his family life. So Chen Mingzhang's character was kind of like, a wrench in the plot, but he was well done, especially since he was acted so coldly and coolly.
Zhang Chao
Zhang Chao was a professor, and Li Jing's husband. He was also Jiang Yang's teacher in university, and he became tangentially involved because the Hou Guiping case was brought up by Li Jing to Jiang Yang.
He really only became involved when Jiang Yang got very sick and Li Jing and Zhang Chao came to see him. Zhu Wei had chewed out Zhang Chao because Zhang Chao was acting all high and mighty despite looking injustice in the face and not doing anything.
Later on, he helpd Jiang Yang mastermind his death and how they would alert the police and the media of their findings. He created a fake scenario in which it would seem like he had a bad relationship with Jiang Yang, so that he would be suspected of murder. Then, he would carry out a series of tasks that would make him really look like the murder, including carrying Jiang Yang's corpse. But all of this was supposed to purposely lead to confusion so that Yan Liang would be brought on to investigate the case.
This actor, Li Ning, has been in several Light On series dramas, and has played very different characters in each of them. In Burning Ice, he was a coldhearted killer. In the Bad Kids, he appeared only briefly, but he was an uncle with a flimsy spine. And in the Long Night, he was a sophisticated professor. And I applaud him for doing a good job in each.
Li Jing
Li Jing was Hou Guiping's ex-girlfriend, and Zhang Chao's wife. He had brought up the case to Jiang Yang to investigate. When she saw how the case ate away at Jiang Yang, I think she definitely felt guilty about it, and I think she ultimately give in to helping the plot because she knew that this was the only way she could pay him back.
Wu Aike
Wu Aike was Jiang Yang's first girlfriend, his girlfriend at the time that he had taken on the Hou Guiping case. Wu Aike told the police that she felt responsibility for pushing Jiang Yang to take the case. When Jiang Yang and Li Jing had first met to discuss the case, Jiang Yang was actually a bit hesitant to take it on, maybe because he felt there was only so much he could do, that his hands were tied, and that it would be an inconvenience. But Wu Aike was the one who was moved by the injustice and pushed Jiang Yang to take on the case.
Wu Aike's father was a higher ranked officer, and had initially protected Jiang Yang, but when Jiang Yang decided to take the case further, Wu Aike's father basically told him to let go of Wu Aike so as not to hurt her in the process.
Li Jian'guo
Li Jian'guo was a corrupt cop who kept impeding Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei's investigation. It was very infuriating when Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei kept finding leads and Li Jian'guo would always pop up at the last moment to take over the case or stop them from doing something. It was so obvious that he had been bought out, but Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei couldn't do anything about it.
He was eventually caught, of course, though he was not the ringleader and was simply one of the henchmen on the payroll.
Hou Guiping
Hou Guiping was where all of this began. He'd gone to the countryside and stumbled upon this curious case of girls being taken by Huangmao. His attention was first piqued because one of his students, Weng Meixiang, had actually committed suicide after being taken by Huangmao. He then found out through the other female students that Huangmao was not actually Weng Meixiang's cousin, and that he had been taking young women and girls from the factory all the time.
Hou Guiping was a city boy who'd come to the village to teach because he wanted to help the people. So of course he would want to stop this very serious practice that was happening in this town. He felt responsible to do something when he saw something.
Unfortunately, he had no idea he was going up against such a powerful corporation. He was originally only supposed to be framed for raping Ding Chunmei, but was killed in the process. His death was then twisted to look like he'd raped Ding Chunmei and had committed suicide. Zhang Xiaoqian, then Li Xue, had witnessed the act, both the rape and murder of Hou Guiping, and had left it behind her when she changed identities, but I had to think that she felt a responsibility to seek justice on his behalf, after she'd spoken to Zhu Wei and Jiang Yang.
Ding Chunmei
Ding Chunmei was one of Hou Guiping's students, but she was with Huangmao, and partnered up with him to frame Hou Guiping.
Originally, Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei were able to trap her into giving them information using the prisoner's dilemma. She fell for it, until Huangmao burst in and told her to say nothing. Still, that was enough for Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei to keep going.
The child that she was taking care of when she was interviewed by Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei was actually the child that Ge Li had with Zeng Xiangdong. Ge Li was one of Hou Guiping's students who was kidnapped into prostitution, and Zeng Xiangdong was one of the rich corporate men who liked raping these young women.
Yue Jun/Huangmao
Huangmao was the local hooligan. The first time we saw him, he'd told Hou Guiping that he was Weng Meixiang's cousin, and that her grandparents was asking to have dinner with her. Weng Meixiang was too afraid to say anything and was taken away, and later committed suicide.
So Hou Guiping knew there was something up with this fellow, and the other female students told them about what he'd done. That started Hou Guiping's journey to justice.
When Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei first interviewed Huangmao, he was not cooperative at all. It was only later, when he was going to be beat to death by the people at Ka'en, that he told them what he had done. Part way through Zhu Wei's interrogation of Huangmao, Li Jian'guo burst in to stop the interrogation because it was against procedure or something like that. Luckily Zhu Wei had recorded what they had said so far, so at least they had something.
Hu Yilang
Hu Yilang was part of the Ka'en group and was probably their main enforcer in terms of scare tactics. He was by far the most intimidating gangster of the group. Whereas Li Jian'guo was responsible for the procedural roadblocks, Hu Yilang would straight up threaten the cops, including kidnapping Jiang Yang's son.
At the end of the drama, we saw that Hu Yilang had tried to launch an attack to kill the police officers who were on his tail, but he was unsuccessful and died in the process.
Sun Chuanfu
Sun Chuanfu was one of the corporate bigwigs who was in on the prostitution ring. He posed as a very upright and calm guy, and so it was very infuriating to watch him as someone who knew that he was doing bad shit.
When Sun Chuanfu and Zhang Xiaoqian first me, he said that he thought he'd seen her somewhere, and Zhang Xiaoqian said that probably wasn't the case. That didn't make sense until I found out that Zhang Xiaoqian was Li Xue. If I was her, I would've been so scared, because in that scene, I could see that Sun Chuanfu was the kind of guy who could flip a switch. He acted calm and upright on the outside, but what is he like when he decides to show his true colours?
Li Dabei
Li Dabei was the owner of the photo developing shop who had developed Hou Guiping's photos, and taken them to Sun Chuanfu. He was looking for a fast buck, and took the photos to Sun Chuanfu, and told Hou Guiping that the film was damaged.
Later on, his shop was burned down with him inside, when Jiang Yang was on his tail.
Other
All of the layers of this story were based on the original case of a prostitution ring, of young girls being kidnapped and raped.
The version of this show that I was watching had sponsors at the beginning and for one of the sponsors, the spokesperson was Kris Wu. This show came out in 2020, which had been before the major Kris Wu scandal of July 2021. If you do not know, Kris Wu was accused luring and raping young girls, including many underage girls. He was one of the biggest celebrities in China, and his detainment and arrest have sent waves throughout the Chinese entertainment industry, as well as the current Chinese social climate as well.
I just thought it was incredibly ironic that Kris Wu would appear at the beginning of every episode of a show that was about cops taking down guys who ran a prostitution ring.
My feelings on the Kris Wu situation are constantly changing. Seeing him at the beginning of every episode gave me a bit of relief that I no longer feel fear when looking at his face (just mild discomfort). But there is still a lot about his situation that I can't say I'm totally over, it's just getting easier to avoid him and thinking about him in general.
Overall
Great show. A great addition to the Light On series. Great story, great acting, great camera work. What more can I say? Oh, also watch this show if you are a fan of Bai Yu!
I would put a trigger warning on this show for the last episode, trigger warnings for sexual assault and suicide, though of course, this being a crime show, there is a content warning for death and suicide throughout. But the trigger warnings in the final episode are a bit more graphic and did make me uncomfortable. I will briefly talk about the trigger warnings in my write up too.
Spoilers!
(Obligatory messy writing warning because this is a word dump and it is now evening.)
Story
Let me try to explain this show chronologically.
Hou Guiping was a teacher who had gone to the countryside to teach at a remote school. He found out that his female students were being kidnapped and forced into prostitution. He tried to find evidence on the corporation Ka'en, who was hiring goons to kidnap these young women. He did get some photo evidence, but was eventually murdered, and his murder was framed as him having raped a woman and committed suicide afterward.
Years later, Hou Guiping's ex-girlfriend Li Jing asked Jiang Yang to help her uncover the truth behind Hou Guiping's death. He eventually teamed up with Zhu Wei and Chen Mingzhang to varying degrees, though Chen Mingzhang had retired early on into their friendship. Every time they uncovered new evidence or a lead, it would be destroyed. There was also another officer, Li Jian'guo, who was on Ka'en's payroll, and would stop Zhu Wei and Jiang Yang from investigating. Eventually, they both went to jail, Zhu Wei for disciplinary reasons I believe (?), and Jiang Yang was framed for bribery.
Meanwhile, one of the female victims of the prostitution ring, Li Xue, had changed her name to Zhang Xiaoqian and started a new life.
Jiang Yang had developed a bad illness while in jail. As his condition grew worse, he thought of a plan that would use his death to draw attention to the crimes. Since he couldn't solve it, he wanted to draw the attention of those who could. He got help from Zhu Wei, Chen Mingzhang, Li Jing, Zhang Chao, and Zhang Xiaoqian.
In the present, Zhang Chao was arrested for murdering Jiang Yang, but in actuality, Jiang Yang had committed suicide and Zhang Chao was only framed to look like a very possible suspect in order to gain the attention of Yan Liang, who was known as a very capable detective.
Yan Liang, Ren Mingting, Gu Yiming, and other police officers were simultaneously looking into the Jiang Yang case and the Hou Guiping case. Eventually, Yan Liang tracked down Zhu Wei, who told him the truth. Zhang Xiaoqian because a witness for the Hou Guiping case as well. The show ended with all of the bad guys getting arrested, and those who participated in the fake bomb plot were charged with minor crimes of perjury, etc.
I was more impressed by the story in earlier episodes, when all three timelines were a mystery. Hou Guiping was investigating the missing girls, Jiang Yang was investigating Hou Guiping's death, and Yan Liang was investigating Jiang Yang's death. There was one episode where we saw these three detectives face their challenges in rapid succession at the end and it brought chills.
I felt that the show did drag a bit in episodes 7-10. I think it was that the detectives had done a lot of detective work, but they hadn't had their breakthrough yet, so there was a bit of stagnation, like the characters were running but the plot wasn't. But overall, the story was still relatively strong.
I will talk about trigger warnings starting here
I just wanted to say a word about the trigger warnings. In the last episode, it did shock me when Li Xue had witnessed Hou Guiping being raped. Because that was what had happened. He had been plied with alcohol, held down, and forced to ejaculate into Ding Chunmei. It was very jarring and it left me extremely uncomfortable, because Hou Guiping had been ganged up on that way. And of course, he lost his life by being smothered to death. Poor guy :/
The suicide scene by Jiang Yang was also very freaky. We didn't see that on screen, but what we saw was already very hard to watch. All of the people who were in the room at the time watched the video, watched the very moment that Jiang Yang lost his life, and that is also very scary to me.
But I don't think this show was bad for including these scenes. I just thought it would be important to explain the trigger warnings from my perspective.
I have finished talking about trigger warnings here
As is the case with most Chinese crime dramas, it ended with a very patriotic statement. All the bad guys were caught, but more importantly, the glory of the nation is restored! But seriously, I think the patriotism stuff was really just slotted in real fast at the end. This show did not have a huge patriotism focus at all.
Production
The quality of production was very high. One of the first things that drew my attention was how nice to watch the cinematography was. All of the frames that were caught on camera were so visually stimulating. I will say that the majority of this show was very dark, lighting-wise, so at many points during the show, I had to turn up the brightness to see what was going on.
The cast was very good for the most part. I would say that it was largely an ensemble cast, with Bai Yu and Lu Siyu having the most parts.
Characters
Yan Liang
I'm still not convinced with the Yan Liang extended universe, because Yan Liang so far has shown very different characters and roles in each of the shows he's been in (Burning Ice, The Bad Kids, and now The Long Night). In Burning Ice, Yan Liang was the detective that goes at his own pace, and was far more cheeky. But he was very integral to the case. In the Bad Kids, Yan Liang was not a detective, just one of the major participants in the story. In the Long Night, I actually thought that Yan Liang was a very agreeable detective. He did butt heads a bit with Gu Yiming, but those differences were very easily smoothed over, and for the most part, the team actually liked him. So for now, I see these three Yan Liang characters as three different people.
As I said, this Yan Liang was pretty agreeable. Of course, he was smart and he noticed the small things, but he did not inconvenience the rest of the team to do his bidding with no explanation. Instead, he only recruited Xiaoma to do his bidding, while the rest of the team focused on other parts of the crime.
That being said, Yan Liang's personality was not as strong compared to the Yan Liang of dramas past. This Yan Liang did not have a backstory except that he had a deceased son, which is fine. I actually liked that he didn't have much backstory to get in the way of the story.
But combined with the fact that Liao Fan is not a naturally expressive person, it was kind of hard to think of Yan Liang as a character rather than just a solving machine. So I think that aspect of the show could've been improved. Maybe if we saw more interrogation scenes from Yan Liang, or if we saw him doing more of his own legwork instead of assigning most of it to Xiaoma, I think I might've gotten a better idea of who he was.
There were also parts of the show when Yan Liang was shown to be a cheesy guy, which I thought was endearing. Rarely do we get detective characters that are like that, characters that are more cheesy and cute in a way that's endearing.
That being said, I still found Yan Liang satisfactory. He wasn't brilliant or a standout, but there wasn't anything wrong with his character that made him uncomfortable to watch for me.
Ren Yueting
Ren Yueting was one of the other detectives in the police squad. I originally thought that she was going to play a role like Lin Qi in Burning Ice, in which she barely contributed to the case and...that sort of happened. Ren Yueting's contribution to the case was not significant, come to think of it. And it's a pity because I really liked the actress who played her, Lu Xiaolin, ever since I watched her in Day & Night.
Yes, her team did uncover connections between Ka'en and the like, but it didn't feel as significant, because these bits of information had already been revealed in the previous Jiang Yang timelines.
Gu Yiming
Gu Yiming was the police officer who butted heads with Yan Liang at first, but they got over their differences very early on. Gu Yiming was loud and brash but he yielded very easily. Perhaps it was because Ren Yueting was receptive to Yan Liang's ideas and Gu Yiming had no choice but to play along. But ultimately, like Ren Yueting, his character did not add that much in terms of the investigative work. So I feel like the show could've done away with one of Ren Yueting and Gu Yiming, like they did in Burning Ice (e.g. just have one other lead detective besides Yan Liang).
Zhang Xiaoqian/Li Xue
Zhang Xiaoqian was a journalist who had been receiving letters from a supposed terrorist. Yan Liang had been corresponding with Zhang Xiaoqian a lot, since she had spoken with several people who were releted to Jiang Yang. I don't remember if Yan Liang ever discovered that Zhang Xiaoqian was actually Li Xue, or whether Zhu Wei and co. had been the ones to reveal that.
I was surprised when I found out that Zhang Xiaoqian was Li Xue, mostly because I thought Zhang Xiaoqian looked very young, but I think the timelines still made logical sense. And after that revelation, I actually got very excited, even though it was already nearing the end of the show.
Logically speaking, her character was a little convenient, but I didn't mind, because I liked Zhang Xiaoqian the character, and I was really interested to know her secret.
Jiang Yang
Jiang Yang was probably the most important character of this show. He was the star of the middle timeline, and he was the link between the oldest and newest timelines. Only because of what he found with Hou Guiping was there a reason for what became of him.
Jiang Yang started off as a naive officer just helping a friend. Because of his good-hearted nature, he got sucked further and further into the case. He saw injustice in the face and he could not let it go ignored. The problem was that the powerful Ka'en group was behind the crime and would do everything to have Jiang Yang drop the case. I am kind of surprised that they never killed him, but perhaps they didn't have any good way to cover it up like they did with Hou Guiping. Jiang Yang was an officer and people knew he was investigating the Ka'en group. It would be too suspicious for him to die, after repeatedly being threatened.
The case slowly consumed Jiang Yang, first costing him his relationship with Wu Aike, since her father didn't want Jiang Yang getting her involved. He later married Guo Hongxia and even had a child Jiang Xiaoshu, but Hu Yilang had kidnapped him as a threat to Jiang Yang. Later, Guo Hongxia divorced him, probably because he was spending so much time on the case, and got their son in danger.
Then, Jiang Yang was framed and thrown into prison. He lost his career, and then he became very ill due to conditions in the prison. Jiang Yang was to die of this illness, and so it could be said that Jiang Yang gave his life to this case.
Bai Yu's acting in this show was outstanding. Up until episode 9 or so, I thought his acting was good, but episode 10, after he got out of prison, was when he wowed me. Up until episode 9, he was playing a very determined investigator. He was upright and moral, and he was going to get to the bottom of this no matter what happened.
After prison, he was a changed man. He lost his drive. He became so sick, so complacent. That scene when he lost his wallet was so important. Yes, it was just a wallet, but to Jiang Yang, that was not just a wallet. It was one of the few things in life that he had. Because of this case, he'd lost his family, he'd lost his career, he'd lost his drive, he'd lost everything. And Bai Yu convinced us perfectly that that was the same man.
I was very glad that we had a short scene between Jiang Yang and Jiang Xiaoshu. Though Jiang Yang had divorced from Guo Hongxia, I don't think it was bad blood between them, I think it was just stress from his job. So I think that Hongxia and Xiaoshu probably still cared for Jiang Yang a lot. What Jiang Yang felt for Hongxia maybe wasn't love, like how he cared for Aike, but I think that at the very least, it was appreciation. He said that he liked Hongxia because she was very supportive of him in his endeavours. And while we don't know who initiated the divorce, it seemed that Xiaoshu still had a good view of his father. That scene when Xiaoshu asked Jiang Yang about death was so good, because it showed us that other than the case, Jiang Yang did have a life, a family, and he had to let go of them for this case, lest he drag them down.
And the way that Jiang Yang went suited him perfectly. He knew that he had no chance of solving the case because the Ka'en group already had his number. They had run him into the ground, and they could continue to do so because he had been on their radar for long enough that they knew a lot about him. His only hope was to reach out for help, using his death as a way to draw attention, which was very altruistic, and very in line with the Jiang Yang that we knew at the beginning of the show.
Bai Yu really did well in this show. He has always seemed to show much respect for his roles, even if they were cheesy idol dramas (like Guardian), and so that is why I've respected him, and this drama has made me respect him even more, because it shows his range. Bai Yu can act funny and charming, but he can also be vulnerable and tragic.
Zhu Wei
Zhu Wei was one of the police officers who was working on the Hou Guiping case. He was more hotheaded than Jiang Yang, which was why he butted heads with Li Jian'guo more often, and landed in hot water earlier on.
In the present story line, he was basically one of the ringleaders of the plot to gain the attention of the police and the media. He had a lot of spite in his heart, and he missed Jiang Yang a lot, and even though he hated the idea of Jiang Yang dying for this case, now that he had, he would carry out the plan to the end in order that it would succeed the way Jiang Yang had hoped.
Chen Mingzhang
Chen Mingzhang was a forensic scientist. Originally, he was the man that Jiang Yang had to bribe to get Hou Guiping's autopsy documents, and it was through Chen Mingzhang that Jiang Yang first got proof that his death was fishy.
I originally thought that Chen Mingzhang was a mole, because he was so discouraging to Jiang Yang. He would tell him to stop investigating. Even after Jiang Yang got out of prison and became very sick, Chen Mingzhang would be discouraging.
But later, we saw that Cheng Mingzhang was not a mole, he was truly worried for Jiang Yang's health and his family life. So Chen Mingzhang's character was kind of like, a wrench in the plot, but he was well done, especially since he was acted so coldly and coolly.
Zhang Chao
Zhang Chao was a professor, and Li Jing's husband. He was also Jiang Yang's teacher in university, and he became tangentially involved because the Hou Guiping case was brought up by Li Jing to Jiang Yang.
He really only became involved when Jiang Yang got very sick and Li Jing and Zhang Chao came to see him. Zhu Wei had chewed out Zhang Chao because Zhang Chao was acting all high and mighty despite looking injustice in the face and not doing anything.
Later on, he helpd Jiang Yang mastermind his death and how they would alert the police and the media of their findings. He created a fake scenario in which it would seem like he had a bad relationship with Jiang Yang, so that he would be suspected of murder. Then, he would carry out a series of tasks that would make him really look like the murder, including carrying Jiang Yang's corpse. But all of this was supposed to purposely lead to confusion so that Yan Liang would be brought on to investigate the case.
This actor, Li Ning, has been in several Light On series dramas, and has played very different characters in each of them. In Burning Ice, he was a coldhearted killer. In the Bad Kids, he appeared only briefly, but he was an uncle with a flimsy spine. And in the Long Night, he was a sophisticated professor. And I applaud him for doing a good job in each.
Li Jing
Li Jing was Hou Guiping's ex-girlfriend, and Zhang Chao's wife. He had brought up the case to Jiang Yang to investigate. When she saw how the case ate away at Jiang Yang, I think she definitely felt guilty about it, and I think she ultimately give in to helping the plot because she knew that this was the only way she could pay him back.
Wu Aike
Wu Aike was Jiang Yang's first girlfriend, his girlfriend at the time that he had taken on the Hou Guiping case. Wu Aike told the police that she felt responsibility for pushing Jiang Yang to take the case. When Jiang Yang and Li Jing had first met to discuss the case, Jiang Yang was actually a bit hesitant to take it on, maybe because he felt there was only so much he could do, that his hands were tied, and that it would be an inconvenience. But Wu Aike was the one who was moved by the injustice and pushed Jiang Yang to take on the case.
Wu Aike's father was a higher ranked officer, and had initially protected Jiang Yang, but when Jiang Yang decided to take the case further, Wu Aike's father basically told him to let go of Wu Aike so as not to hurt her in the process.
Li Jian'guo
Li Jian'guo was a corrupt cop who kept impeding Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei's investigation. It was very infuriating when Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei kept finding leads and Li Jian'guo would always pop up at the last moment to take over the case or stop them from doing something. It was so obvious that he had been bought out, but Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei couldn't do anything about it.
He was eventually caught, of course, though he was not the ringleader and was simply one of the henchmen on the payroll.
Hou Guiping
Hou Guiping was where all of this began. He'd gone to the countryside and stumbled upon this curious case of girls being taken by Huangmao. His attention was first piqued because one of his students, Weng Meixiang, had actually committed suicide after being taken by Huangmao. He then found out through the other female students that Huangmao was not actually Weng Meixiang's cousin, and that he had been taking young women and girls from the factory all the time.
Hou Guiping was a city boy who'd come to the village to teach because he wanted to help the people. So of course he would want to stop this very serious practice that was happening in this town. He felt responsible to do something when he saw something.
Unfortunately, he had no idea he was going up against such a powerful corporation. He was originally only supposed to be framed for raping Ding Chunmei, but was killed in the process. His death was then twisted to look like he'd raped Ding Chunmei and had committed suicide. Zhang Xiaoqian, then Li Xue, had witnessed the act, both the rape and murder of Hou Guiping, and had left it behind her when she changed identities, but I had to think that she felt a responsibility to seek justice on his behalf, after she'd spoken to Zhu Wei and Jiang Yang.
Ding Chunmei
Ding Chunmei was one of Hou Guiping's students, but she was with Huangmao, and partnered up with him to frame Hou Guiping.
Originally, Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei were able to trap her into giving them information using the prisoner's dilemma. She fell for it, until Huangmao burst in and told her to say nothing. Still, that was enough for Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei to keep going.
The child that she was taking care of when she was interviewed by Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei was actually the child that Ge Li had with Zeng Xiangdong. Ge Li was one of Hou Guiping's students who was kidnapped into prostitution, and Zeng Xiangdong was one of the rich corporate men who liked raping these young women.
Yue Jun/Huangmao
Huangmao was the local hooligan. The first time we saw him, he'd told Hou Guiping that he was Weng Meixiang's cousin, and that her grandparents was asking to have dinner with her. Weng Meixiang was too afraid to say anything and was taken away, and later committed suicide.
So Hou Guiping knew there was something up with this fellow, and the other female students told them about what he'd done. That started Hou Guiping's journey to justice.
When Jiang Yang and Zhu Wei first interviewed Huangmao, he was not cooperative at all. It was only later, when he was going to be beat to death by the people at Ka'en, that he told them what he had done. Part way through Zhu Wei's interrogation of Huangmao, Li Jian'guo burst in to stop the interrogation because it was against procedure or something like that. Luckily Zhu Wei had recorded what they had said so far, so at least they had something.
Hu Yilang
Hu Yilang was part of the Ka'en group and was probably their main enforcer in terms of scare tactics. He was by far the most intimidating gangster of the group. Whereas Li Jian'guo was responsible for the procedural roadblocks, Hu Yilang would straight up threaten the cops, including kidnapping Jiang Yang's son.
At the end of the drama, we saw that Hu Yilang had tried to launch an attack to kill the police officers who were on his tail, but he was unsuccessful and died in the process.
Sun Chuanfu
Sun Chuanfu was one of the corporate bigwigs who was in on the prostitution ring. He posed as a very upright and calm guy, and so it was very infuriating to watch him as someone who knew that he was doing bad shit.
When Sun Chuanfu and Zhang Xiaoqian first me, he said that he thought he'd seen her somewhere, and Zhang Xiaoqian said that probably wasn't the case. That didn't make sense until I found out that Zhang Xiaoqian was Li Xue. If I was her, I would've been so scared, because in that scene, I could see that Sun Chuanfu was the kind of guy who could flip a switch. He acted calm and upright on the outside, but what is he like when he decides to show his true colours?
Li Dabei
Li Dabei was the owner of the photo developing shop who had developed Hou Guiping's photos, and taken them to Sun Chuanfu. He was looking for a fast buck, and took the photos to Sun Chuanfu, and told Hou Guiping that the film was damaged.
Later on, his shop was burned down with him inside, when Jiang Yang was on his tail.
Other
All of the layers of this story were based on the original case of a prostitution ring, of young girls being kidnapped and raped.
The version of this show that I was watching had sponsors at the beginning and for one of the sponsors, the spokesperson was Kris Wu. This show came out in 2020, which had been before the major Kris Wu scandal of July 2021. If you do not know, Kris Wu was accused luring and raping young girls, including many underage girls. He was one of the biggest celebrities in China, and his detainment and arrest have sent waves throughout the Chinese entertainment industry, as well as the current Chinese social climate as well.
I just thought it was incredibly ironic that Kris Wu would appear at the beginning of every episode of a show that was about cops taking down guys who ran a prostitution ring.
My feelings on the Kris Wu situation are constantly changing. Seeing him at the beginning of every episode gave me a bit of relief that I no longer feel fear when looking at his face (just mild discomfort). But there is still a lot about his situation that I can't say I'm totally over, it's just getting easier to avoid him and thinking about him in general.
Overall
Great show. A great addition to the Light On series. Great story, great acting, great camera work. What more can I say? Oh, also watch this show if you are a fan of Bai Yu!