Ojo de la tormenta (2021)

Endless potential but no action

This drama had endless potential given the cast, the atmosphere and genres of the story, but sadlly it didn't give what I expected from such a large-scale drama. It started out very promising and good, but since we are talking about an action/thriller/mystery/crime drama here, you'd expect a fair amount of suspense/action towards the end, which was almost completely left out here. The key word is: ACTION. I watched this drama zealously because I thought the espionage/monitoring/distance investigation part was just a lead-up to the great things in the end which is ACTION. And by that I mean physical action, and actually going out to catch the criminals. There was little to no action in this drama despite the extremely promising plot and genres. The whole story was just about the characters sitting in computer rooms trying to solve a case from afar.

The first thing that threw me off was when they didn't show how Bat was caught. He was presented as key character who will play an important role, but they finished him off in no time, without us even seeing how he was caught and not seeing a single scene from the interrogation of such a key character.

The next is Du Meng's death... Seriously, why? Such a great, likabe and important character was killed off in no time after just pointing a gun at one of the criminals. I felt like his death was unnecessary with the sole reason of the writers going by the logic that a sacrifice is needed in order to achive good. Furthermore, I was hoping for a real fight scene between two male characters and for Du Meng to beat Chang Lei in one to one combat, but no... Chang Lei thrusts a needle from his glasses (!) into Du Meng's neck like he's some James Bond or something, then runs away and Meng dies on the scene. That was pretty much the only action scene in the drama, and even that was poorly implemented.

Then let's talk about Jeffrey. He was presented as the one who stands behind everything, the main bad guy throughout the series, but when the story gets to a point where it's time to catch him, they don't show us anything besides how Ma Shang detects him on a MONITOR, but we get to see nothing from how they actually go after him, catch him, and interrogate him.

I was also hoping that they'd bring down Hermes, the source of all evil in the end too, but that didn't happen either. Still this is the most forgivable out of the points I mentioned because they dealt with the branch of the organisation that wanted to steal Dinghua's core technology that was what the plot centered around.

Overall, I'd like to emphasize again that this drama had infinite potential, but the lack of action ruined it. It is not worth watching 30-35 episodes of people sitting in computer rooms, be it on a yacht, a van or an office if there is no action in the last 5-10 or at least the last 3 episodes.

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Chinese censorship makes watching law & order dramas interesting...

In my personal rating system of "loved," "liked," "meh", and "nah", this rates a "liked"/"meh".

What I liked:
I, of course, liked Vin Zhang, but then again, I could probably watch a drama that is just him watching paint dry and I'd be okay, as long as I occasionally got that quirky slightly crooked smile of his. I also like that he is not afraid to play opposite female leads who are older than him (like in "I will never let you go"). I thought both FL and ML actors did their roles well. I appreciated getting to hear their normal voices and neither one bothers me. Of course, I also do not speak Mandarin, so there's that. I liked their opposite natures: ML was cheerful and often irreverent, FL was by-the-book and serious. Their romance was believable (and there was even a kissing scene. If I was Yang Mi, I would have made VZ do that take at least ten times. You know, for science), but I did get a bit frustrated by the FL's unwillingness to let anyone into her life. I loved ML's family. They were hilarious and had a good relationship with their son (and for once, the dad was played by an actor who was handsome enough in his own right to have believably produced a son who looks like Vin Zhang.). Despite the initial drag of the plot, I actually got into it as it moved along.

What merited the "meh" portion:
I'm not really into procedural police dramas and this was definitely procedural. Lots of time spent in conversations about the case and what they were going to do. Thanks to censorship, plenty of patriotic script writing--I had to fast-forward through those bits. And I know this is most likely due to censorship, but I had a very hard time believing in a government agency that had zero infighting, zero bosses under political pressure, zero problems interacting with local police forces, and zero territorial disputes with other agency offices. In a way, that is what ruined the other very realistic-seeming parts of the drama.

If you're really into procedural law & order-type shows, you'd like this one, just be aware of the limitations due to censorship outlined above. I thought all the actors did a nice job and I did not feel I'd wasted my time watching it.

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Am I watching a pro-China infomercial, or a spy drama?

I should have learned my lesson when I tried to watch Love Me If You Dare. This drama is even more heavy-handed in its pro-China spoon-feeding. From the moment I turned on the series, it felt like one of those cheesy, overly patriotic recruitment videos we're forced to watch in school or before a movie starts in the cinema. I almost have 2nd hand embarrassment with how over the top it is. From the ridiculous monologues about patriotism and "dying for your great Country" (while they're talking about a dead coworker) to the regrettable OST that sounds like it should be coming from a school megaphone and not a serious spy espionage drama.

Despite my reservations, I gave this series a shot because I adore the cast and just came off watching Bin Bin in Rattan (great drama!). That being said, it was admittedly hard to watch from the beginning. Our ML, Ma Shang (Bin Bin), is straight-laced, fluffy toward our FL, and adorably feisty when he's not in serious job mode. He's got a great relationship with his parents, and I adore their interactions throughout the series. An Jing, his childhood sweetheart and co-worker, shares great chemistry with him, and I liked seeing the two actors together again from Eternal Love. I also really liked Ma Shang and He Zi Xuan's chemistry. That's...pretty much where I stop caring about the series.

I was already skipping through by the 4th episode and pretty much skipped around until I got to Ma Shang and An Jing's scenes. Even then, it really couldn't be saved.

In reality, China *can't* do espionage/crime/serial killer/murder type genres. Their Government censorship rules completely water down everything to a laughable extent and puts their winning team on unrealistic pedestals. You mean to tell me that their national security teams are perfect? Zero infighting? Zero corruption? Perfect and seamless camaraderie and technology from start to finish? The criminals are never a match for them, right? They're always sloppy, one-dimensional villains who tend to speak in English when they're being diabolical, or they're terrible D-list Western actors playing evil caricatures of themselves, and they always just lay down and give up when they're caught. Give me a break.

If you want gritty, more realistic dramas within those genres, I recommend Western TV shows or Kdramas. I just finished watching Through The Darkness with Kim Nam Gil, and it was *amazing*. It's a novel adaptation and has a lot of similarities to the Western drama, MindHunter, about profiling serial killers in custody while trying to catch an ongoing case. Both shows are miles better than this. If you want a corporate espionage-type thriller, I recommend Killing Eve (has a bit of dark comedy as well), The Americans, or The Night Manager.

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Overly pathetic and patriotic

I basically picked this drama because I wanted to see the cast of the Eternal Love in modern outfits and check what sort of deals the Chinese security office investigate. Industrial espionage that is. For a short moment it was even interesting to observe the level of intertwinement between the government and a corporate world, but I am not really into corporate dramas, which this show appears to be by the third episode. What they'd offered by the fifth episode wasn't my fav type of intrigue. All the security service guys looked too flat, pathetic and immaculate. Vin Zhan and Yang Mi look way better in historic costumes, whereat I'm going to continue enjoying them.

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