I had seen this series promoted in the Coming Soon section of Netflix for quite some time and was immediately interested when I noticed the lead cast was Ekin Cheng, the famous Hong Kong star from 1990s and 2000s. Plus it looked to have an interesting premise. Anyway once it was released yesterday, I started watching and finished it today. OK, let's get right on it now.
Brief Story Line
When a mysterious masked influencer called the Witch Baba started to give prediction of people dying, no one really believed until it became a reality as a famous influencer was shot by Detective Chen Chia-jen (Ekin Cheng - Young and Dangerous movies, The Twins Effect etc) in front of police station. Another well known influencer You Tzi (Singer/Rapper Shou Lo - I am the Secret in Your Heart, Organ Child etc) was upset and made it a major issue by blaming Chia-jen for his friend's shooting.
Chia-jen who was instructed by his captain to handle the case was assigned a new partner, Li Hsin-ping (Patty Lee - My Missing Valentine, Shards of Her TV series etc) from the High-Tech Investigation Unit headed by He Chen-wei (Lee Lee-Zen - 96 Minutes, The Teenage Psychic TV series etc). It really bothered Chia-jen as he was used to be a lone investigator, though he did find Hsin-ping's help quite significant especially when the following day another influencer really died just like what Witch Baba predicted. Meanwhile Chia-jen also had personal problem dealing with his estranged daughter Yu-chieh (Chen Yan Fei aka Buffy Chen - The Silent Forest, Wave Makers TV series etc) as he raced with time to find out the truth.
So how would the story conclude? You could find out in the series.
End of Brief Story Line
This series started off with a lot of things going on which personally made it a bit challenging to understand. It did not help when a lot of texts were shown on the screen that made it harder to read the subtitles. Luckily it was not too long and I got to understand the story clearer, even though there were quite a lot of characters introduced in short space of time. Not until the second episode that I felt the story pace was just nice and I have better understanding and knew the characters better.
The story telling was pretty straight forward and mystery was not complicated. I was able to deduce a lot of things which proved to be correct as the story came to a clearer picture. But then there was another twist towards the end which I might have guessed if I went with my gut during a scene in an episode in the middle. Anyway it was actually a nice surprise which could have made the series a very good one, until it was ruined with the way it was concluded. I thought it was a poor way to do so as it made the police looked incompetent (without going into too much detail, I am quite sure you would feel the same way as I did). Perhaps those scenes were added to make the episode longer and fit the standard 45+ minutes like the rest, though for me it was unnecessary. But other than those, it was still quite OK.
The names I mentioned above were part of the main cast which also included another actor Wang Po-Chieh (Bodyguards and Assassins, Women in Taipei TV series etc) who portrayed the doctor Kuo Ta-fu. In addition, there were plenty of other recurring characters such as cake maker who was in abusive relationsip Yen Pin-Hsuan (Lyan Chen - Had I Not Seen The Sun TV series, Summer Blue Hour etc), You Tzi's influencer friends Wei-yen (Ken Tsai - Haunted House for Sale TV series, Behind the Blue Eyes etc), Kao-ping (Zhan Huai Yun - After Shcool, Penguin Girl TV series etc), Yu-Chieh's best friend Li Ting-en (Chloe Xiang - Eye of the Storm, Would You Like a Cup of Coffee? TV series etc) and several others. I read there were real Taiwan influencers appeared here too, though I am not familiar with any one of them.
The series only has 8 episodes overall and was written and directed by Shaun Su whose previous work was drama movie titled How to Train Our Dragon with lead cast Kent Tsai and Chloe Xiang. It seemed there were a lot of people who had collaborated in other films and series as well. For instance Lee Lee-Zen, Wang Po-Chieh and Ken Tsai who appeared in the movie 96 Minutes. Btw the opening and closing credits did not mention if it was based on anything. So it was purely based on Shaun Su's creativity. Oh one thing that I noticed was the many people wearing masks in various scenes, which I only found out later that the series was apparently made in 2022 (not too long after the pandemic was over), but strangely only released in 2026. On personal note, as it was shot entirely in Taiwan and I am going there for the first time next month with my wife, it served as a good teaser for me to see what would be in store there.
Overall this could have been a really good series with interesting story and relevant topic with the current social condition if certain parts were done better. Though the mystery was not too complicated, it still provided some nice enough twist, but the poor closure did ruin the wonderful surprise. The revealing of the how and the why in the final episode was quite excellent with glimpses of scenes that were shown earlier became clear of their importance. Some of the main cast did decent job in here like Ekin Cheng and Buffy Chen, though few of the support characters felt less convincing. So if you are in the mood for nice enough mystery crime thriller with a bit of drama, then you could give this a try. But if you are looking for the perfectly written/directed series with lots of hidden layered mystery, then this might not be satisfying for you. The choice is yours.
Mike's movie moments rating: 3.25 out of 5 stars
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