Drama Tea<p><strong>Towards the Truth review</strong></p><p>Towards the Truth was so ignored by iQiyi that it didn’t give it any promotion or even proper English subtitles! While I can understand most of what was said in the drama, the characters do use flowery and poetic language that befuddles me at times, so out comes the translating app. (I’m even thinking of recapping and creating subtitles for this drama so that more people would be able to appreciate this drama.) </p><p>All this effort is worth it as it’s a gem of a Chinese drama – an original script, at that! And we should always support actors and productions that have talent so that they get noticed more.</p><p><strong>The story</strong></p><p>Ten years ago, the entire Shen clan was massacred, leaving only the young Shen Shaowen alive. </p><p>Shen Shaowen managed to pass the imperial examination to become an official. But when he begged the emperor for permission to investigate the massacre, he was outplayed by court politics and was demoted to a commoner. </p><p>Now an ordinary chef, Shen Shaowen has resigned himself to a lifetime of bitterness, unable to find out what happened to his clan. However, he possesses a special ability that makes him especially equipped to be a great detective, and mysterious, powerful figures want to tap into that power.</p><p><strong>Characters</strong></p><p><strong>Shen Shaowen (Wang You Shou): </strong>A former official demoted to ordinary cook, Shen Shaowen has special abilities that makes him an extraordinary investigator.</p><p><strong>Gongsun Li (Zhang Chen Xiao</strong>)<strong>: </strong>Son of the minister of revenue, he gets involved with Shen Shaowen due to a mystery involving the minsitry. </p><p><strong>Li Qin Er (Jin Jia Yue): </strong>A mysterious woman who forcibly recruits Shen Shaowen to work for her master. She has the ability to entrance people.</p><p><strong>Zhan Mao Er: </strong>A bandit who eventually gets involved with Shen Shaowen’s little detective outfit.</p><p><strong>Old Li/Lao Li (Natas Asoka</strong>)<strong>: </strong>A constable who took in Shen Shaowen when he was at his lowest. </p><p><strong>Rong Hua (Liang Yong Ni</strong>)<strong>: </strong>A princess who likes solving mysteries.</p><p><strong>What I liked</strong></p><ul><li>The acting is solid, especially Wang You Shou and Natas Asoka’s. Wang was recently in <em>The Legend of Taotie. </em>Natas’ acting was especially good to me, because he played multiple roles that were so different from each other that I couldn’t figure out the third role he played until after!</li><li>For a low budget drama, it didn’t have a “cheap” look or feel at all. In fact, I’d say the camerawork and costuming is better than some expensive dramas like 2024’s <em>Sword and Fairy</em>, for example. They make do with what they have in creative ways.</li><li>The team dynamics is good. Every character is memorable.</li><li>Shen Shaowen’s character is fascinating, especially his mysterious abilities.</li></ul><p><strong>What I didn’t like</strong></p><ul><li>The plot feels rushed and skimmed over.</li><li>Some plot points are not logical. </li><li>There are still unanswered questions … a possibility of a second season, though I highly doubt it will happen. The drama, however, ends satisfactorily, so no cliffhangers.</li><li>The BL elements were rather obvious and the foundation wasn’t properly laid out for me to truly appreciate the “coupling” of Shen Shaowen and Gongsun Li. Just why was Gonsun so into Shen Shaowen?</li><li>Gongsun Li doesn’t really have much of a function in the team. A scared-y cat and no detective skills to speak of, I suppose his ability is his connections to the nobility and his purse strings.</li></ul><p><strong>Final thoughts</strong></p><p>Once in a while, there comes a drama where you think to yourself: If there was more justice in the world, and if the Chinese entertainment industry wasn’t so driven by traffic stars, capitalists and corrupt producers, the drama would’ve gotten more exposure.</p><p>Of course, we won’t know exactly why <em>Towards the Truth </em>was treated so badly, bereft of promotion or funds that even its machine-translated subs couldn’t pass muster. Meanwhile, you side-eye big-budget dramas starring idol actors who are pretty but bad at acting gobbling up the good scripts.</p><p>(I know I sound bitter, but as a long-time Chinese drama fan since the 1980s, I 100% am.)</p><p><em>Towards the Truth </em>has flaws. Big flaws. But it’s an earnest production, an original script in a sea of clumsy web novel adaptations. Its main lead Wang You Shou reminds me so much of Liu Xueyi, an actor who have heaps of acting talent but lack the resources and backers to land good scripts and big-budget dramas. So, he languishes in low-budget dramas with bad scripts. Sigh!</p><p>However, Wang You Shou being the main lead of many dramas is a good sign, and the fact that he’s the lead for Douban highly-rated sleeper hit dramas such Young Blood I (7.8 rating) and II (7.8 rating) gives me hope that he’ll one day snag that big break. May he get a <em>Blossom</em> one day!</p><p>Anyway, back to the script and story of the drama. <em>Towards the Truth </em>has a script that gets <em>almost </em>good enough … but falls short. </p><p>If it had been a little bit more polished, and better fleshed out, I can easily see it joining the ranks of underrated classics like <em>Ancient Detective </em>and the 2024 drama <em>Heroes</em>. </p><p>This is one of the rare dramas that I wished they had bumped up to at least 24 episodes so that we could get more depth.</p><p>And that’s what frustrates me about <em>Towards the Truth</em>. There is <em>such </em>potential in the story if only it was better fleshed out. And while the drama ended satisfyingly with no cliffhangers, I was hungry for more of Shen Shaowen and his fellow sleuthers. </p><p>While they left the possibility of season 2 open, seeing what happened to <em>Ancient Detective</em>, I doubt it’ll ever happen. Sigh. </p><p>For one, Shen Shaowen’s clairvoyant abilities have so many possibilities, but so much of it is skimmed over due to the slim number of episodes (16 in all).</p>Some spoilers about Shen Shaowen’s abilities<p>if there’s one thing I liked about his abilities, is that the writers placed limitations on it. Each time he uses his abilities, he gets physically weaker and may end up losing his mind. This prevents his abilities from being a convenient deus ex machina in solving mysteries. </p><p>In fact, so serious was his limitation that he tells Zhan Mao’er to be his “sword”, not just when solving cases, but on that day when he finally loses himself completely. He actually makes Zhan Mao’er promise to kill him if that happens, and Zhan promises somberly that he’d be the one to do so. This is how you write “realistic” powers in a drama!</p><p>Another thing I liked about the drama is that the team has excellent chemistry. However, due to the speedy gonzalez nature of its plot, they went from being hostile and suspicious to each other to being best buds in just a few episodes. (In Gongsun Li’s case, something more? hahaha)</p><p>The team could use a lot more conflict before finally solidifying into a team, just like how the <a href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/2023/03/20/strange-tales-of-tang-dynasty-review/" rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" target="_blank">Strange Tales of Tang Dynasty</a> team did.</p><p>And some of the plot points was a little unbelievable, so it’s pretty hard to take mysteries seriously sometimes. </p><p>So, here’s how I rate the drama, with 8 being above average, and 7 being average.</p><ul><li>Camerawork: 8</li><li>Sets and costumes: 8</li><li>Acting: 8</li><li>Story: 7</li></ul><p><strong>Final rating</strong>: 7.7 </p><p></p><p><span></span></p><p><a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/cdrama/" target="_blank">#CDrama</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/cdramas/" target="_blank">#CDramas</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/china/" target="_blank">#China</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/chinese-drama/" target="_blank">#ChineseDrama</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/costumed-drama/" target="_blank">#CostumedDrama</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/fantasy/" target="_blank">#Fantasy</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/mystery/" target="_blank">#Mystery</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/towards-the-truth/" target="_blank">#TowardsTheTruth</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/tv/" target="_blank">#TV</a> <a rel="nofollow noopener noreferrer" class="hashtag u-tag u-category" href="https://dramatea88.wordpress.com/tag/underrated/" target="_blank">#underrated</a></p>