Ripe Town: Spoiler-Free Mini Review
- 2 days ago
- 2 min read
Updated: 21 hours ago
Title: | Ripe Town |
Platform: | Viki, Youtube, WeTV |
MDL Rating: | |
Genre: | Period Investigative Thriller/Mystery |
Episode Count: | 12 |
Parental Guidance Rating: | PG-13: This should be MA, if not for content, then at least for comprehension. The content straddles between TV-16/MA. Violence, murder, child abuse, torture, partial nudity. |
Staring: | Bai Yu Fan as Qu San Geng Ning Li as Song Chen |
RBTS Rating: | 4.5/5-- Highly Recommend! |
Stay tuned for my full review!
Spoiler-Free Mini Review:
What a masterpiece! On the surface, this is a crime thriller about catching a serial killer, but the real meat of the story is unravelling the iceberg of cases lurking underneath. The first half of the show really embodies the principle “Great men rarely align with their ideals,” while the second half wrestles with how far one is willing to go to get justice, and if going that far no longer qualifies it as that. The show explores the hypocrisy of Confucianism in this society, and the absurdity and selectivity in legal system it formed.
This is not a feel good show. The constant corruption is suffocating, but it allows you to feel the helplessness and complexity of what it takes to get what you want, dare I say deserve, while remaining a “good” person. The themes were so powerful and layered on top of each other like a delicious 10 tier cake. The pursuit of power was so interesting—all roads led toward it—but even once obtained, the characters were still trapped. In the words of Qui Gon Jinn "There is always a bigger fish".
Told in two timelines (Present and flashback), Ripe Town is an existential thought experiment on justice, morality, and revenge, told through characters who only ever wanted a better life. The low rating on
MDL is expected because there are no "traffic" idol actors, nor romance.
Story= 5 (Truly outstanding. I doubted at some points, but by the end I understood it)
Acting= 4.5 (Didn’t love the bailiff ML, but maybe it’s because he played his role too well. I’m used to a certain type of ML, but this one broke the mold. Many shouts out to Judge Song)
Production Quality=4.75 (Felt very authentic, I think because it was so contained, but the women’s wigs were not anatomically correct)
Ending=4 (I was crushed like the little bug I am, and felt it was slightly anticlimactic, but overall I GOT IT)
Enjoyability= 4.5 (I was so intrigued but I feel traumatized)
Trailer:
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