Article 20
Genres Drama
Directors Yimou Zhang
Writer Meng Li
Country China
Votes 1143
Rating 6.9
IMDBID tt28258332
Runtime 141
Languages Mandarin
Release 10 Feb, 2024
Prosecutor Han Ming (played by Lei Jiayin) is middle-aged, and he wanted to catch up with the last train of his life, but he was involved in a complicated case. Facing the stubborn prosecutor Lu Lingling (played by Ma Li), Han Ming started from the beginning. She was puzzled and flinched, and finally withstood the pressure together with her, turning the suspect's intentional injury into self-defense, and returning the law to fairness and justice.
CinemaSerf
The topic here is quite an interesting one. A CCTV camera captures a man being attacked and stabbed multiple times. The police apprehend the perpetrator, but as the hastily partnered prosecutors - "Han Ming" (Jiayin Lei) and "Liu Lingling" (Ye Gao) start to investigate, they discover that the victim was actually quite an odious creature who probably deserved his fate - despite the vocal protestations of his family. Meantime, the former is also having some family drama after is son "Yuchen" (Liu Yaowen) intervenes in a school bullying incident and finds himself faced with making an humiliating apology or a court-ordered detention. Poor old "Han" is now under mounting pressure from his bosses, his partner and from his rather strong-willed wife "Li Maojuan" (Li Ma). Juggling plates isn't really his forte, and for most of the drama we vacillate between the increasingly hysterical and bickering marital relationship that starts off quite funny but ends up quite grating, and a police investigation that ultimately has a political point to make about the voracity of Chinese justice to the audience. It does have it's moments, and at times I did feel a bit sorry for "Han" as his problems accumulate with no obvious solution for a man who just wants to get to his retirement in one piece. Otherwise, though, it's all a bit messy. The narrative doesn't really flow and it becomes just a but too much of a soap for me as it begins to run out of steam. It is watchable, and at times does raise a smile - but the stories are all just a bit too thin.
posts by : CinemaSerf