Drama: Under the Skin (2022)
May. 1st, 2023 06:50 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
autodach
I watched the cdrama Under the Skin. It’s a crime investigation type story that can be read as vaguely implied BL if you have your shipping goggles firmly in place (as I do always).
Many thanks to
miss_ingno for pointing me towards this drama.I had a great time with this one ♥
I am pasting in the imbd summary because I find it fairly accurate:
A skilled portraitist and a respected police captain put aside their bad blood to work together and solve cases using methods that can only be described as uncanny.
Watching this show you just kind of have to accept that Drawing is Magic. Many times I thought to myself “this doesn’t seem very realistic”, and then dismissed that thought because it’s beside the point. You have to take it at face value.
I really like how many different art techniques are shown. The show also takes the time to show various close-ups of the art process.
The criminal cases are also varied. Sometimes I had sympathy for the victim, sometimes the perpetrator, sometimes both or neither.
Here are my thoughts on the main characters and their relationship:
• Shen Yi is a very calm, gentle person. He is kind and polite to people when he doesn’t have to be. He is an artist with a good reputation, his colleagues recognizing his work immediately.
He has some idealistic views, telling victims to report crimes because justice is important and talking about fighting evil.
He also falls asleep in cars immediately.
• Du Cheng had neglectful parents and acted out as a result. As an adult, he is a confident, decisive person. He doesn’t trust easily and often has a grumpy demeanor. He has not managed to maintain a close relationship with his sister, although their interactions seem harmonious.
• The Conflict between them is this: Du Cheng’s mentor/friend Lei Yifeng was murdered and Shen Yi was an important witness, but couldn’t remember the person he had met. He suffers memory loss after being pushed into the ocean and almost drowning, but none of the characters treat this attempted murder as a big deal for some reason. In the aftermath Shen Yi burned all his artworks and disappeared for seven years. He only starts to regain his suppressed memories when he almost drowns.
• So Du Cheng initially blames Shen Yi for something that was not his fault in the slightest and is a major dick to him. Even at the cost of sabotaging his own investigation. I felt bad for the boss who has to wrangle him.
After their first case, he starts treating Shen Yi more civilly, but doesn’t apologize.
By case number four, Du Cheng has started to trust in Shen Yi’s abilities. He gets all giddy about involving him in a new case, it’s rather cute.
When they finally talk about The Past, Du Cheng is all “let’s put it behind us”, but he still hasn’t apologized. Instead, he shows Shen Yi his totally normal deceased-mentor-shrine and opens up to him. He even admits he knows and has known full well that Shen Yi is not to blame. Not long after, they talk about being friends. Aww ♥
I took haphazard notes and organized them according to the corresponding cases. I’m putting this under a cut for length. Note that this is more of a stream of consciousness/first impression than actual analysis or anything like that.
Case 1: A plastic surgeon with a habit of raping his patients has been murdered.
• For a single episode there is a visual effect where Shen Yi thinks of people around him as potential drawings. This was pretty cool and it’s a pity we never see it again.
• Shen Yi goes out of his way to be kind to the murderer.
Case 2: A skeleton is found with its skull switched out.
• I’m gonna be honest here and admit I didn’t really get the explanation. At first I thought it was Tragic Lesbians, but then one of them is painfully straight apparently? And she somehow thought the other was a boy? There’s a story in there about loving someone vs. loving the idea of someone, but I can’t appreciate it because the whole circumstance is just too much of a reach for me.
Case 3: A murder trial has been dragging on for years. The sister of the murdered person is pushing for capital punishment.
• I admit I had to brace myself for certain scenes during this arc because the death penalty is just such a dreadful thing. This is only a side note - it’s not a focus of the show.
• Shen Yi gets kidnapped by the second half of the murder couple. He is actually smart about alerting the others to his predicament, and they in turn catch on quickly. Characters acting like adults with a brain is always appreciated; and the resulting dramatic rescue is delicious. Du Cheng is so worried!
Case 4: A guy kidnaps his girlfriend.
• Shen Yi has adopted the cat of one of the murderers, and he brings it to the office to be pet by the victim. I wonder what he would do if she was allergic to cats. Or anyone at the office, for that matter.
• Instead of a whiteboard or blackboard, the detectives are writing on a transparent surface at the office, making sure no one can read anything. They do this throughout the show; this is just where I first noticed.
• There must be something truly weird going on with how universities work in China for that guy’s motive to make any sense. I’ll just take this part at face value I guess.
In-between cases 4 and 5
• Shen Yi repeatedly almost drowns himself, including in his bathtub. In Du Cheng’s introductory scene he did something very similar, but I’m not sure if that’s supposed to mean anything.
The point of the not-quite-drowning is to re-traumatize himself to jog his memory. This seems a little unsafe tbh but it actually works.
• Shen Yi’s therapist breaks confidentiality like she’s never heard of the concept.
Case 5: Armed robbery of a jewelry store.
• Du Cheng doesn’t want Shen Yi to come along because it could be dangerous. Aww <3
It’s actually someone else on the team that gets hurt. I quite like the progression here: At first I thought Du Cheng being worried was foreshadowing for Shen Yi getting hurt. Then the twist – it’s actually Du Cheng who gets shot! Twist again, he’s fine – it’s Other Dude who gets stabbed!
• They assume that a red-green colour blind suspect would be very slow to read a traffic light. I think this is a reach. You can still see which light is on and a colour blind person would be used to how it looks. And that is still ignoring the existence of people who cross on red all the time and don’t even look at the light.
• This is the first case that connects to The Backstory of Lei Yifeng’s murder: The culprit is the mysterious woman Shen Yi met seven years ago. It’s also the first case where the murderer escapes (for now).
Case 6: A woman kills her husband in self-defense.
• Shen Yi has a revelation about the case while teaching art class. The wronged women did it together! I really enjoyed this scene, mostly because I’m smug about figuring it out before Shen Yi lol.
• Du Cheng goes to play in Shen Yi’s office - which is gigantic by the way - steals his candy and makes a terrible drawing. He’s adorable.
Case 7: A student was drugged and raped
• Shen Yi gets loaned out to the investigators, who are apparently from another police station(?). He takes the time to gently teach his less experienced colleague, walking her through the process of making the composite drawing in a long-ish scene. I liked the mood of this scene on its own a lot; it didn’t need the flashbacks to young Shen Yi being taught to paint to make its point.
Case 8: Shen Yi’s teacher commits suicide.
• Shen Yi’s former art teacher shows up briefly at the bureau to make trouble, and afterwards dies immediately.
Shen Yi is very much affected by the loss, but it didn’t really work for me at this point. The character was introduced suddenly and died quickly; I was not invested in his story then. We find out more about him in retrospect, though.
I like how Shen Yi struggles to accept his teacher as a flawed human being. The combination of being his honored teacher and being deceased makes this man larger than life in Shen Yi’s eyes.
Case 9: Several art photographs have been vandalized
• The people involved are all horny for each other in incompatible and annoying ways.
Du Cheng is just as Over It as I am.
• The number of dramas I’ve seen where a characters forcefully drinks someone’s alcoholic beverage to protect them from the negative effects of alcohol rises to three.
Case 10: Several packages explode, killing and injuring people.
• Shen Yi is in danger again! He seems to have a talent for this. Du Cheng comes to the rescue via some sick parkour moves.
The way the dangerous situation comes to be is a bit strange. No one believes Shen Yi when he has a theory where the next bombing might be so he just goes alone. Why are they so sure he’s wrong? Why does nobody go with him anyway?
Case 11: Du Cheng totally committed murder, trust me bro I swear
• This ties back into the Lei Yifeng case, and ultimately leads to that murder being solved.
• Du Cheng is so bad at hiding something’s wrong. It’s kinda hilarious how suspicious he is.
• I like that two things about Shen Yi are very obvious during the brief arc where he thinks Du Cheng might be a murderer:
1) He hates investigating Du Cheng and wants him to be innocent; and
2) He would never not investigate.
It shows both his affection for Du Cheng and his sense for duty and justice at the same time.
• The higher-up investigator dude was surprisingly competent. And handsome.
This show does this thing where it tells a complete story with a proper ending, then tries to set up The Sequel at the last minute. I dislike this on principle. Let’s hope I happen to hear the news if and when season 2 happens lol.
no subject
on 2023-05-03 03:56 am (UTC)Watching this show you just kind of have to accept that Drawing is Magic. Many times I thought to myself “this doesn’t seem very realistic”, and then dismissed that thought because it’s beside the point. You have to take it at face value.
This was my instinct, too! But I read/heard somewhere that the director (?) said in a Chinese interview that they actually dumbed some of the art abilities down compared to the RL cases they consulted because it seemed too unreal. Idk, it's definitely dramatized, and some of it feels like built in assumptions could easily lead to false arrests, but what do I know? (Source might've been AvenueX's review video on YouTube, but I'm not 100% certain)
He suffers memory loss after being pushed into the ocean and almost drowning, but none of the characters treat this attempted murder as a big deal for some reason.
Tbh I interpreted this as Shen Yi not telling them about drowning? The scene where he tells Du Cheng about it felt like the first time he mentions it, which imo was an important step in their relationship, progressing their understanding of each other (a direct mirror to Du Cheng opening up about his past and why his mentor was so important to him). I guess the question is how did Shen Yi get saved from drowning. The place he got kicked in was pretty lonely, so I doubt there's many passerbys. For him to be able to keep it secret, as I'm assuming, he must've gotten himself out. Or maybe his art friend saw and saved him? She didn't get interviewed by the police, I don't think...
I’m gonna be honest here and admit I didn’t really get the explanation. At first I thought it was Tragic Lesbians, but then one of them is painfully straight apparently? And she somehow thought the other was a boy?
Yeah, that whole case was convoluted, possibly due to censorship. My read on it was that boy-girl is a butch lesbian and/or gender nonconforming, and Xiao Xuan mistook her for a boy and crushed on her, but either was straight or didn't dare question her sexuality on top of all her other burdens. Maybe she even thought it was an elaborate prank by the lesbian to "trick" her into falling for a nonexistent boy ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
They assume that a red-green colour blind suspect would be very slow to read a traffic light. I think this is a reach. You can still see which light is on and a colour blind person would be used to how it looks. And that is still ignoring the existence of people who cross on red all the time and don’t even look at the light
I think there was a study (studies?) that showed a significant slower reaction in red-green colourblind people re: traffic lights, I assume something like that inspired the writers. But I bet "slower" is like milliseconds of a difference, and I haven't personally read the study so who knows if the methodology was clean and solid. It's the sort of fact that gets blown way out of proportion because it sounds interesting.
Which is a long way of saying: I agree 😂
Shen Yi is very much affected by the loss, but it didn’t really work for me at this point. The character was introduced suddenly and died quickly; I was not invested in his story then.
Yeah, same. The show was very tightly paced so I get why, but even having him show up in an unrelated flashback or a phone call before this episode would've helped set up more sympathy.
No one believes Shen Yi when he has a theory where the next bombing might be so he just goes alone. Why are they so sure he’s wrong? Why does nobody go with him anyway?
Iirc I think Shen Yi didn't have enough confidence in his own instinct. It was his choice to send the rest of the troops to protect the other potential victim and then he went off to be a self-sacrificing reckless idiot (I have a type don't I. Omg). Shen Yi stepped into Du Cheng's role and shoes here, so I get why he wouldn't want to 100% commit in case he was wrong, but there must be a way to split the party, right!? *despairs*
(I bet Du Cheng would have trusted Shen Yi's gut instinct more to gamble on it.)
If a season 2 happens, I'll let you know as soon as I hear! Though I'm rarely up to date on drama news myself 😅
Also, I forgot to pull the quote, but mood on patient confidentiality! I wonder if it's a China thing or a police thing (either because Du Cheng is police or because Shen Yi's employer is the police. Since she did his fitness for police work assessment, I assume the psychologist works for the police department in this capacity in general, so procedure about confidentiality might be different.)
...I still have a lot more feelings about this show than I thought, whoops.
no subject
on 2023-05-03 11:09 am (UTC)Maybe they dumbed some things down and dialled others up to eleven? XD
Often it wasn't the end product drawing that seemed unrealistic but how little it takes to get there based on super vague input. Like, the witness will say "his eyes shone with the frost of a winter day" and Shen Yi will go "say no more" and make a photorealistic painting.
I guess it's supposed to be thanks to Shen Yi's pyschology skills? But this is mind-reading territory lol.
Tbh I interpreted this as Shen Yi not telling them about drowning?
Yes I agree he must have not told anyone previously.
How he survived, that would be a question for Du cheng to ask, wouldn't it? Does he not want to know?
Idk it just seems like it should be a much bigger thing, he was almost murdered!
It's never brought up again too I think (only drowning as a concept, but not the murder attempt)?
and then he went off to be a self-sacrificing reckless idiot (I have a type don't I. Omg)
You and me both XD
Also, I forgot to pull the quote, but mood on patient confidentiality! I wonder if it's a China thing or a police thing
There are probably very little restrictions on what information the Chinese police can and will access. They do like to pretend there are some restrictions in dramas, though.
So it was still unexpected to see her tell Du Cheng everything so easily.
no subject
on 2023-05-22 10:48 am (UTC)Yeah, my suspension of disbelief was strongly tested. And yeah, Shen Yi definitely demonstrated good psychological skills, both in interpreting people's stories and in getting them to open up!
Idk it just seems like it should be a much bigger thing, he was almost murdered!
It's never brought up again too I think (only drowning as a concept, but not the murder attempt)?
Shen Yi reads as someone who is very introverted and keeps these things super private to me, so in that regard it makes sense that he won't bring it up? But yeah, I wanted Du Cheng to actually *do* something more with that, though I thought him being back-up as Shen Yi retraumatized himself in the swimming pool was somewhat nice. He likely knew Shen Yi would do it anyway, so spotting for him and making sure he's at least safe-ish about it makes sense :') and Shen Yi blaming himself more than he blames the murderer(s) harmonizes with his characterisation, too, sadly x'D
(If you haven't, I highly suggest checkign out Elenothar's fics for these two, she's doing a great job developing their relationship post-canon further!)
no subject
on 2023-05-24 04:04 pm (UTC)I agree it wouldn’t be Shen Yi bringing it up again. I was sort of hoping for the matter to come up in general, or for Du Cheng to make more of deal of it.
But I guess Du Cheng is an “actions over words” kind of character in general, so I admit it makes sense for him not to mention anything. Maybe helping Shen Yi drown himself is how he deals with it emotionally.
(If you haven't, I highly suggest checkign out Elenothar's fics for these two, she's doing a great job developing their relationship post-canon further!)
I have actually! I’ve been slowly working my way through the Under the Skin tag on ao3 and noticed the same name pop up :D
no subject
on 2023-06-04 09:35 am (UTC)But I guess Du Cheng is an “actions over words” kind of character in general, so I admit it makes sense for him not to mention anything. Maybe helping Shen Yi drown himself is how he deals with it emotionally.
Agreed to all of that! And yeah, that last one is how I saw the intention on my watchthrough.
no subject
on 2023-05-07 08:40 pm (UTC)Ha, yeah. I did read somewhere that police sketch artists play a more important role in China than they do over here, but I can't find the source now - I found it fascinating, though!
My read on it was that boy-girl is a butch lesbian and/or gender nonconforming, and Xiao Xuan mistook her for a boy and crushed on her, but either was straight or didn't dare question her sexuality on top of all her other burdens.
Same here! It did work for me.
Since she did his fitness for police work assessment, I assume the psychologist works for the police department in this capacity in general, so procedure about confidentiality might be different.
Yeah, I was wondering about that too - if it's essentially about his fitness as a police officer, there would be different rules ...
no subject
on 2023-05-07 08:34 pm (UTC)I really like how many different art techniques are shown. The show also takes the time to show various close-ups of the art process.
Right? The art looks great, so does the process of creation - and they really go to some effort staging it all and showing it off to best effect. Delightful! And a unique approach to a police procedural that made it all feel fresh.
The criminal cases are also varied. Sometimes I had sympathy for the victim, sometimes the perpetrator, sometimes both or neither.
Yeah, I really enjoyed that! Lots of different perspectives and everything.
So Du Cheng initially blames Shen Yi for something that was not his fault in the slightest and is a major dick to him. Even at the cost of sabotaging his own investigation.
Yeah, it took me ages to warm up to him somewhat, and I never ended up actually liking him much, but luckily I didn't need to, because I wasn't really there for the character dynamics. *g* I agree, I do wish he had actually apologised!
At first I thought it was Tragic Lesbians, but then one of them is painfully straight apparently? And she somehow thought the other was a boy?
I liked the gender non-conforming one, and I thought she was probably intended to be lesbian. It worked for me.
The number of dramas I’ve seen where a characters forcefully drinks someone’s alcoholic beverage to protect them from the negative effects of alcohol rises to three.
Hee! I'm guessing the other two are Guardian and CQL?
No one believes Shen Yi when he has a theory where the next bombing might be so he just goes alone. Why are they so sure he’s wrong? Why does nobody go with him anyway?
Yeah, that didn't make sense to me either!
• I like that two things about Shen Yi are very obvious during the brief arc where he thinks Du Cheng might be a murderer:
1) He hates investigating Du Cheng and wants him to be innocent; and
2) He would never not investigate.
I loved this so much, it was delightful! He keeps trying and keeps getting the same result, and can't not confront Du Cheng about it in the end.
no subject
on 2023-05-08 06:50 am (UTC)I see what you mean about the ending. The villain was introduced very late and didn't really tie into the previous story or themes.
And a unique approach to a police procedural that made it all feel fresh.
Yes, that was also the main appeal for me watching. All these plots that we've seen a million times getting light from a new angle. Exciting! <3
Hee! I'm guessing the other two are Guardian and CQL?
Haha yes exactly. Is three times enough to make a trope? XD
no subject
on 2023-05-08 10:57 am (UTC)I'm pretty sure it is a trope. Same with the "person instantly passes out after one drink" thing, which I definitely have seen more often now even though I can't remember most instances. *g*