Article 20 (2024)

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.