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sid_guardian2023-01-06 02:59 pm
miss_ingno) wrote in sid_guardian2023-01-06 02:59 pm
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Scene Discussion: SID sets a trap, Zhu Hong and Da Qing are kidnapped
I’m using Solo’s subs for the quotes! I apologize for the lack of Chinese, though. This is my first scene discussion, I hope I'm doing it right :)
Location of scene: episode 4, several snippets between 18:35 to 26:40
Context: Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan ran into Zhang Danni in the park as she was running from her attacker again. After taking her to a café to recover, Zhao Yunlan is very suspicious of her and shares these concerns with Shen Wei. He sends Xiao Guo to walk Zhang Danni home. They set the trap for that same night, as Da Qing is wearing the same clothes as he does when trailing Xiao Guo and Zhang Danni. The scene before the trap, Zhang Danni and Jia Hui discuss how she’s happy with her new face and that Zhu Jiu has a job for them.
Summary: Zhu Hong plays bait for the face-stealing Dixingren, with Chu Shuzhi and Da Qing as back-up, plus Lin Jing on the surveillance cams. But the SID gets ambushed and Zhu Hong and Da Qing are kidnapped instead.
Timestamp: 18:35 to 19:50
Da Qing is playing look-out in a red sports jacket. Zhu Hong shashays onto the scene in a stunning red dress, brushing back her hair to reveal a rather clunky earpiece.
Lin Jing watches from the street corner’s surveillance cam. Zhu Hong plays into the spy tropes of using a make-up mirror to check the corners, and we see Chu Shuzhi is also on back-up duty.
Lin Jing cracks up at Zhu Hong’s acting.
Chu Shuzhi uses his phone to stay to contact Da Qing instead of the earpiece. Maybe it offends his fashion sense.
While CSZ has line of sight on Zhu Hong, Da Qing doesn’t. Da Qing says “I really wish I could see Zhu Hong pretending to be a lady.” while looking amused.
The scene is interrupted by Weilan having a moonlit walk through the park.
Timestamp: 21:06 to 21:11
A high-pitched scream interrupts the team’s bait plan. Zhu Hong barely stops herself from investigating, Chu Shuzhi runs off to check. She clutches her bracelet.
21:11 to 21:19
Weilan find Lin Yusen lurking around, Zhu Jiu traps Shen Wei with dark energy to the ground again. What a one-trick pony! (Is this when Zhu Jiu got to Lin Yusen to prep him for the later explosion? Or is it afterwards, considering he turns up with a molotov?)
21:20 to 21:38
Da Qing gets hit by green poison gas, falling unconscious. Chu Shuzhi hurries onto the scene of the screaming, only to find a (clunky again!) music player on a bench instead. (Seriously, what’s with the disco vibe of this thing?) Lin Jing sees the kidnapper approaching Zhu Hong and screams her name, but nobody reacts (not even Zhu Hong, who is the only one with an earpiece!)
22:16 to 22:30
Chu Shuzhi hurries back to Zhu Hong, only to find her gone. He does find the earpiece, Zhu Hong’s purse and the chloroform rag the kidnapper kindly left behind for clues.
We interrupt for another Weilan moment with bear traps and tetanus shots. (Read the scene discussion here!) Also we get Zhao Yunlan being a softie with Lin Yusen :)
26:23 to 26:40
Guo Changcheng comes running out of the SID to inform ZYL about the situation. Cut to Zhu Hong, who is tied with thin ropes to a pillar so she can free herself later. She jerks her wrist to jingle the bell charm on her bracelet – and activating the tracker within!
Meanwhile the team somehow tracked the perps back to their lair, even though that’s not where either the perps are nor Zhu Hong is kept…
Lin Jing is posited as the tech guy who runs the op from home base. However, there’s several flaws in this setup that makes me wonder how often the SID has done similar things before. At a guess, I’d say not a lot – besides, the increase of cases is recent, so it seems they haven’t had much chance to practice. A major flaw, imo, is the fact that only Lin Jing and Zhu Hong are connected via earpiece. If Chu Shuzhi and Da Qing had been, he’d might’ve gotten a warning off in time (though Zhu Hong doesn’t react to his ineffectual shouting either – maybe instead of just crying her name, he should’ve added a warning like “behind you”? I assume he’s also inexperienced in this sort of job.)
Zhu Hong herself is supposedly new to field work, but I wouldn’t say she does a bad job personally? While the others (particularly Lin Jing) are cracking up at her acting, it doesn’t feel too on the nose to me compared to the general level of acting I’ve come to expect from characters. Granted, irl I would think it’s a bit too much and obvious, but I don’t necessarily think it’s filmed that way. Zhu Hong does well pretending to be alone and attractive, and while adding more red lipstick to already bright red lips is maybe a bit much, she isn’t super obvious in checking behind her with the mirror.
She does get distracted by the screams but then, so does Chu Shuzhi, I’m not holding it against her (though her situational awareness could’ve been better, and she doesn’t react to Lin Jing at all). Plus she’s not a field agent, so I think overall she does well enough. My one big criticism of her performance is that she doesn’t hide said earpiece, but I’m aware that’s for audience’s convenience/reminder. (Though it does go missing on Lin Jing’s camera footage! Prop department didn’t catch that one :’D)
Overall I think they did really well, and Zhang Danni and Jia Hui set up a convincing enough distraction + divide and conquer strategy to reverse the trap on them (possibly with Zhu Jiu’s help, since it’s implied they’re doing this on his orders). And considering that Jia Hui tries to steal Zhu Hong’s face, I think the bait was very successful!
Next time, though, I think they should add a tracker to their bait that doesn’t need movement to be activated xD plus earpieces for everyone! And post-SNAFU protocol should be updated, too, Lin Jing doesn’t contact either Chu Shuzhi nor Zhao Yunlan once he sees Zhu Hong getting taken, which is really ineffectual imo. If Zhao Yunlan hadn’t happened to return to SID with Lin Yusen, Xiao Guo wouldn’t have been able to inform him of the situation.
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Location of scene: episode 4, several snippets between 18:35 to 26:40
Context: Shen Wei and Zhao Yunlan ran into Zhang Danni in the park as she was running from her attacker again. After taking her to a café to recover, Zhao Yunlan is very suspicious of her and shares these concerns with Shen Wei. He sends Xiao Guo to walk Zhang Danni home. They set the trap for that same night, as Da Qing is wearing the same clothes as he does when trailing Xiao Guo and Zhang Danni. The scene before the trap, Zhang Danni and Jia Hui discuss how she’s happy with her new face and that Zhu Jiu has a job for them.
Summary: Zhu Hong plays bait for the face-stealing Dixingren, with Chu Shuzhi and Da Qing as back-up, plus Lin Jing on the surveillance cams. But the SID gets ambushed and Zhu Hong and Da Qing are kidnapped instead.
Timestamp: 18:35 to 19:50
Da Qing is playing look-out in a red sports jacket. Zhu Hong shashays onto the scene in a stunning red dress, brushing back her hair to reveal a rather clunky earpiece.
Lin Jing watches from the street corner’s surveillance cam. Zhu Hong plays into the spy tropes of using a make-up mirror to check the corners, and we see Chu Shuzhi is also on back-up duty.
Lin Jing cracks up at Zhu Hong’s acting.
Chu Shuzhi uses his phone to stay to contact Da Qing instead of the earpiece. Maybe it offends his fashion sense.
While CSZ has line of sight on Zhu Hong, Da Qing doesn’t. Da Qing says “I really wish I could see Zhu Hong pretending to be a lady.” while looking amused.
The scene is interrupted by Weilan having a moonlit walk through the park.
Timestamp: 21:06 to 21:11
A high-pitched scream interrupts the team’s bait plan. Zhu Hong barely stops herself from investigating, Chu Shuzhi runs off to check. She clutches her bracelet.
21:11 to 21:19
Weilan find Lin Yusen lurking around, Zhu Jiu traps Shen Wei with dark energy to the ground again. What a one-trick pony! (Is this when Zhu Jiu got to Lin Yusen to prep him for the later explosion? Or is it afterwards, considering he turns up with a molotov?)
21:20 to 21:38
Da Qing gets hit by green poison gas, falling unconscious. Chu Shuzhi hurries onto the scene of the screaming, only to find a (clunky again!) music player on a bench instead. (Seriously, what’s with the disco vibe of this thing?) Lin Jing sees the kidnapper approaching Zhu Hong and screams her name, but nobody reacts (not even Zhu Hong, who is the only one with an earpiece!)
22:16 to 22:30
Chu Shuzhi hurries back to Zhu Hong, only to find her gone. He does find the earpiece, Zhu Hong’s purse and the chloroform rag the kidnapper kindly left behind for clues.
We interrupt for another Weilan moment with bear traps and tetanus shots. (Read the scene discussion here!) Also we get Zhao Yunlan being a softie with Lin Yusen :)
26:23 to 26:40
Guo Changcheng comes running out of the SID to inform ZYL about the situation. Cut to Zhu Hong, who is tied with thin ropes to a pillar so she can free herself later. She jerks her wrist to jingle the bell charm on her bracelet – and activating the tracker within!
Meanwhile the team somehow tracked the perps back to their lair, even though that’s not where either the perps are nor Zhu Hong is kept…
Teamwork makes the dream work
The face-stealer case has several great moments for the SID team. They banter and tease each other, but also visibly care about each other. This is one of the first times we see the SID work in the field, and I think their methods and levels of skill is very fascinating! Chu Shuzhi is clearly the field agent among them, the one with the combat training. Da Qing I’d rank next, since Zhao Yunlan isn’t part of the trap. He’s obviously used to surveillance, but with his position in this plan being out of sight of the others, he’s not very effective and gets ambushed himself by Zhang Danni’s gas power.Lin Jing is posited as the tech guy who runs the op from home base. However, there’s several flaws in this setup that makes me wonder how often the SID has done similar things before. At a guess, I’d say not a lot – besides, the increase of cases is recent, so it seems they haven’t had much chance to practice. A major flaw, imo, is the fact that only Lin Jing and Zhu Hong are connected via earpiece. If Chu Shuzhi and Da Qing had been, he’d might’ve gotten a warning off in time (though Zhu Hong doesn’t react to his ineffectual shouting either – maybe instead of just crying her name, he should’ve added a warning like “behind you”? I assume he’s also inexperienced in this sort of job.)
Zhu Hong herself is supposedly new to field work, but I wouldn’t say she does a bad job personally? While the others (particularly Lin Jing) are cracking up at her acting, it doesn’t feel too on the nose to me compared to the general level of acting I’ve come to expect from characters. Granted, irl I would think it’s a bit too much and obvious, but I don’t necessarily think it’s filmed that way. Zhu Hong does well pretending to be alone and attractive, and while adding more red lipstick to already bright red lips is maybe a bit much, she isn’t super obvious in checking behind her with the mirror.
She does get distracted by the screams but then, so does Chu Shuzhi, I’m not holding it against her (though her situational awareness could’ve been better, and she doesn’t react to Lin Jing at all). Plus she’s not a field agent, so I think overall she does well enough. My one big criticism of her performance is that she doesn’t hide said earpiece, but I’m aware that’s for audience’s convenience/reminder. (Though it does go missing on Lin Jing’s camera footage! Prop department didn’t catch that one :’D)
Overall I think they did really well, and Zhang Danni and Jia Hui set up a convincing enough distraction + divide and conquer strategy to reverse the trap on them (possibly with Zhu Jiu’s help, since it’s implied they’re doing this on his orders). And considering that Jia Hui tries to steal Zhu Hong’s face, I think the bait was very successful!
Next time, though, I think they should add a tracker to their bait that doesn’t need movement to be activated xD plus earpieces for everyone! And post-SNAFU protocol should be updated, too, Lin Jing doesn’t contact either Chu Shuzhi nor Zhao Yunlan once he sees Zhu Hong getting taken, which is really ineffectual imo. If Zhao Yunlan hadn’t happened to return to SID with Lin Yusen, Xiao Guo wouldn’t have been able to inform him of the situation.
Questions:
- What’s up with the tech!? Why is it so clunky??? Can’t the SID afford anything better? Except for the bracelet, that one is damn elegant – and closer to magic with how it work, really. A tracker should constantly broadcast it’s location, which would be much more helpful when Zhu Hong gets knocked out.
- What’s cracking Lin Jing up about the situation? Is it that Zhu Hong takes her role as bait so seriously? The spy tropes she pulls? Zhu Hong in a pretty dress? The applying of make-up? Pretending to be a lady? The entire situation?
- Both members of the SID that get kidnapped are dressed in the same bright red. Coincidence? Is red a signal colour in Dixing? Dixing is rather drab, maybe it’s because bright red stands out?
- This is one of the first times we see the team out in the field together, ignoring the early stake-out on the same case. What’s your impression? SID is never going to be all professional, but I feel like they set up a decent trap, and the perps used decent means to distract them. Though their emergency response leaves a bit to be desired…
- Zhu Jiu has been pestering Shen Wei a lot during this case. What’s his ultimate goal? He seems to be targeting the SID in particular, since Zhang Danni and Jia Hui are working for him, targetting Zhu Hong and Da Qing in particular and reducing Chu Shuzhi’s effectiveness. Is Lin Yusen blowing them (and then himself) up supposed to take as many members of the SID out as possible in the blast radius? Considering that even Heipaoshi doesn’t manage to get a shield up in time and ruins his sleeve, it seems a particularly deadly mix… although that’s not really part of this scene, sorry, my thoughts are running away from me :’D
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