I always liked Chris Haddock's previous shows- detailed, complex and gritty worlds with interesting and very human characters. The grim world of the cops, criminals, victims and citizens he creates also have humor and honor and the main players are relatable.
Not in the Romeo section
A story with ambiguity and conflicted heroes and villians can be complelly and entertaining. This is just a somewhat incoherent mess.
While I agree that this coukd be an interesting view of the murky world of espionage, the mingling of international security with local police operations is not presebted in a very logical manner.
There are too many players and some focus, fleshing out of characters and some editing would help. The stupid subplot about a movie financed by drug money seems to be a thinly disguised critique of evil Western capitalism - it is a waste of time especially because the viewer has to suffer through the truly horrible acting by Fei Ren, whose voice and odd pronunciations are torturously annoying.
McGee is a treacherous cretin; he seems to be a mole for the CCCP., his lectures and writings are contemptuous of the West. He pretends he's rooting out a cover up in Season 2- but his actual motives are likely to undermine his country. His fawning over the Chinese and hatred of Americans is another indicator of where his loyalty lies.
The idiocy of the two bosses who supposedly run him could be due to their creepy lust for the Professor Song (played by Jemmy Chen, marginally better than Fei Ren-but not by much).
Too many of the actors are stilted and non- credible. They sound like the actors who dub foreign language films into English for Netflix.
The plots are convoluted and incomplete. Worst of all, not one of the main characters are remotely sympathetic- just selfish, conniving, cowardly and foolish. Only Ian Tracy, Brian Markinson and sometimes Andrew Airlie are better than the middle school drama club performance so of their cast mates.
None of the major characters are sympathetic, in fact I want to punch most of them in the face. I like to make some kind of emotional investment when watching a series- but I just don't like any of these people or their behavior.
