SPOILER WARNING: DO NOT READ IF YOU STILL PLAN ON WATCHING THIS SERIES OR HAVEN’T FINISHED IT YET!!
Copycat Killer
(模仿犯 / Mo Fang Fan / Puppet Master)
MyDramaList rating: 8.0/10
Hi there~! It’s been a crazy busy couple of weeks for me with performances coming up and a surprisingly heavy load of weekly homework for my online course. However, once I got started on this drama I just couldn’t stop watching and I didn’t want to wait until next month to finish it and write a review. I came across the trailer on Netflix by coincidence a few months back and it immediately made its way up on my watchlist. As I’m currently following a podcast on true crime and reading a book on a murder case, this series fell right into place. I’m really glad I watched it because it exceeded my expectations. This is definitely the best Taiwanese series I’ve seen so far. Despite the show’s short length, it took me about three weeks to finish it and since I anticipated forgetting a lot of details, I actually made notes while I was watching it so that I would be able to construct this review as clearly as possible. I went the extra mile for this show because that’s what it deserves. Let’s get into it!
Copycat Killer is a 10-episode Netflix drama from Taiwan. It’s based on a Japanese novel by the same name, written by Miyabe Miyuki. It’s been adapted into a Japanese movie twice before, in 2002 and 2016. Seeing that it’s now adapted into a Taiwanese series, I guess it’s a popular story outside of Japan as well. The story takes place in the late 90s and follows a serial killer case with at its focus the prosecutor in charge, Guo Xiao Qi (played by Wu Kang Ren/Chris Wu). Despite his own traumatic past -his family was murdered in their house when he was a teenager- he managed to work his way up, striving to enforce the law in order to help people who go through similar experiences. We are introduced to him in the first episode when he encounters a case that closely resembles his own, where a young boy is suspected of murdering his own adoptive parents. Here we immediately get to know how dedicated Xiao Qi is, he goes through great lengths to prove the boy’s innocence.
With the discovery of a severed hand in a public park, Xiao Qi is sucked into a new case which bears a strong resemblance to a murder case that was wrapped up several years before. The guy who was locked up for this murder suddenly doesn’t seem so sure about his own deeds anymore. With the help of several people, both from the police force and a news broadcasting company, Xiao Qi dives into the case, all the while trying not to lose himself to the lingering traumas he holds regarding his own past. While obtaining more leads, the case seems to somehow connect every single character and brings out truths no one expected.
To sum up the case in question, I’ll start with the prior case that set everything in motion. Two or three years before the serial killings start, a young woman named Jiang Yu Ping (Lucia Lu) was found murdered. Not much later, a man named Tian Cun Yi (Huang He) turned himself in as the killer and he is still serving his sentence when the new cases pop up. When a severed hand is found left in a red gift box in a park, the coroner points out to the investigating team that the hand’s thumbs bear similar marks to Yu Ping’s. Xiao Qi quickly realizes the marks could have been made by thumb cuffs, but when he visits Tian Cun Yi in prison to ask him about this, not only does Cun Yi seem unable to handle this tool by himself, but there also seem to be a lot of holes in his testimony. This then leads Xiao Qi to suspect that either Cun Yi has an accomplice, or there’s a copycat at play. Several young women go missing in a short period of time after that, and when looking for connections, Xiao Qi comes across a specific night club called KINK, where all the victims apparently went before they disappeared. This seems to be the place where all the victims were identified and targeted by the killer.
As the cases continue, the killer (who calls himself ‘Noh’ after the type of traditional theatre mask he wears) seems to go one step further with every victim he makes, eventually even decapitating one of them, and from the clues he leaves it can be assumed that he has strong narcissistic tendencies, or even a god complex. We find out he uses a red van to kidnap his victims, and after he’s bound and gagged them in the back, he makes a habit of driving them by their families’ houses or park just next to someone they know. It’s an incredibly sadistic thing, as the victim can see their relatives standing just outside but are unable to scream for help. As the van’s windows are tinted and the inside is soundproof, the people outside can’t look in or hear any sounds from the van. As if this isn’t cruel enough, Noh even starts calling the victims’ family members and makes them do things, from going on the news to beg and apologize to him, to crawling on the streets on all fours, in order to appease him. He seems to be taking pleasure from his kidnappings and makes a media spectacle out of them, but it’s dehumanizing to see what he makes the desperate relatives do, all the more because he never intends to release his victims alive. Not only that, the way he leaves behind their bodies always has a ridiculing element to it.
The severed hands belonged to a woman who mainly used her hands for work (as a bank clerk counting money and an aspiring hand model). A woman hiding her conversion to catholicism from her buddhist family is left hanging over a cross at a catholic graveyard. Yu Ping, an aspiring illustrator, was photographed in poses from her own drawings.
Arrows start pointing to different people throughout the story, and it becomes clear that there must have been more than one person at play. In the end, to everyone’s surprise, Noh turns out to be a well-known public figure whose manic obsession with attention ultimately brings a whole bunch of innocent lives down with him.
Before I go into more detail about the story and the main characters, I just want to note down a few aspects that I found compliment-worthy in this show. First of all, I found it very interesting that Xiao Qi, the good guy, is mentally unstable himself. He is still suffering from his own trauma and takes medicine for ‘a headache’ throughout the whole show. At one point, he’s pushed to his breaking point to the extent of personally going after the culprit, something that would seem unthinkable as he was always able to restrain himself no matter how frustrated he got. He was always the one calming other people down, agreeing to their frustrations on the case but always steadfast on using legal manners to solve it. It just proves that, no matter how calm and professional someone strives to be when it comes to dealing with horrific cases according to the law, there is always a breaking point, everyone has a limit. One thing that I generally found powerful was that, even in the bad guys’ cases, every single character is depicted with incredible humanity. Even in their greed or obsession or mania, many different sides of human behavior are shown in a very raw and realistic way. I thought it was powerful not to just go for dramatic developments and exaggerated acting, but really exposing the human mind to its darkest extent so genuinely.
Secondly, I really appreciated the theme of how destructive the media can be. In a way, the show I watched before this, Twenty-Five Twenty-One, which also focussed on the news business in the late 90s, connects to this. I was also reminded of 3-nen A-gumi, in the sense that mass media can really push people over the edge. In the case of Copycat Killer, as there’s no social media active yet, Noh uses the news as the main platform to gain more attention for his killings. Not just that, he even strives to cause a hype around it. He wants to create a spectacle, and it’s nauseating to see how people go along with it. The show really creates a goosebump-inducing image of how manipulative mass media can be, and how some people can completely lose themselves in their obsession with attention. Just imagine if the social media element had been added to this story, who knows how many different platforms Noh would’ve used? Scary stuff.
After finding out the truth about everything and why Noh did what he did, it makes the murders that took place even more senseless and cruel. While initially it seems like the killer targets specific victims and then uses aspects of their personal lives to humiliate them, in the end it isn’t even about the victims. Every single crime he commits is executed purely to gain attention and that makes it an even more bitter pill to swallow.
I’d like to go through the main characters one by one and try to clearly establish how they’re all connected. I find it hard to determine how to begin, because everyone is so intricately connected and I want to make sure I cover everyone in a well-constructed order. I think I will begin with the three key characters that represent the three key perspectives of the case: the law, the police and the news.
First of all, our main character Guo Xiao Qi, who represents the law. As I already mentioned, he went through a traumatic event in his past. When he was just a teenager, he came home one day to find his father, mother and little sister murdered in the house. It’s later revealed that this trauma is only amplified by the fact that Xiao Qi blames himself for what happened. At the time, there was a loan shark lurking around since his dad owed him money. After fighting with his dad one day, Xiao Qi ran out and happened to bump into this loan shark. In his anger toward his dad at that moment, he told him that his family did have the money they owed him. When he came home later that day, the police was just dragging this loan shark away from his house. We don’t get to see exactly how Xiao Qi grew up after this happened, but he was raised by his uncle (Yu An Shun) who’s a taxi driver. Knowing the extent of Xiao Qi’s trauma, his uncle has always been a loving and supportive figure to him, caring and worrying about him as if he were his own son.
When Xiao Qi first became a prosecutor, his superior provided him with psychological therapy because he wasn’t 100% convinced that Xiao Qi’s trauma wouldn’t come back to haunt him as he worked on some cases. This therapist is Hu Yun Hui (played by Ke Jia Yan/Alice Ke). Something blossomed between the two of them, and while we don’t get a clear insight into their relationship, at the time of the serial killings, they are ex-lovers. We don’t exactly learn under which circumstances they broke up, but I assumed it will have had something to do with the fact that their jobs became too intertwined: Yun Hui was assigned to be Tian Cun Yi’s therapist after he was put in prison. Despite their break-up, they are still on good terms and it’s clear that they still care about each other a lot, to the extent of still harboring romantic feelings.
Representing the police force, we have Lin Shang Yong (played by Tuo Zong Hua). He’s called Mr. Yong by Xiao Qi, which suggests they’ve worked together before. Almost at retirement age, Mr. Yong starts cooperating with Xiao Qi on the newly occuring cases, assisted by his loyal assistant Zhang Da Chao (Yan Xi Hou). Things take a turn for the worse when Mr. Yong’s own daughter Yu Tong (Ally Chiu), who also regularly visited Club KINK, goes missing and he himself becomes one of the relatives manipulated by Noh’s antics. Despite his history of being a police officer for 30 years, he can’t not hold a personal grudge and even attacks a few suspects in the process, the last one leaving him comatose after pushing him from a construction site building. After he recovers, he takes back his place in the investigation and helps clear Xiao Qi’s name after he personally assaults the culprit. Luckily, he is able to reunite with his daughter in the end; Yu Tong is the only victim who makes it out alive.
Lastly, representing the news, we have Lu Yan Zhen (played by Jiang Yi Rong/Cammy Jiang). As a rookie reporter, she mainly just looks up to her senior news anchors and producers, but she has a special link to the case: she was Yu Ping’s best friend and housemate. In her desperation to get justice for her friend, Yan Zhen strives to get more attention for the missing women’s cases in their city, and that’s how she also gets involved with Xiao Qi and ultimately becomes a strong ally to him. At some point she makes her own documentary special about the missing women, and in the final episode we see that she made it to news anchor and gets to air her own show about it as well.
Before I go on to the news station and link more characters together through that, I just want to briefly comment on all the victims that were depicted throughout the story. As I mentioned before, the cruelty of Noh’s actions was made even worse by the fact that in the end he really just killed young women for publicity, there wasn’t even a personal motive or anything. Not that that would have justified it, but the fact that it was random and meaningless just makes it all the more despicable. I made a list of the victims in the order of disappearance and what they did. I will elaborate a bit more on the cases involving Cin Yi Jun and Yu Tong.
The first victim, as established, was Jiang Yu Ping, Yan Zhen’s best friend who was aiming to become an illustrator. After her body was found, polaroid pictures were discovered on the scene that showed her in specific positions, eg. with her arms tied in certain ways above her head or her legs folded a certain way. Xiao Qi later discovers drawings Yu Ping made in her notebooks, containing images of women in these exact poses, probably to practice drawing anatomical positions.
The first case that’s covered elaborately in the story is the one of Ci Yi Jun, the woman with the braids. Her grandfather, Ma Yi Nan (Chen Bo Zheng) owns a buddhist temple, and she goes missing when she hasn’t been in contact with him for a while, even though they are very close. Her mother is in the hospital, I believe this happened shortly after she disappeared. We see several scenes of Yi Jun when she’s still alive, for example when the killer drives his truck right by her grandpa’s temple and she can see him standing there, but also when she’s being held, shackled and maimed by the killer. Her grandfather receives several red gift boxes, one with one of her braids and the other with her blood-soaked bra in it. Not only that, when he’s driven to appear on the news by Noh, he has to hear several hateful comments from people claiming Yi Jun had it coming, she was too outgoing and went to that night club by herself, he should’ve raised her better. It broke my heart to watch him sit there being like, ‘how can you say such a thing’, not even getting angry, just completely incomprehensive to how people could be so cruel and detached from what his family was going through.
All in all, this arc made me so incredibly angry and my heart broke into a thousand pieces for this precious old man who loved his dear granddaughter so much. I legit cried during this entire arc, when he was humiliated by Noh to crawl down the street on all fours, when he received all those disgusting comments, when he was brought to the place where Yi Jun’s body was found, and when at Yi Jun’s wake he heard that she’d secretly converted to catholicism and he just cried to her portrait that none of that mattered to him, that it was enough that she’d always been such a kind girl. Even typing this out brings back the tears, istg. Also the way her body was draped over that catholic cross and the protective charm he gave her had been put around her neck in that ridiculing manner… I can only be glad that I can’t relate to how one could be so cruel to not only kidnap, abuse and murder an innocent young woman, but to also inflict such cruelty and humiliation on their relatives, purely to create a news spectacle.
The next victim is Yu Tong’s friend Yuan Zi Qing, and I believe that she was kidnapped purely with the objective of getting to Yu Tong. As she was being tortured, the kidnapper asked her to reveal a secret before he would return her clothes, and that’s when she mentioned she and Yu Tong were planning on opening a clothing store together. The next moment, Yu Tong was also suddenly missing, so I just guessed the cases were connected. Playing cruelly on a memory in which Mr. Yong once accidentally left Yu Tong alone at a playground when she was still very young, Noh leaves a clue that they should look around ‘the place where the useless cop forgot his daughter’. It is there that they find Zi Qing’s body, positioned on the top of a slide, covered with a white cloth, and when they remove the cloth, it becomes clear that her head has been severed from her body. This is what I meant by Noh going one step further with each victim, because apart from the severed hands, he never cut off his victim’s head before. Again, it’s so tragic that Zi Qing had to go through this, partly together with Yu Tong as they were kept in the same room for a while, and that this was probably the killer’s punishment for her after she and Yu Tong had attempted to escape.
While Yu Tong is being held captive, she is also driven right by her father outside of the broadcasting station in the red van. As Mr. Yong doesn’t take too long to recognize the red van parked somewhere else a day later, they are quickly able to establish that the killer has been driving his victims around. Yu Tong is forced to watch her own father beg Noh to bring her back on the news. The two of them weren’t on great terms before, he criticized her for going out dancing at Club KINK and was against her dream of starting a clothing store with Zi Qing, but that makes it all the more painful for the both of them, because they left on regretful terms. Even though Yu Tong is the only victim who manages to escape, she isn’t able to reunite with her dad right away. At the time, Mr. Yong himself is still recovering in the hospital, and when they finally meet she initially can’t even speak properly, that’s how traumatized she is. Luckily they are both able to make a full recovery and Yu Tong gets to open her own clothing store in the final episode, fulfilling the dream she shared with Zi Qing after all.
These are the victims of the serial killer case, the orchestrated killings set up by Noh to create spectacular news stories that fascinate people. After this, as the investigation draws closer to a solution, Noh goes on to act in a more direct and personal way, inflicting even more meaningless damage to innocent lives.
Before moving on to that, let me talk about the TNB news station, the one where Yan Zhen works. It’s the workplace of several important characters, and therefore also connects a lot of people in the case. Yan Zhen works on a team led by news anchor and producer Yao Ya Ci (played by Lin Xin Ru/Ruby Lin). As one of the main producers at the station, Ya Ci gets a lot of freedom on what kind of news items to research and broadcast, so basically no one dares tell her she’s not allowed to do something, that’s the status she has. She has her own program called Call In Frontline, in which viewers can call directly into the broadcast with questions they have for the appearing guests. This show becomes even bigger when they start featuring relatives of the missing women from the serial killer case, like Yi Jin’s grandpa and Mr. Yong. At the news station, besides her team there is another one, led by a man named Chen He Ping (played by Yao Chun Yao/Jack Yao). While Yan Zhen initially respects her the most, after getting Ma Yi Nan on the show to talk about his granddaughter’s disappearance and Ya Ci treats him like a cold and objective reporter, this angers Yan Zhen and she leaves Ya Ci’s team, only to eventually come back and switch to He Ping’s team.
On Chen He Ping’s team, there’s a photographer named Hu Jian He (Xia Teng Hong), who happens to be Hu Yun Hui’s younger brother. He appears with Chen He Ping on several sites, for example when the first severed hand is found, but he’s also spotted taking pictures in Club KINK. Because of his shady appearance -he has a wicked scar over the left side of his face- and the fact that one of the victims was last spotted talking to him in the club before she disappeared, Jian He becomes one of the suspects early on in the investigation. At some point we find out that he’s friends with a guy who often DJs at Club KINK, Shen Jia Wen (Fan Shao Xun/Fandy Fan), who then also becomes a suspect.
Honestly, from the first time I saw Shen Jia Wen, I thought he was suspicious. He just had this vibe about him that gave me the shivers. He’s also shown talking to Yu Tong at Club KINK when she’s worried about the disappearance of her friend, before she herself is even kidnapped. Despite my suspicions about him, I was still quite surprised that they already revealed his actual involvement in the case so early on. We see that he’s the one keeping Yu Tong and her friend locked up in episode 4, where he goes so far as to even strangle Yu Tong. However, I did feel like he wasn’t working on his own from the start. He was way too out of control to maintain the organized routine in which Noh was dealing with those women. This suspicion was only confirmed after he died halfway through the show, because it was way too early to wrap things up and it was too much of an unhinged accident to let Noh die like that. When the ins and outs of what truly happened are revealed, it made perfect sense how they got him to participate, but I still thought he was a big liability because of his psychoses. He would’ve never been able to carry this whole thing on his own. On the other hand, what he did was equally bad and I found it a bit problematic how the story at some point seemed to create sympathy for him and his circumstances. Like, how the things he was responsible for all originated from his own trauma, and how that would justify his insanity. We find out that Jia Wen’s mother had PND, which developed into psychosis after losing her first child, a daughter. When Jia Wen was born, not only did she name him after her deceased daughter, she also started treating him as if he was said daughter, dressing him up in dresses, putting lipstick on him etc. This was so traumatic for Jia Wen that he started seeing his dead sister everywhere, and whenever she appeared he would slip into a psychotic episode as he tried to get rid of her. In these psychoses, he would completely lose control over his actions and often blindly assault someone. It’s been happening ever since he was young, even one time when he stood up for Jian He and he almost strangled their classmate, for which Jian He received a criminal record. The first time it really goes awry is when his (childhood? girl-?)friend visits his house and discovers the dresses in his old room. He ends up accidentally strangling her to death, leaving a lipstick mark on her face. This later becomes another signature mark of Noh’s killings, together with the thumb cuff marks. In the end, it was undeniably sad what happened to him, he should’ve gotten serious help, but it was also frustrating since every single person directly involved in the case fell away without being brought to justice.
I felt so incredibly bad for Jian He. Jia Wen was his friend, the person who always stuck up for him in school, and he just wanted to be of equal support to him. He never even knew about Jia Wen’s involvement in the serial killings, he just saw that he was acting weirdly and was urging him to turn himself in for whatever it was he did. He shouldn’t have gotten in that car, especially after realizing he had someone (Yu Tong) in the trunk, and it was awful how he came to die in that car accident, like collateral damage in a case he had nothing to do with. It was also heartbreaking to see this news get delivered to Yun Hui, his only remaining family. They only had each other, and it was so sad to see this happen because it was so meaningless for him to die. I felt really bad for him, he just wanted to help his friend no matter the bad things he’d done. The fact that he was initially suspected purely based on his appearance was also wry, especially after we find out he really didn’t know about anything. He was even beaten up by Mr. Yong at some point, just because he was a suspect in Yu Tong’s case. Honestly, my heart broke when Yun Hui got that recording of him calling a consulting line to get advice on how to help his friend. In the recording he mentioned that he didn’t want to bother his sister with his problems because she already was the ’emotional trash can’ of so many people in her job as a psychological therapist. Jian He and Yun Hui both deserved better.
I’m not exactly sure when it happens, but after Jia Wen and Jian He get into that accident, Xiao Qi suddenly notices Chen He Ping and how he also visited many places that passed the investigation. He realizes how Chen He Ping could be involved surprisingly fast, and then they basically give it away altogether: Chen He Ping is the mastermind behind all the killings so far, including Yu Ping. Everything began when he was starting out at TNB on Ya Ci’s team and she asked him to report on an illegal sex club that was hidden behind an adult DVD store. However, seeing the footage he shot and especially the pleasure with which he talked about what he’d seen there, Ya Ci is grossed out and tells him to drop it and even kicks him off her team. Rejected by a superior he was so desperate to impress, He Ping’s obsession with creating spectacular news stories take on radical proportions. He met Shen Jia Wen at that illegal sex club, and together with him, Tian Cun Yi, who was taking pictures there, and Jian Jia Tang (Yu Chie Xu), who worked at the DVD store, the four of them started their own little band, taking pleasure from watching women get sadistic treatment. Together, the four of them targeted Yu Ping as their first victim, but as their cruel treatment continued, Cun Yi started having second thoughts. He started to feel that it wasn’t right to take pictures of a woman like this, but he wasn’t able to save her when He Ping got the ‘spontaneous’ idea of killing her. As he felt guilty for standing idly by while she was killed, in combination with the fact that He Ping was threatening to do something to his hospitalized father, Cun Yi took the blame for Yu Ping’s murder. However, as more information comes to the surface and they start doubting Cun Yi’s testimony, despite his therapy sessions, Cun Yi ends up stabbing himself in the throat with a pen, right in front of Yun Hui.
This was so shocking to me, honestly, because I felt like he would’ve been able to testify against He Ping in the end. He’d basically already admitted the truth to Yun Hui at that point, but he couldn’t bear the guilt he felt towards Yu Ping and the fear he felt from He Ping blackmailing him with his father. In the end, though, the final letter he sent to Yun Hui in which he claimed his own innocence and the fact that He Ping was behind it all, is found by the police and with this evidence they are able to set up a plan to publicly expose He Ping. But it was sad that so many innocent lives were lost, including Cun Yi’s. Of course he was still partly involved, he’d aided in the kidnapping of Yu Ping and took pictures of her. Also, he didn’t step in when the others were actively hurting her. But the fact that he felt true remorse, enough to take the full blame as the killer to atone for his cowardice, I thought that at least meant something.
Talking about innocent lives, poor Yun Hui. Seriously, she did not deserve a single blow she was dealt. First she loses her younger brother, then her client commits suicide in front of her, and just when she’s recovered from that she herself is murdered by He Ping purely because she’s the person Xiao Qi cares about the most. I cannot deny that the scene in which Xiao Qi and Yun Hui held hands and talked about how they could start over already made a lot of alarm bells go off in my head. From every angle it just felt like foreshadowing, like how you can always sense that they’re going to kill off a side character after just revealing their sad backstory. The way they were like, ‘when all of this is over, we could start anew’, just made me go, ‘why do I have a feeling that’s never going to happen’, and this was proven within the very same episode. Despite first creating this whole serial killing spectacle, making a big deal about what he did to those women and how he returned their bodies, He Ping then took a turn and went for a more direct and personal approach in his killings. After first getting rid of Ya Ci because she told him he wasn’t important, he only killed Yun Hui because Xiao Qi had let on that he suspected him… as if his motive for the original killings wasn’t already cruel enough, he just started offing people who had nothing to do with the case. Yun Hui was just collateral damage and that struck even harder after what she’d just been through. This made me so mad. Also in combination with the fact that he first put Xiao Qi on different red herring tracks to find out who he’d killed, like a sick ‘guess who I killed this time’ game. He really went, ‘Is it Yan Zhen? Is it your uncle? Oh nooo, it’s your ex-girlfriend, sadness.’ It was sickening. And then when Xiao Qi went after him in the parking lot and he was like, ‘Do you think she heard the sound of her own skull cracking?’ My goodness. Also, his bloody joker-like laughing face was the stuff of nightmares. I remember that this was the second-to-last episode and it had been a week since I watched the episode before that, but it immediately sucked me back in. When Xiao Qi shot him I was just sitting there with my mouth wide open and my hands on my head in pure shock. Like, I couldn’t pretend I felt bad for He Ping, but I was also like ‘noooo Xiao Qi this will only complicate matters even further!! T^T’. The fact that He Ping managed to bring Xiao Qi to his breaking point really said a lot about his extremity, in my opinion. It was intense, to say the least.
Going back a little to Yao Ya Ci, I have to say I was quite surprised by her sudden death. Like, I didn’t actually expect He Ping to kill her off so quickly like that. She was such a strong woman, a role model to Yan Zhen and many others, and a well-respected public figure. When Noh first calls into Call In Frontline, despite her usually objective behavior, she goes so far as to offend him on public television, calling him an ‘incompetent, useless, invisible parasite of society’. He Ping ends up killing her in her illegitimate son’s room, after she calls him out for being a nobody. The combination of his disappointment in her when she refused to use the footage he shot at that sadistical sex club, the fact that she offended Noh on public TV and the fact that she called him unimportant to his face, were enough reason for him to smash her head in with a glass ash tray. This smashing also went on for way too long in my opinion, it was hard to watch. The next day he just goes back to work, uses her death story to bring out the fact that she had an illegitimate son. Not only that, but he gets to take over Call In Frontline and he also gets Ya Ci’s office. He doesn’t have a grain of respect in his body, least of all for the people he ends up killing. Afterwards he just goes on TV and pretends to be deeply hurt by their loss. Yikes.
In the final episode, with some advice from Ma Yi Nan who visits him in jail, Xiao Qi manages to set up a plan to get He Ping to publicly confess on his own show, Call In Frontline. Ever since it became clear what He Ping’s motives were, I’d been thinking that they’d need to find a way to beat him at his own game, use his obsession with attention against him. Glad to say that’s exactly what they did. Xiao Qi purposely gets into a fight at prison, which gains attention on the news, and then asks if he can appear on He Ping’s show ‘to formally apologize’ for suspecting and shooting him. Then, suddenly Noh calls in, surprising Xiao Qi as much as He Ping. In reality, this is an acquaintance from Xiao Qi in prison, who uses the deformed voice to mimic the killer. He Ping of course can’t stand the fact that someone else is now pretending to be Noh, it’s his creation, he did all those things. Then and there he openly announces, in a triumphant way, that is was him, they should be supporting him, not that fake person on the phone.
If there was one thing that was satisfyingly consistent in He Ping’s behavior, it was the fact that he fed on people’s attention. Like, when you start paying attention after finding out he’s the killer, at every mention of his name or the book he wrote, you can see a sparkle appear in his eye, a smile spread on his face. I noticed this for example when Ma Yi Nan told him he’d read his book, and He Ping just went 😃. The consistency of his obsession, the way it seeped into the tiniest facial expressions, the way he just couldn’t stand getting a drop of criticism, almost to a childlike extent, not only made him look completely mad, but also very dangerous. At some point, when he got back from the hospital after being shot by Xiao Qi, his behavior became a little bit more unhinged, he started making more inappropriate jokes, grabbed people by the throat ‘as a joke’ etc. It seemed like he was starting to let his guard down, now that Xiao Qi was in prison – he must have felt like he now had all the power and nothing could stop him anymore. That’s probably also why he didn’t hesitate to openly announce himself as the killer at the end, because he didn’t even think people would stop supporting him if he did.
Before I move on to my detailed comments about the cast, I want to make mention of the occasionally sickening reality this show presented. For me, it definitely added to the credibility and the power of the story, but I can’t deny it also made me very nauseous. For one, I was generally disturbed by how ‘the public’ responded to the news, to the point where I could sort of see why He Ping was so delusional. The people really acted like an audience in need of continuous juicy stories and he started believing that he was the only one who could provide them in that. They were vicious. Seriously, to have several young women get targeted in a serial killer case should be enough reason for everyone to pay attention to their surroundings, but to throw it all on the women? Literally going off to a victim’s relative about how they themselves are to blame, that the women shouldn’t have gone out dancing at that club, that it was their own fault?! How the heck is that the first thing that pops into your mind? I am extra critical about this because this actually happens. At the moment there’s an ongoing case of a young aspiring model who was thrown off a building after a wild night out and people are literally blaming her for getting drunk and high that night. Fact remains that two people threw her naked body out of a window on the 14th floor of a skyscraper rather than call an ambulance, just to save their own skins. I just can’t believe people can be so heartless to go on about things like that. Going to a night club doesn’t mean you’re asking to get kidnapped, raped and murdered. Get real.
Also, when Yun Hui was holding a memorial for Jian He’s and relatives of other victims just stormed in and thrashed the place? I believe they were Zi Qing’s parents, and of course they were angry, but at that point it wasn’t even confirmed that Jian He had anything to do with it, and they attacked Yun Hui for having the audacity to his wake. Like, I get that a loss like that can blind people to common sense, they just want to go after anyone who might even be slightly involved, but this was just so unfair, especially because Jian He really didn’t have anything to do with it. They disturbed Yun Hui’s quiet moment of honoring her brother and again people went on about how she herself was also responsible, how she should have minded him better, bla bla. I can’t.
And then, inevitably, I have to mention the way He Ping died because that was crazy. Crazy ironic, but yeah, really crazy. After receiving his verdict and He Ping is led from the courthouse, a masked guy emerges from the press crowd and stabs him with a knife. As He Ping collapsed on the stairs, the guy manages to sneak away, no one catches him, and also no one does anything to get He Ping any medical help. The journalists really just pushed their mics and cameras towards him even more, they legit went, ‘You’ve just been stabbed, how do you feel, can you speak up please’ while he was BLEEDING OUT on those steps. What the actual heck. I could even fathom how bizarre this was, it seriously took about 5 minutes before someone yelled, ‘Stop filming, call an ambulance!’ And all the while He Ping was like, ‘keep filming me, keep filming me’. You could definitely say that he was an attention whore right until his death. Not like I felt particularly bad for him, and it definitely proved the insanity of media attention he lived in, but I didn’t find it that satisfying either because again, no official justice was served.
Still, the ending was as good as it could get, with Xiao Qi getting out of prison, Yan Zhen becoming anchor, Mr. Yong making up with Yu Tong, Yi Jun’s mother getting out of the hospital and Ma Yi Nan taking her out for walks. It was an ending of silent recovery and refound peace, but never of forgetting what happened. I also felt strangely at peace after finishing it, even though the horrid events still lingered very clearly in my memory. I guess you could say it had a double feeling to it, but that in itself also made it more realistic, as there’s never such a thing as a wholly happy ending after such an intense happening.
Honestly, even though this show was a very emotional watch, after finishing it I still felt the urge to watch it again from the start with the knowledge obtained after the final episode. I feel like rewatching it might put things in perspective and clarify the killer’s true motives from the start even more.
Visually, this series was an absolute pleasure to watch. Starting with the opening sequence, which features many key objects and locations that come through in the story, seeped into a slowly expanding haunting melody. This sequence alone was enough to pull me in and give me goosebumps, especially when all the featured images start making sense. Other than that, the way it was filmed, the cinematography, the decision in shots and the acting in general, was extremely good. I’ve never seen such genuine and immersed acting in a Taiwanese drama before. It probably also depends on the type of genre, but this really didn’t compare to anything Taiwanese I’ve watched so far. I’ve never been this touched, heartbroken and fulfilled at the same time by a Taiwanese drama before. It held some really powerful messages as well.
There’s one quote that I want to share from the final episode, after He Ping has passed, where Yan Zhen writes a letter to Xiao Qi in prison. I thought this was such a beautiful quote that covered Xiao Qi’s mindset so well, that I wrote it down.
(Yan Zhen) “After He Ping died, I always think of Ms. Ya Ci, Yu Ping, and the other innocent victims. I have to make sure their sacrifice wasn’t in vain. But when I look into the camera, I’m afraid the world has changed. With the Internet anyone can hide in the dark and become a different person. (…) I will do my best to make sure the news doesn’t become a show that reopens wounds and becomes a game that feeds people.”
(Xiao Qi) “I always thought that by fending off evil from the world I could escape from the darkness in my own heart. But in the end I lost myself in the process. I remember what Yun Hui once told me. ‘We can always make a noble choice.’ We don’t have to give in to our instincts like animals and let our fear and anger guide us. The world may have changed, but I understand now. Whether it’s me or the world, the darkness doesn’t just disappear. We can only try to balance it out with more warmth and light.”
I really loved this quote. It’s also interesting that Yan Zhen’s mention of looking through a camera and seeing a different world somehow aligned with something Tian Cun Yi mentions at some point, about how the things he saw through his camera seemed to belong to a different world, and that’s how he was initially able to stay detached from what was happening to Yu Ping as he was taking pictures. I do like that Xiao Qi refers to darkness and light when it comes to the choices people make. Something I’ve personally learned as well resonates through his quote, the fact that, indeed, we are able to make our own choices. It’s just as easy to decide to be kind than it is to decide to do or say something hateful. Why do so many people still choose to be hateful and succumb to the darkness that choice brings with it? It just brought an even deeper layer to it, the fact that it’s not just about bringing a serial killer to justice, but it’s also about facing your inner darkness, even if you’re on ‘the good side’. Xiao Qi definitely proves that he is that kind of person who, despite his good intentions and will to help people, he can also be brought to his knees by others who are already neck-deep inside that darkness. It really feels like it’s partly a study on humanity, on the choices people make, and how those choices can affect a lot of other people.
The only thing that puzzles me is why exactly the show’s title was translated to ‘Copycat Killer’. In the end, there isn’t really a copycat at play and one and the same person is responsible for all the cases. I think that the other translation of the title, ‘Puppet Master’, may have been a good alternative, as He Ping was definitely the master mind that was controlling a lot of people during his crimes. It would’ve also fitted well with the Noh theme, like puppet mask theatre. Anyways, not that I mind, but I did wonder in hindsight why they chose this title as it isn’t actually about a copycat killer.
I didn’t know any of the cast members, so I can’t make any references to previous shows I’ve seen them star in, but I will just go over them one by one to share my opinion on each of their performances. Spoiler alert: I thought everyone was amazing, so this will be a very positive cast comment section. You’ve been warned.
The name ‘Chris Wu’ seems to ring a bell, but I really haven’t seen him before so I guess the name just sounds familiar, haha. Anyways, I think Wu Kang Ren did a really great job as Xiao Qi. As I mentioned before, I thought Xiao Qi’s duality as the good guy was really well-written. He seems like such a typical tragic hero, but the fact that he also had a dark side to him which was ultimately brough out by He Ping made me empathize with him even more. Sometimes his calm demeanor made it hard for me to gauge him and I just kept hoping he knew what he was doing. I really liked the scene where he comforted Da Chao by saying, ‘I still believe the law isn’t meant to protect people like Chen He Ping’. What I loved about his portrayal of Xiao Qi the most was probably the way he interacted with his costars, even though Xiao Qi had his hands full with the case, he was always so attentive to everyone around him. You could just see he was really listening to what the other was saying, he’d look at them with undivided attention and that’s what made him such a sympathetic character – no matter his own sorrows, he always made space for people around him, he never dismissed people because he didn’t have time for them or something. One of the most important things in acting, as I’ve learned myself this year as well, is making proper contact with your fellow actors, not just saying your lines, but making sure you listen to what they say and say your lines in response to that. I think Wu Kang Ren did this very well as Xiao Qi. I really felt for him as you could feel at some point things were slipping through his fingers and then what happened to Yun Hui was just heartbreaking. He was a really interesting main character, I liked him a lot.
I thought Jiang Yi Rong was casted very well for Yan Zhen. She has such an innocent and pure appearance, and it fit so well with the role of rookie reporter desperately trying to get publicity for her friend’s death. I was really scared Chen He Ping would go for her at some point, since she was working right under him and he knew that at some point she was in cahoots with Xiao Qi. I loved how Xiao Qi was always asking Da Chao to make sure Yan Zhen was safe, he cared about her like a little sister. At some point I kind of felt like Yan Zhen might have developed feelings for Xiao Qi, but I’m really glad they didn’t focus on that, because there wasn’t really any room for romantic development in the story, it just didn’t fit in there, and especially after what happened to Yun Hui I just thought it would be a bit inappropriate to make Yan Zhen suddenly step forward. Anyways, I really loved their relationship, is what I’m trying to say. Despite her involvement with Xiao Qi and her own ambitions to create awareness for the case of women kidnapping case in their city, Yan Zhen keeps a bit of a distance from the investigation, as she’s not personally involved in it. I really loved her trust in Xiao Qi. Even though she didn’t suspect He Ping before, when he asks her to be wary of him she immediately trusts him and says she will. It was nice to see that they still kept in contact while Xiao Qi was finishing his time in prison, how they wrote letters and how they kept supporting each other in their respective careers. The little smile they give each other at the end, when she as a reporter confronts Xiao Qi, now a lawyer, while he’s escorting a client to the courthouse, really confirmed their friendship. Even though sometimes I found her hard to read, she definitely showed a lot of emotional variety and I liked her performance.
Tuo Zong Hua as Mr. Yong was a really good choice as well, he embodied that vibe of being a veteran police officer very well. As a person who would normally not act on sentiment, I found it really interesting that they added the arc of his own daughter becoming a victim, it allowed for him to also show a really vulnerable side that you otherwise wouldn’t have expected from him. The fact that their estranged father-daughter bond was strained like this added a whole new layer of cruelty to the events, and I was beyond happy that they were able to reunite at the end, especially since He Ping came to visit Yu Tong when she was in the hospital that one time, I was so scared he was going the ‘finish the job’ before she could be with her dad again. In the end I guess he only came to scare her a little so she wouldn’t talk right away. Anyways, I really liked this guy’s performance, and he was also a very good example of how even the most down-to-earth guy, someone who’d already seen everything there is to see during his time in the force, could still give in to despair as soon as things got personal. That scene in the park where he was climbing that slide, already convinced that the girl under the white cloth would be his daughter, already preparing himself for the worst and then his reaction when he lifted that cloth and the girl’s head fell off her shoulders… The way he portrayed Mr. Yong was so natural and despite his occasional radical behavior when he beat up Jian He or went after Jia Wen on his own, I couldn’t help but sympathize with him.
I really liked Ke Jia Yan’s performance as Yun Hui. I think it’s a challenge to portray a character who goes through several traumatic experience and still manages to stay real and not turn into a pathetic victim. Her acting remained so clean and genuine, I truly felt sorry for her. She definitely deserved better. Although it wasn’t exactly specified that she was Xiao Qi’s ex until the end of the series, I think it was pretty obvious from the way they acted around each other. I liked their relationship, and the fact that they never truly stopped caring about each other really made me believe that they’d broken up purely for professional reasons. Although it was a bit predictable that she wouldn’t make it, especially after they had the ‘let’s start again’ talk, but her death still made me really mad. It was just so sad for her to end like that, for no other reason than a madman’s revenge. She was naturally kind but never let anyone walk over her. Her scenes with Jian He in the beginning were also really sweet, she cared about him so much and it was so heartbreaking seeing her get that phonecall about his death, she just crumbled on the spot. Despite her misfortune she portrayed Yun Hui as a very strong character. I have no doubt that, if she were she given the chance, she would’ve been able to overcome the shocking events and lived a simple happy life with Xiao Qi. Her acting was really good, I’ll remember her.
It was a pity that Jian He died quite early in the show, and in such a way. I think Xia Teng Hong did a really good job. To keep matters ambiguous in the beginning, he really did give off that suspicious vibe, but it was even more cruel when it was revealed that he really wasn’t involved at all. I thought his complicated friendship with Jia Wen was very interesting, and you could say that he really went all the way to help his friend. I thought it was really unfair that he had to die, and I also didn’t really want Jia Wen to die, to be honest. I wish he could’ve been able to help Jia Wen come to see reason and turn himself in. Jian He was a really kind person who had always been judged by people based on his scar, but he never lost his kindness, the bullying never turned him bitter and I think that also made him a very strong character. It was sad that he couldn’t find it in himself to consult his sister, the recording was really heartbreaking because this was also when Yun Hui realized how mature he had always been, how much he’d always been taking care of her rather than the other way around. His character was really interesting and it’s a pity he fell away relatively early, I would’ve liked to see more development in his story with Jia Wen.
Fan Shao Xun as Jia Wen was, again, a really good casting choice. The vibe this guy gives off by just smiling sent shivers down my spine, he was cast really well as this unhinged delinquent boy. On the other hand, adding the part of his trauma also gave him a double layer. I mentioned before that I found it a bit problematic when it seemed like they were trying to redeem him through this trauma he had, I definitely don’t blame him any less for it, but it did make me feel bad for him in the sense that he really just needed to get help. Seeing how his mother was still behaving when Xiao Qi visited her, how she was talking about her son as if he were her daughter, was pretty creepy. Also that part about her being the new wife of that politician who basically covered all of Jia Wen’s tracks and even sponsored Club KINK for him, his family was just really shady. I would’ve liked to feel a bit more sympathy for Jia Wen after what he’d been through, but he for one kept choosing the darkness, so at the end I also really didn’t know how he could be redeemed. Although I found it quite abrupt and shocking when he died in that car crash, a part of me also thought if this might have been for the better because at least now he would have peace. Maybe that’s cruel to say, sorry, but I just have mixed feelings about his death. In any case, he was a really good cast for this role and I liked how, despite his unhinged behavior, it was clear that he was grateful to Jian He for offering him help and sticking by his side.
I really liked Lin Xin Ru in this as Ya Ci. Like any other character, her duality inevitably comes out when the case continues and she just can’t find it in her to stay objective anymore after Noh starts calling into her show more often. I liked to see her humanity, too. When she initially got Ma Yi Nan on the show and Yan Zhen just quit on the spot after how she treated him like a detached reporter, the next time they’re thinking of inviting a guest she immediately went, ‘I’m not doing that again.’ Like, despite the fact that Yan Zhen had no authority over her, I feel that she did care about what she thought and reflected on herself as well. The fact that she’s hiding an illegitimate son only comes out in the episode in which she dies, and it was crazy that they started making a spectacle out of that after her death, like seriously, was that really the most important thing people got from her death? I was surprised and disappointed when He Ping just offed her like that, but I’m not exactly sure what I had expected otherwise, since I didn’t expect him to just let her go after kidnapping her either. I did think it was very interesting how she turned out to be involved, as He Ping had been so keen on impressing her and was so hurt when she rejected his report that one time, resulting in a personal grudge against her. Killing off an influential character like her definitely created a shift, because here things got really dangerous. I liked the natural edge of her character, she was a really strong character and until the very end she never backed down or showed any fear towards He Ping. I liked her a lot.
Then finally, Mr. Evil himself, Yao Chun Yao. Seriously, I never want to see this guy smile like that again, haha. No, but seriously, he was SO good. When it was revealed that he was Noh, I first went like, hm yeah okay but how what why? But how they then used the final couple of episodes to construct his backstory and tie all the remaining loose strings together was really impressive. I also liked how the ending in which he finally confessed wasn’t completely random, it really happened as a result of him already letting his guard down more after he returned from the hospital. I don’t know, it kind of made sense that he suddenly decided to confess, because that was the state of mind he was in, he had so many people support him and he was convinced that wouldn’t change at this point, even if he did admit he was Noh. I wouldn’t say I knew he was the killer from the start but things definitely felt off with the way he treated Yun Hui after Jian He died. Of course he personally didn’t have anything to do with the car accident in itself, but he suddenly became so obvious in how he started defending her against Ya Ci on the news, something was weird about that. All in all, he was the most heartless and disrespectful killer you could imagine, using every murder as a means to create a juicy story and appearing on TV acting all sad when he himself was responsible for what had happened. At some point I really just went, ‘isn’t anyone else seeing the way he’s blatantly smiling right now? Why is no one still suspecting him?’ The way he died was so crazy, and even though I had zero empathy for him it still felt disturbing to me. In any case, I think the actor did an amazing job. I’ve seen a lot of murder case series where the killer is depicted as a typical psychopath with a typical hysterical laugh where it just feels so pasted-on because you can see the actor going, ‘look, I’m a manic psychopath with a scary hysterical laugh’, but the way Yao Chun Yao committed to it and never made it look fake for even a second was very impressive. I legit still have the image of his bloody joker-laugh face burnt into my memory, he really went for it and became seriously scary at some point. It worked for him that he had this narcissistic god complex thing about him, because even though he was just a regular reporter guy, the air he had around him just exuded how confident and untouchable he estimated himself to be. I was really impressed by how subtle and consistent he was in his portrayal of these narcissistic traits. Once you started paying attention you could see how much he indulged in even the mention of his name, because that’s all he lived for, getting people to acknowledge him for the things he created. I think he made for a very original killer, and it made him extra cruel because his motive for the killings didn’t even target his victims – they were just side characters that needed to star in the story that he created for his imagine audience. He honestly didn’t care about the lives of those people, and that’s what made him the most heartless killer I’ve seen in a long time. The fact that he even went to visit Ma Yi Nan and tried to get him on his side while he murdered his granddaughter with his own hands… To say ‘the audacity’ doesn’t even begin to cut it. All in all, I think he did a really good job.
I also want to mention the actor who played Da Chao, Yen Sheng Yu), because Da Chao was a really good character as well. Originally the sidekick of Mr. Yong, when he fell away he became really invested in helping Xiao Qi. It was really touching to see how distraught he was after Mr. Yong was hospitalized, he genuinely cared about his wellbeing as his close colleague and friend. I loved how loyal he was, he wasn’t just the funny sidekick but he really contributed to the investigation team and always trusted Xiao Qi’s instincts. I loved how determined he got throughout the investigation, how frustrated even in his impatience to bring He Ping to justice. He was a really good character and the actor did a great job portraying him as much more than just a sidekick.
Lastly, I just want to make mention of the most precious grandpa, Chen Bo Zheng. I mentioned this before in Yun Hui’s cast comment, but one thing I loved so much about Ma Yi Nan was that, despite his misfortune, he never became a pathetic victim. Despite everything that happened with his granddaughter, he always kept his head high and I also loved how he kept contributing to the case. He would always contact Xiao Qi as soon as he remembered something else or discovered something weird. The way the realization hit him when He Ping made that casual ‘no wonder Yi Jun was so smart’ comment. To realize that his granddaughter’s murderer was standing right in front of him and still maintain his composure, not letting on that he suddenly got it, that was a really impressive feature of him. I also loved how he never lost his temper, he never became petty even after getting those hate comments about Yi Jun and how she had herself to blame. He was such a genuinely kind-hearted man, even when so much hate was being thrown at him he never took it to heart and he managed to stand his ground until the end. He may have appeared to be such a frail old man, but he was so strong, all the way. I really loved him with all my heart, he made me cry several times throughout the show.
I think I’m going to leave it at that for the cast comments, there are people that I haven’t mentioned but seriously, every character was important and they all contributed in their own way. The cast was very well-chosen and none of the characters were one-dimensional or stereotypical. Everyone showed duality and emotional variety.
So that brings me to the end of this review! As much as I thought it wouldn’t take me that long for a relatively short show, it still took me two days to finish writing it. I really wanted to make an effort to put in everything I was feeling while watching it, because it had me sitting on the edge of my seat the entire team. I loved how it just sucked me in with every new episode and how they managed to keep it so engaging. There was nothing typical, unoriginal or cringy about it and that’s pretty challenging for a murder case show as they tend to get a little predictable. I’ve experienced so many anticlimaxes, even when the story itself was really thrilling, so I was glad with the way this show dealt with it. Besides the great writing, the acting also exceeded anything I’ve seen in a Taiwanese series before. Everyone was so incredibly real, nothing became too much, too exaggerated or too pathetic. In a story with so many tragic and dramatic events, it wouldn’t have been strange to see people completely lose their minds, but the way everyone was trying to keep it together and remain strong throughout it all gave it a really hopeful twist at the end.
Another thing I wanted to mention is, and this may just be my personal feeling, but while I was watching I kept feeling like, rather than getting immersed in the story as if I was there with Xiao Qi, I was a bystander watching everything unfold. What I mean to say is, I felt like I didn’t actually get a look inside every character’s head. In contrast to for example K-Drama, there was no narration of what people were thinking and no one talked to themselves. If there was no spoken dialogue, it was occasionally hard to gauge what people were thinking, you really had to try and read their faces and body language, and that also made it engaging. It made it all the more unpredictable as to what people would do. I felt like I was being kept at a proper distance in order not to succumb to the chaos of the case along with Xiao Qi, and I’m partly grateful for that, but still even without that extra insight it was an absolute rollercoaster. I just love how they managed to keep the story so easy to follow even though sometimes it was hard to determine what people were truly feeling. The writing was really good, and I think the dialogues also conveyed the true message of the story in a pretty hopeful way. In the end it really made me think about darkness versus light in people, and how it can lead to extremes whichever way you chose to go. Food for thought, for sure!
Now that I’ve finished this unexpected gem, I’m moving to another long-awaited watchlist item which I believe might also get quite angsty, so I’m very curious. Thanks again for reading all the way through, I hope this was a worthwhile review and I’ll be back soon, after the next chaotic week is done and I have more free time again.
Until then, bye-bee! ^^
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