TV Review: Unriddle Season One
Fifteen years ago, five Singapore police officers were investigating a drug smuggling case. Some of the money from that case went missing, and one of the officers was killed. The incident was covered up, but now it’s coming back with a vengeance. Who can unriddle this conundrum?
ASP Hu Xaioman (Rui En) decided to become a police officer after her father vanished 22 years ago. She’s worked her way up to head of her own special CID squad that specializes in abductions and kidnappings. Their latest case involving a wealthy Malaysian girl being abducted has led them to the hideout of a human trafficking gang. Somehow, the gang is notified of the raid just in time to escape, though their victims are rescued.
The source of the leak turns out to be ASP Zhang Yuze (Ping Hui Tay), who turns out to have needed the gang to escape to complete his own investigation of the larger human trafficking ring. Officer Hu and he are attracted to each other, but Officer Zhang is still hurting from the death of his previous lover two years before. And also he’s involved with that case from fifteen years ago, but he’s not sharing that information.
Zhang’s informant inside the gang is Dao Bu (“Bun”), real name Lin Zhengyi (Li Ping Chen). Bun ran away from home and turned to a life of petty crime in rebellion against her cop father. She got her nickname from being heavy-set and her fondness for eating meat buns; her “found family” runs a bun shop. Bun started working as an informant for Zhang six years ago after the death of her father, and has spent the last year infiltrating the gang of “Savage” to get the goods on his syndicate partners.
The human trafficking ring is busted, but Savage escapes, and Officer Zhang goes missing along with a large sum of money. The implication is that he accepted a bribe to let the criminal go. Bun is forced to reveal her true status to Hu in order to give her inside information on the gang and hopefully exonerate Zhang. The two women despise each other at first, but need to work together as cop and informant, and quickly become bickering buddies.
Meanwhile, Zhang’s former colleagues are reminded of the case from fifteen years ago, and fear that he might finally have turned on them. An understandable fear, given that they’re being murdered one by one.
This 2010 Singapore crime drama ran for two 20-episode seasons. The first season is available on Crunchyroll and both seasons are currently on U.S. Netflix. I only watched season one so far.
The exotic (to me) location and culture of Singapore helped freshen up the cop show cliches, like the superior officer that’s being super shady and keeps warning Hu off the Zhang case.
Hu’s a “good cop”, dedicated to her job and scarily competent, but tends to be cold-blooded and will absolutely use underhanded but not technically illegal tactics to solve a case. (Remember: The police can and absolutely will lie to you to get you to incriminate yourself.) She often has difficulties interacting with her lawyer mother, who is stonewalling on information about the missing father. Hu’s also very pretty and her romantic potential is a running subplot.
Bun’s coarse exterior hides a heart of gold, and the “criminal” part of her characterization fades out as the story progresses and she starts openly working with the police. She’s respected in her seedy neighborhood, and her bun shop family provides several soap opera subplots. However, she’s fond of derogatory nicknames, calling Hu “Bony Shrew” and one of the suspects in a particular case “the sissy.”
I found most of the mysteries fulfilling, and figured out the central mystery two episodes before the big reveal (because unlike the characters in the story, I didn’t have to wait for actual evidence but could work it out from story logic.) There’s a strong running theme of the relationship between parents and children, and how that can be warped.
The first season satisfyingly ties up all the running mysteries, except for a logic hole that either will be brought up in Season Two or that the writers hope you won’t notice. Then the last five minutes of Episode Twenty brings in a bunch of sequel hooks.
Content note: Unsurprisingly for a crime drama, there’s frequent violence, with minimal gore. Domestic abuse, homophobia, transphobia, offscreen rape, prostitution, human trafficking, pedophilia, ableism, drug abuse.
Overall, a well-written, well-acted crime drama that will appeal to crime fiction fans who are looking for something a little more exotic.
