I wrote these reviews after I watched Out of Court and The Murder in Kairoutei last summer, but never got around to posting them here. Both involve mysteries and investigations, but are otherwise quite different in tone and quality.

Out of Court: Well crafted and underrated legal drama

Out of Court 庭外 is a tightly woven legal drama with superb acting, directing and scriptwriting. Intricately crafted, the story unfolds in two chapters, both of which primarily centre around the legal procedings and investigations of three death penalty cases. The first part is six episodes and takes place over the span of 16 hours, while the second part is told over 14 episodes and takes place before and after the events of part one. Xia Yu's (夏雨) Lu Nan is the main protagonist in "Blind Spot", while Luo Jin’s (罗晋) Qiao Shaoting and Jiao Junyan's (焦俊艳) Xiao Zhen are the main leads in "Drowning Man" ("The Last Straw" in English). Both male leads appear throughout parts one and two.

Out of Court is more than a legal drama, however — there are mysteries to solves, side cases to crack, and some action thrown in as well. While the story doesn't waste much time getting into the personal lives of the characters (except for perhaps Qiao Shaoting), the ensemble cast still somehow comes across rich and nuanced through their actions, anecdotes of their past, small details sprinkled throughout, and subtle scene elements that might convey anger, arrogance, indifference, compassion, etc. For the longest time, viewers are left guessing as to the motivations of some of the characters (in a good way) -- are they a villain? Ally? Somewhere in between?

As for Luo Jin fans, Qiao Shaoting is a great character, and he plays him with the coolness of Harvey Specter but with a lot more grittiness.

I also found the drama to be an interesting glimpse into China's modern legal system, which dates from the late 1970s following the Cultural Revolution, but really did not gain a footing until perhaps the mid-1980s. (Prior to that, during the Mao period after 1949, law schools and courts were all shut down, with lawyers out of a job.) The story makes references to when certain laws were passed, and at least one side case is inspired by true events. It is impossible for me to gauge how accurately everything is presented; at the same time, viewers should not judge its “accuracy” based on Western civil and criminal laws, since even the broad strokes of some legal areas and roles may be quite different.

This is not a drama you can watch "in the background” — I really needed to focus and pay attention to the great dialogue, and if I had more time (which I sadly don't) I would rewatch it again to catch everything I missed the first time.

Out of Court has a well-deserved Douban score of 7.6 (at the time of this posting), based on 52,664 ratings, which is pretty positive by Douban standards.

The Murder in Kairoutei: Easy and quick binge, great OTP chemistry

First, The Murder in Kairoutei (回廊亭) is no Out of Court and it is not meant to be. It’s an entertaining romance mystery romp that may be a miss for a lot of viewers. For North American audiences of a certain generation or older, think of this as one of those Sunday night, made-for-network-TV murder mystery mini-series … but better in my view.

At just a dozen episodes, this drama was the perfect length for the story it was telling; no time was wasted on overwrought flashback scenes. It is based on the 1991 mystery novel, Kairotei no Satsujin [回廊亭の殺人], written by Keigo Higashino. If you've read the book, however, you'll want to know that there are some major changes. I've only read a summary of the original novel and without giving too much away, I'm glad they went a different route here.

Jiang Yuanxing, played by Deng Jiajia (邓家佳), is tasked with tracking down the illegitimate son of her boss, Chairman Gao Guangyi. She finds Cheng Cheng, played by (Steven) Zhang Xincheng (张新成), but he has no interest in meeting his father or the family money. Meanwhile, the rest of the Gaos are embroiled in a bitter fight over the inheritance, which culminates in a myserious case of arson and murder at the Kairoutei Hotel.

The drama's greatest strength was the chemistry between the main couple. I knew Zhang Xincheng was a good actor based on his performance in The Day of Becoming You (变成你的那一天), but I did not expect his character to be so swoony here. Cheng Cheng's intense love for Jiang Yuanxing really came through and his fear of losing her was palpable. The mystery part of the story, however, was much weaker and fairly predictable for viewers in terms of guessing the culprit. The police, on the other hand, had super powers of deduction based on the way they cracked the case and figured everything out!

Kairoutei has a pretty abismal Douban score of 4.1, in case that helps with setting expectations (and whether or not you want to give this a shot). Perhaps because I went in for the romance, and was fully assuming the series would be over-the-top melodramatic and soapy, I actually found it wasn't as "dog blood 狗血" as I had anticipated.