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Not a Game

Netflix now has two seasons of The Victim's Game available, and since I've watched both I thought I'd do a write-up on the good, the bad and the unnecessary of this Taiwanese forensic homicide mystery series.

Both seasons revolve around forensic investigator Fang Yi-Jen (Jospeh Chang), a high-functioning autistic man who has turned his disability into (mostly) an asset as he solves some very gruesome murders. He's estranged from his daughter, Chiang Hsiao-Meng (Moon Lee) who went with his ex-wife after they divorced. The mother and daughter's story after the divorce is really pitiful and quite depressing, but Yi-Jen seems entirely unaware of what happens to them. Yi-Jen is pretty much oblivious to everything but his job, or so you assume. The brilliance of this characterization of the lead and how the others around him come to realize why he's the way he is has no comparison; it's just that good -- and that's the good.

The bad: there's a lot, unfortunately. Both seasons deal with murder mysteries that are overly-complicated and very unlikely. The first season's mystery seemed extremely out there; I doubt anyone would have actually done what the characters did, especially what's involved with the first death. I solved the second season's mystery halfway through the episodes so despite all the shinanigans the puzzle was fairly straight forward and easy to solve. Some of the acting from the secondary crew was on the cardboard side, or over-the-top, and as such proved distracting.

The unnecessary: lots of homicide victim porn, unfortunately; they were particularly detailed about showing a lot of things that the story didn't need. One depiction was rather inaccurate as I saw a victim of the same kind of death when I worked in the medical field. Still, if you like seeing people die in horrible ways, and what their corpses look like after, there's plenty of that. Much of the unnecessary is trigger material for people suffering from depression and other kinds of mental illness.

I think The Victim's Game was interesting, if heavily flawed. I also think Joseph Chang deserves every award in the industry for his acting skills. Both seasons are available on Netflix.

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