This neglected drama is my best in recent times

I have to say that in recent years, Taiwan dramas have gained considerable momentum, large scale, in-depth discussions, and closely followed social issues.

The Taiwanese drama "The Defender of the Eight-foot Gate" is a latest masterpiece. It was launched on July 2, but it was quite snubbed on Douban, and there are still no scores, and there are few short reviews. Judging from the first four episodes, it continues the style of the blockbuster "Our Distance from Evil", explores the complex human nature behind the crime, and also reflects the sinking under class differentiation.

It is worth mentioning that Tang Furui is both the director and screenwriter of this play. The series is based on his novel of the same name. When he was writing, he wrote on the premise of filming film and television dramas, so in the original text, you will find a lot of writing techniques similar to camera transitions.

Tang Furui is a lawyer by training, has always been deeply interested in social events and criminal offenses, when he wrote the novel of the same name, he carried out a lot of fieldwork and data collection, and made great efforts in judicial judgment, migrant workers, distant-water fisheries and indigenous people's lives, which is why this play is full of content and informative.

The story told in this play is also derived from a real case, which is the "Tang Yingshen incident" that occurred in 1986. After being repeatedly discriminated against and exploited, and having his identity card withheld by his employer, Tang Yingshen was convicted and sentenced to death after being repeatedly discriminated against and exploited, and his employer withheld his identity card.

"The Defender of the Eight-Foot Gate" began with a similar bloody crime.

Abu, a migrant worker, suddenly came to the home of his employer, Aqun. Not long after, Aqun's family of three was brutally destroyed, and the police arrested Abu in the name of the murderer.

The matter should have settled six months later - Abu will be sentenced to death. But before the final trial, the male protagonist Tong Baoju took over the case and tried to reduce Abu's sentence as a public defender. In this process, Tong Baoju realized that this case was not simple, and there were many involved behind it.

Here, there are power and money transactions for those who hold power, internal discord among indigenous tribes, and the difficult survival of migrant workers. It can be said that director Tang Furui is not small, and intends to depict the gray area of Taiwan with a crime in just eight episodes.

Therefore, the series is depicted differently when presenting the living conditions of different ethnic groups and classes.

High-ranking officials who wield judicial power trade power in the office, teasing each other with love words while testing each other to gain more political leverage. As for the retired judicial bosses, they can build a network of interests just by talking and laughing at the mahjong table.

But for the aborigines of the eight-foot gate, they either gathered around and lamented the difficulties of the world, or went out to sea to risk their livelihood.

As for migrant workers who have crossed the sea, most of them live at the bottom of society. The men worked as coolies on fishing boats, and were slapped and lectured by the captain; Women work as domestic servants in ordinary homes, and some have to endure sexual assault. A very small number of workers can not bear the discrimination and exploitation, and will choose to huddle in society and become gangsters.

Details about their lives, emotional changes and facial demeanors are often cross-presented in seemingly inconspicuous idle strokes in the play, which constitute the flesh and blood of the show, and also make the realistic logic of the whole story thick and solid.

Therefore, when we follow the perspective of the male protagonist Tong Baoju and continue to deepen the case, we will find that the difference between social classes is so huge, and absurd and tragic stories are staged one after another.

In the minds of the aborigines, the suspect Abu is a complete devil, who committed the massacre, even the two-year-old girl did not let go. This is why during the trial, the indigenous people were so excited that they wanted the judge to hurry up and sentence the death penalty.

But the public defender Tong Baoju is precisely an aboriginal, and the deceased Aqun has known him since childhood, and is his cousin.

The reason why the series is set up this way is to highlight Tong Baoju's ambivalence and spy on the other side of this case through his sensitive identity.

The first scene of Tong Baoju's appearance was to go to court with his old father, who asked his son to pay full alimony every month, and the two quarreled over this. Subsequently, when Tong Baoju sent his father to the eight-foot gate, he was resented by many clansmen, and finally dispersed.

To put it bluntly, Tong Baoju is extremely contradictory to the identity of the aborigines, on the one hand, because he has been discriminated against since childhood, so he does not agree with this in his heart; But on the other hand, he is also straightforward and wants to poke holes in the unfair justice system. And Tong Baoju's defense of Abu is actually "the rescue of the weak to the weak".

Whether it is an aboriginal person or a migrant worker, both are actually exploited vulnerable groups, and Hong Zhenxiong, the boss of the shipping company, is behind the power of life and death.

In the third and fourth episodes of the series, Hong Zhenxiong's blood-stained hands are gradually revealed through the last phone call made by the victim Aqun.

Not only did he allow indigenous people to manipulate laborers and smuggle people into business, but he also secretly bribed senior officials of the Ministry of Justice in an attempt to cover up all kinds of evil deeds he had committed.

Therefore, it is unknown whether Abu committed the massacre. Judging from the current trend of the story, Hong Zhenxiong instructed the indigenous people to assassinate Aqun's family and blame Abu. A detail in the play can be corroborated, this is the "Last Supper" hanging in the living room of Aqun's family, which may allude to the appearance of the traitor "Judas" among the aborigines.

The suspenseful foreshadowing in the main story is certainly appetizing, but what I am more interested in is the inner collision of the three protagonists in the play, how to constantly break through stereotypes in the solidified thinking of class barriers and ethnic prejudices, and finally reach the compassion and relief common to human nature.

In addition to Tong Baoju, an aborigine, the other two protagonists involved in the investigation of the case, one is Lian Jinping, the son of a retired judge, who interns under Tong Baoju; The other is a girl Lena, hired as a translator.

The former, an idealist from the upper echelon, is bent on abolishing the death penalty; The latter are migrant workers from the bottom of the class.

The dark line of the series actually tells the story of these three protagonists who are very different, and in the process of finding the truth of the case, they re-know each other. This is also the most touching part of the drama "The Defender of the Eight-foot Gate".

In the four episodes released so far, there are indeed problems with slightly loose narrative threads. The emotional entanglement between Tong Baoju and his former lover, and even Jinping's ambiguous attitude towards Lena, are also interspersed with the case and social description, but limited by the length of 8 episodes, I don't think these more delicate character emotions can be told calmly and movingly.

Perhaps, this kind of social crime drama should not be greedy for more, director Tang Furui should close the narrative clues tightly, so that the audience can think more about the topic of solidified thinking and class differences. Christian Mongi's NMR is a prime example.

However, considering that the director is still a newcomer and the texture of the whole series is still good, this makes "The Defender of the Eight Foot Gate" quite worth watching. After all, the breadth of topics discussed in the play, even in Taiwan dramas, is extremely rare.

Flowers without a banquet