The plot of the series is simple - a girl named Li Shiqing falls into a time loop after the bus she was riding in suddenly explodes. She wakes up again and again on the bus and is killed in the explosion. Finally, during the next turn, she manages to get out of the transport, and even take with him Xiao Heyun, the guy sitting next to her. However, it turns out that they are both in a loop: if either of them dies or falls asleep, or just when it is midnight, they will be immediately transported back to the doomed bus. Therefore, flight is not an option; and we must find another way to break the loop.
What's important to a thriller? Bright characters, reliable psychology, good acting. That’s enough in the beginning. Each of the passengers of the bus has its own story, often tragic and dramatic. A former convict who has been at loggerheads with his wife and son since his release and is now carrying presents to them in the hope that they will break a decades-long boycott and give him a second chance. An elderly man, almost homeless, but does not want to be a burden to his adult daughter, and hides from her his plight. A guy whose asthma makes his oppressive mother forbid him to have pets. Everyone has their own destiny, their own world, their own reasons to live and fight. And all of them must be saved from death.
To do this, Li Shiqing and Xiao Heyong will have to solve the crime. After all, very soon it turns out that the cause of the explosion is not a collision with another car, but a bomb, and the suicide bomber is in the bus itself. All passengers are under suspicion, but who of them decided to do this terrible thing? It is necessary to find out urgently, because with each iteration the well-being of the characters deteriorates, which means that the number of attempts they have is limited. The police are more likely to interfere than assist in the investigation.
The weak point of the series is a fantastic assumption. That is, what is happening is not explained in any way - the time loop and everything. This, of course, was normal in Groundhog Day, for example – but there was a romantic comedy, and here the story is more serious, but without any “justification”. One can, of course, view everything as a parable, one big allegory: until we learn responsibility for others, until we notice other people’s grief and problems, until people unite, and altruism and mutual help triumph – society will continue to resemble a mad bus with a bomb on board, rushing towards a petrol tanker.
Of course, the idea of “die and reborn until you find a way to end the story with a universal happy ending” is not new. This has already happened, for example, in the anime series When Cicadas Cry (2006), where the condition of exiting the time loop was also "passing without death." And attempts to expose a suicide bomber with the help of multiple “reboots” of the disaster were in the American NF thriller Source Code (2011) – however, time travel was not real, but a simulation.
But despite the secondary concept, Inception is a good show. Let it not shine with originality, but boasts good acting, genuine psychologism, multi-layered plot and unobtrusive morality. So, my first acquaintance with the Chinese series I can consider successful.
Original