Sean Akizuki's East Asian Drama and Movie Blog

  While checking out Netflix - I decided to do some old school rewatching even if some newer drama such as Doctor Prisoner are still available. I do feel like I want to watch another Korean crime drama. However, I decided to rewatch Black and White which is my favorite F4 series of all time. I'm now currenlty watching The Hospital (White Tower) which starred Jerry Yan as a doctor along with Doctor Prisoner . Now, you may notice that certain cast members in The Hospital were given roles in Black and White . The one most noticeable is Janine Chang who played a medical role in both series. Vic Chou starred as the anti-hero Chen Zaitien. Now, I felt somebody should've played as Wu Yingxiong.  I thought Jerry Yan should've been Yingxiong instead of Mark Chao. Mark's able to do well as the hot-headed cop. Though, Meteor Garden tells you that both Jerry and Vic are good at playing clashing characters. Yingxiong pretty much feels like what if Daoming Si became a police officer ...

Normally I'm not such a huge fan of F4 and I had some disappointments with Vic Chou until his surprisingly good performance in Mars.  Black and White was one series that had a real chemistry into its cast.  Now I'd like to talk why it's my favorite F4 related series.  The series was written by Wu Luoying and Chen Huiru, both female writers.  They did a very good job writing the series and may have been very important writers as well. Here's why and I believe I can learn to write better characters by examining this drama: The conflict of  the two main characters.  Chen Zaitien is a somewhat corrupt cop while Wu Yingxiong is your honest, clean cut cop with an attitude problem.  I just love the conflict of these two was priceless or some occasional funny scenes (like when Zaitien bought underground weapons).  I thought about how Zaitien as a character was a complex character.  I also would think that both actors Vic Chou and Mark Chow carri...

Black and White is not just a standard police series.  I would even say that the first series of Vic Chou to take him to new heights, is more or less which is all revolving around the anti-hero Chen Zai Tian and his partner, the more honorable Wu Ying Xiong (who is also a douche at times)... which tries to connect these... Chen Zai Tian's identity was a mystery.  So he was supposedly adopted by the mafia leader of San Lian Hui, where he got an identity change.  As the anti-hero, he has one mysterious past which goes to "Well he is... then he isn't..." which actually, his true parentage was never fully covered (weak point).  Then the mysteries move to Wu Ying Xiong, whose shady past is revealed as the series progresses forward. Another of my favorite mysteries in the series is... who is the real main antagonist?  The whole mystery between the Sarkozy and the San Lian Hui is something.  And for one, where in the world did Sarkozy get all that resources? ...

So far only two F4 members were really able to film some police action. I'd like to comment on them: Vanness Wu first had his police script in Dragon Squad. So far I didn't enjoy much of his character being poorly developed (in my opinion) and it was more on chases, chases and more chases. But that time, Vic Zhou didn't show much improvement then. Vic Zhou starred in a suspense series called "Black and White" with Mark Zhao as his sidekick. He showed more emotion in the script from a zero to a hero type of character. Also, he had a rather impressive fight scene towards the end or how he got flexible with the roles he needed too. I think I like his performance better. :-P

Black and White... it's my currently favorite Chinese drama as of late. While it may suggest at first it wouldn't be that good with Vic Zhou taking the lead role as Chen Zai Tien, it turned out different. It was in fact a pretty good script if I'm to say so, with the twist and turns, murders, deception and crime solving which involves a lot of personalities from the police officers to the antagonists while chasing after a huge syndicate they never knew of, while trying to put an end to the local mafia known as the San Lian Hui.  For acting, it was really well done even for Vic Zhou who was at first berated for his lack of effort. Mark Chao acting out as Wu Ying Xiong even if he's not that good but he had a respectable performance. The rest, well they did their best but not anything spectacular compared to Vic Zhou's rise to improvement in this series. Vic Zhou and Mark Chao's parts as contrasting cops was something. Vic Zhou who is somewhat corrupt and simple ...