Spy Thriller + Murder Mystery + Cooking Show
When asked to describe The Sleuth of the Ming Dynasty, I can only describe its genre as being exactly as above. it’s as quirky as you’d expect, with genuinely compelling characters, plot twists to shock you, and compassion for every character, no matter how twisted.
I believe TSOMD is based on a danmei novel, and you can see the “bromance” of Tang Fan and Sui Zhou is representative of something more than “just friends.” But, while both Tang Fan and Sui Zhou are excellent characters who each get strong development, the emotional core of the show is hardly either of them. Instead, the third main character, Wang Zhi (based on a real historical figure), steals the show’s heart and soul, undergoing one of the most beautiful, complex arcs I’ve seen in a long time, from scheming utilitarian to kind human.
I’ll probably write a meta just about Wang Zhi’s arc, but the short version is that he’s based on a real-life eunuch (and eunuchs in imperial China, er, lost more than you’d think) who de facto ran the empire. His interactions with Tang Fan, Sui Zhou, their found family, as well as with the Emperor and the Noble Consort (his unofficial adopted parents) and his righthand man Ding Rong all offer him challenges.
In general, the show did excellently with the romances, both explicit and subtextual. Tang Fan and Sui Zhou were truly compelling, and seeing them develop together was lovely. Wang Zhi also has a subtextual romance with Ding Rong (it’s barely subtext, and directly parallel to Tang Fan/Sui Zhou multiple times) that is equally compelling. Explicitly, we have Pei Huai and Tang Yu, Lin Chaodong and his fiancee, Princess Gu’an and Wang Xian, the Emperor and Noble Consort, and even some puppy love from Dong’Er and Little Loach. Perhaps the only one the show didn’t sell me on was Duo’Erla and A’lasi.
I quite enjoyed the compassion the show had for mental illnesses and other disorders. It outright condemned people accusing those who suffer from ailments of demonic possession, and while it is set in the 1500s, Pei Huai, a doctor, offers some truly honest, accurate, and kind descriptions of post-traumatic stress disorder, which Sui Zhou suffers from, and autism, which Wang Xian has–and explicitly states, regarding the latter, that it is not an illness. It’s just a different way of thinking and processing. The show’s depiction of PTSD was extremely honest and realistic (and not gratuitous), as was its depiction of autism, and a panic attack.
The show also donates quite a bit of its time to exploring the past of its villains, humanizing them. Even the most disgusting ones, whom I loathed, I ended up crying for. It doesn’t excuse them, but it does show how human they still are at their core–and this, in turn, ties into the show’s main theme of humanity (Wang Zhi’s arc is entirely about learning to live as a full human). It offers redemption for many of them; some take it, some do not.
Female characters abound, and they are all unique and complex. From the child genius Dong’Er to the proper mother Tang Yu, to prostitute Qing Ge to disguised Jin San, to the kind and capricious Princess Gu’an and the fiesty Duo’Erla, the Emperor’s Mother to the Noble Consort, each character is unique and does not only exist to serve the male characters in the story: instead, they have their own to tell.
However, I’d be remiss not to mention my issues as well. One prominent female character very much gets fridged at the end of her arc for manpain, and it’s incredibly frustrating. In addition, I was highly uncomfortable with what could be seen as racism towards the Oirat people. While there are a variety of Oirat characters and many are heroic, there was a balance the show tried to walk and didn’t entirely succeed. China’s record on treatment of minority people groups (which continues to this day with the Uygurs) makes it hard to give the show the benefit of the doubt in its iffy moments of Oirat portrayal.
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