Posted in: TV | Tagged: C-Drama, game of thrones, Kill My Sins

Kill My Sins: The 17th Century Chinese Noir with Game of Thrones Vibes

Kill My Sins is something different: a period Chinese noir mystery about a femme fatale's revenge and everyone plotting to kill each other.

Kill My Sins, whose Chinese title means "The Palm," is a new Chinese mystery series that's a little different from the endless stream of ancient Chinese fantasy series about impossibly pretty people with swords and mystical powers falling in love in the middle of epic battles and intrigue. It's quite unusual to get a Chinese series featuring a ruthless femme fatale plotting to bring down an entire system of powerful people, and she'll manipulate and betray anyone to get her revenge.

Kill My Sins is about Ye Ping'an (played by Liu Shishi), a heart doctor and hypnotist who arrives in Shengdu to investigate an old case. Rumors spread that she's a witch who practices sorcery and manipulates hearts and minds. When she's accused of the murder of an official who hired her to treat his paranoia, she has to solve the mystery to avoid getting executed, and in Medieval China, that means getting your head sliced off. Fun. Yuan Shaocheng (played by Dou Xiao), an investigator with ambitions to become chancellor, realizes there's more to the case than meets the eye and is determined to have Ye Ping'an executed. But Ye Ping'an has already made her first move on her path to vengeance. She earns a reprieve from execution to investigate her murder, while Yuan Shaocheng has his own secrets to hide, secrets he's willing to kill for. The stage is set for an anti-buddy murder mystery where both of them might have the other killed at the first opportunity. Ye Ping'an (whose name literally means "peace") is out to right a wrong and has a hit list and a small band of women on her side, all in on her scheme. Cue lots of people glaring and shots of them pointing swords at each other. 

That trailer looks fun. Kill My Sins is not the most elegant English title the makers of the series could come up with, but good, eye-catching English titles are not their forte. I can't help thinking "The Sinners" or "The Mistress of Sinners" would have been a cooler title, but what can ya do? Elaborate revenge dramas along the lines of Alexandre Dumas' The Count of Monte Cristo are not uncommon in Chinese pop fiction and drama. They're just really complex and hard to plot. The reason for revenge is usually the betrayal and execution of someone's entire family, which looks like the case with this series as well. It's rare to have a series where every character is a bastard who kills quite a few people as the story goes along, hence the Game of Thrones vibes. The series is full of sweeping widescreen cinematography, sweeping camerawork, and quick edits to keep very online viewers from looking at their phones. That's just how C-Drama is these days. You can catch the pilot episode below, with the rest of the thirty episodes to follow during weekdays.

Kill My Sins is streaming on Youku (with a subscription) and their official YouTube channel.

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