Futmalls.com (2020)

Futmalls.com (a name that really does not work in English but that I suspect stands for Future Mall) is an episodic crime horror anthology with an underlying thread about a website where you can purchase items from the future.

Bryan Chang plays Zhao Xu Zhen, a devoted cop who begins to investigate cases involving a mysterious website. This review has been updated now that I've finished this season, although the last story in particular was a bit of a slog.

Futmalls is well produced and edited and the first case was quite interesting. The show's biggest weakness is its stereotypical and over the top male lead; the kind of genius cop who eats at crime scenes and mansplains forensic reports to crime scene investigators. He is a jarring and often annoying cliche and the investigative elements of the show are its weakest. When it veers more into the vaguely-menacing horror that is Futmalls' push advertising to people who are at their most vulnerable, it's definitely stronger.

This ends up being the show's biggest weakness since, after its first case, it essentially jettisons the horror element and becomes more process driven. The procedural police aspects are incredibly weak and the male lead is too much of a cliche. In its third case, the show drives its narrative with torture porn of female characters and a weirdly sympathetic portrayal of a skeevy man and his blow up doll. Yes, men wrote this. You can tell.

The show never answers any questions, never overlays any logic onto Futmalls, never seems to know if Futmalls is a menacing presence or just something that exists to drive its cases (one entire story never becomes a case at all) and then just... ends... clearly setting itself up for a season 2. It's deeply dissatisfying and wasn't good enough overall to tune in for another set of episodes. So I regretfully conclude it's not worth your time.

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Literally, the "Taiwanese Black Mirror"

I picked this up as Netflix had recommended it to me, but I ultimately decided to start watching because there were 8 episodes and one of the descriptions said it was a "slow burn romance." Also, Ivy Shao was in it and I was curious to see her in a more "mature" role from Luhan's drama Sweet Combat.

And maybe I gave this drama a higher score than the other reviewers simply because I didn't expect much from it. I didn't want to dive into a longer drama, and the Taiwanese dramas that have been coming out in 2020 have been rated highly on my list.

The acting wasn't all great in the beginning, but once you get used to it, you are more distracted by how intense the situations were and how "ugly" human nature is when people are desperate. It was literally a long Black Mirror episode and I was in it to win it. I literally felt bad for Ivy's character Bai Yong Xin, as I felt that this website targeted all the people she loved, but in reality, it was probably a coincidence so they didn't have to keep adding random people to the story and needed a way to involve the same people in these cases who weren't cops. I think my favorite thing though, was the cute slow insinuated probable romance between Yong Xin & Li Zhong Wei OR what I hope will be a romance in the second season. They were both so funny together and I just want happiness for Zhong Wei. He is a badass nerd that needs some loving. My least favorite person would have to be Yang Nian Jun. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't a fan of her fiance either, but for being a therapist, she had no idea how to take care of her problems.

Overall, it was interesting seeing these situations and the products that people ordered off the website, but it wasn't the websites fault and I don't believe them to be evil. Yes, they give you a product that'll give you what you most desire, but at a cost, but it was the greediness of the people who received the product that did bad. And we saw that with two characters who had no ill intent. The website didn't force the author's hand in the first few eps .

Cannot wait for season 2, hopefully, they will renew.

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