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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Intriguing Crime Drama!

Living in China I had to watch this on a Chinese app (Youku) that doesn't have English subs and even though my Mandarin isn't the best, I was able to follow and enjoy the storylines and figure out the relationships of the various characters and the plotline. (There are also a lot of YouTube videos that get behind the scenes too BTW.) I'm a major fan of the super gorgeous Bruce He and loved his look with his perfect hair and glasses. Bryan Chang is a new favorite who was only ever outfitted in tight t-shirts. Nice look! He's both the super cop and the main romantic lead to the equally gorgeous Eugenie Liu who's known both male lead brothers since high school.

I like a good crime drama almost as much as a rom-com and the science fiction/Faustian aspect here is thought provoking and entertaining. The stories are told a lot through flashbacks so kudos to the tight editing. Being able to order something from the future may not lead to happiness in the end actually! Show got kind of dark when it moved to the abduction of female online influencers, which led to the cliff hanger. Bruce He had obvious chemistry developing with Ivy Shao (another favorite) and his character is different from his typical uber mensch leading man role. Already looking forward to the next season AND finding more of Bryan's work to explore.

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Interesting Taiwanese Sci-fi

I dont really understand why someone would give low ratings to this one. It's smart, it's lowkey and it's well written. It's not an "in your face" sci-fi thriller or psychological drama. Taiwanese dramas are known to have a unique subdued yet beautiful undertone to their storytelling, and it's the same with Futmalls.

The acting is fine, Taiwanese actors are way better than their Chinese counterparts who have no expression, no body movements and no acting skills in general. The story uses pre-existing tropes but the sci-fi element to them feels like a fresh breath of air.

I loved the fact that they did not reveal the whole reason why futmalls exists or what it actually is. I like the ambiguity, and the fear or anxiety it bring along with it. I hope they do not make it just another thriller or psych drama with too many explanations in the 2nd season.

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Urban legends - crime edition...

...but there were not enough crimes nor urban legends. 2 out of 3 stories were technically driven by crime that is linked to the Futmalls.com website, yet I felt like there was barely any investigation going on. It wouldn't bother me much if we got to see more of the background story of said website and its products - did not happen. The mysterious products linked all the plot lines, but at the same time, the whole story led to nowhere.

That said, I still quite enjoyed the drama. "Best-selling author" was a perfect opening for a short show like that, "No chance to grow" hit harder on the emotional side and "Air doll & Internet celebrity kidnapping" made a quite weird, but interesting ending. If we can even call it an ending.

The show does not have the greatest cast of the characters. Bai Yong Xin was the most fun and interesting one to watch. On the other hand, Zhao Xu Zhen, Yang Nian Jun and Li Zhong Wei were painfully stereotypical. I guess, these types of characters actually work well for the "urban legends" kind of deal. That said, Nian Jun was presenting some next level of poor and dumb decision making skills closer to the end of the show.

The quality of the production was quite high. I liked some transitions between frames, especially during the questioning of the witnesses/family members scene in the first episode. The special effects were nicely done too. I have to appreciate the makeup artists that worked for them, for the well done bruises that looked truly realistic.

The acting was good. The roles were not exactly that demanding nor required amazing acting skills. I was most impressed by Phoebe Huang during the "No chance to grow" story - her emotional delivery was quite nice.

If the news about season 2 comes out, I might add 0.5 to my story and the overall rating, since it seems like a nice introduction to a larger plot, but is questionable as a solo project.

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Interesting series that has the potential to change Taiwan's television market

I’ve been exploring international TV series since the start of quarantine. I’ve seen quite a few series from different regions of Asia and recently I’ve come across some shows from Taiwan. After seeing one of the supporting actresses in another show I decided to watch this as the plot also seemed interesting.

The show's overall concept is intriguing. The main plot point is about a website Futmalls, acronym for Future mall, that’s used to purchase products from the future. With a length of eight episodes and a tale of three separate stories intertwined with the same characters, we see how these future products affect the people who purchase them and those around them. When rating a show I hold the standards to that of the region it was produced in. Kdramas for example have a pretty large international market which allows them to produce high quality series, having a very large budget and all. For this reason my expectations for the quality of Kdramas are normally quite high. Taiwanese cinema is a relatively smaller market and there’s no series or films that really stand out on the global scale. So my expectations are gradually lower. However I think shows like Futmalls will start the uprising of a new wave of cinema in Taiwan.

I’ll start with the strong points of the show. The acting is very good and the cast really sells their performance however this can sometimes be ruined by the bad writing and sloppy editing which I will get into later. The series is very psychological and doesn’t give too much backstory until the end and I found the cast did an amazing job with their performance on endorsing characters who have gone through trauma. For example in story 3 Chien-Ho Wu does a stellar performance of playing an introverted scientist with little social life, he keeps the audience guessing whether he’s the suspect or not until the very end. For the second story Phoebe Huang did an amazing job of playing a grieving mother, I personally think the second story was the best because of how well Cheng-Hen Chu (who played her husband) and Huang embraced their roles of parents dealing with loss. Considering the budget this show had, the special effects were really well done and it never seemed fake and it never took me out of the story, of all things to me it really increased the quality of the show. I applaud the VFX artists and special effects team. One of the strongest points of the show is how they don’t present information to the audience and how they deliver characters' backstories at the right time.

On the other hand the weaker points of the show was the writing, editing and sound design. Although I did say the concept of Futmalls is interesting, the writing of certain episodes and character backgrounds has me conflicted. For example Eugenie Liu (who I consider to currently be a breakout actress from Taiwan) plays a therapist. However she seems to be self conscious about a scar on her face, it doesn’t make sense that her literal job is to help others mental health when she herself seems so caught up about receiving a cut on her face that happened so long ago. Another thing this show falls victim to is plot holes. The whole idea of purchasing products from a website that appears and disappears is intriguing however we soon discover the products are delivered by people. When the police do arrest one of the deliverymen they do not follow up and ask where the products come from, rather they let the episode finish and we never see him again. The deliveryman is used as a weak link to conclude the second story. It would’ve been a lot more intriguing if the products had just appeared at each character's house with no other context. Making the delivery of products more mysterious was a huge miss by the writing team in my opinion. Other problems I found is how easily everyone seems to accept that products come from the future. The police have multiple people who have used the Futmalls site and the site is what fuels the whole plot of the show, but again there’s no follow up or questioning them.

Now to me the editing was really inconsistent. Sometimes it propelled the show to new levels and other times it took it down a few notches. For example the scene where Phoebe Huang (the grieving mother in story 2) is seen chasing around her kid on the school grounds is a beautifully constructed sequence, but in the last episode when the two police brothers, played by Bryan Chang and Wei-Ji, are searching a dark building for the kidnapped Bai Yong Xin (played by Yu-Wei) they have their guns drawn and flashlights in one hand, but when they exit the building their flashlights suddenly disappear and they’re holding their guns with both hands. Another thing I found to be quite problematic is during climax sequences for whatever reason the editors decide to lower the frames and so the scene plays out choppy, I don’t know if this is an effect used in asian dramas, but to me it looked amateurish and did not in any way heighten the emotions of the scene.

The sound design is the weakest part of the series. To me the use of music was horrendous. It seemed like whoever was in charge of sound didn’t know the basic rules of film and sound. Music is like sauce. It’s there to make the main dish better, but if you put too little it’s noticeable and if you put too much it becomes uneatable. In this case the dish was uneatable. It seemed like during every dramatic moment the wrong sauces were used, it was like someone searched up into youtube: “Dramatic cinema music” and then pasted it on the scene without ever listening to the track. Music is supposed to heighten what you already see on screen, however every time there was a scene with music in Futmalls it took me out of the story because of how badly it didn’t fit and this was mainly during scenes of climax which made it worse.

Now the reason I pointed out so many cons is that I hope this can be fixed for season 2. The show has its fair share of corny moments, but it also delivers some tremendous moments of cinema. I know that if we compared this show to other shows in the west or Kdramas, it’s not on the same level, however I hold my standards to each region separately and I was really impressed with a lot of aspects of Futmalls and what it was able to accomplish in just eight episodes. Unlike some Kdramas that drag on forever, Futmalls pacing seemed well constructed given how short the show was. I feel the cast did an incredible job with their characters and this show could potentially make way for the Taiwanese market to produce more interesting content on an even higher level and for this reason I rated it a 9 overall.

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