The Hero (2021)

Mediocre bite size variety

This year, iQiyi has released 3 shows (The Detectives' Adventures, Game of Shark, The Hero) as part of their annual mystery variety series while hitchhiking the "Who's the Murderer" hype in China. The Hero, being one of the two other shows, introduces the 5+1 comic heroes' journey in stopping X from his wrongdoings.

The Cast
The show started off with 5 protagonists (and one that was kicked off due to political controversies that I'm not gonna go over): Mark Chao, Li Yifeng, Guan Xiaotong, Victor Qin, Tang Jiuzhou; 3 of which were actors, 1 crosstalk comedian, and 1 idol. Since I've been a fan of "Who's the Murderer", I knew Tang Jiuzhou would be up to the job since he was known for his exceptional deduction skills in that show. I don't follow the other actors, but from what I know of Guan Xiaotong and Li Yifeng, they were both pretty intelligent and would do the show justice for being in the cast. Alas, I suppose the production team have hoped for the cast to work out some kind of chemistry between themselves, but the result of it didn't bring out much.

Halfway through the show, they dropped Lin Gengxin into the pack to make up for the other member. From what I know, the production team had to reshoot a couple of episodes due to the "missing member", so I didn't really understand why would they choose to introduce the final cast this late into the show since they had to reshoot anyway. There might be a reason for his late entry, and I might have to sit tight until the final episode airs, so until then I'll just keep my eyes open for it.

The Plot
The main plot for the show tells the tale of an antagonist named "X" who was awoken one day by breaking the fourth wall and causing chaos on his murder spree. The comic artists who have created "X" decided to create 5 heroes to put a stop to his madness by sending them to solve mysteries in different worlds. Each story sets in different worlds with reappearing NPC characters playing different identities, but they somehow all reconnects back to the first historic world. The other worlds that the heroes journeys through were mostly underwhelming, especially the 3rd and 5th episode. In the 3rd episode, the cast were sent to a "spooky" hotel that was built in the middle of nowhere, but the ending was so cliché that anyone would've been able to guessed it right at the start. By the 5th episode, the team went to a hospital to unravel the supposed indiscriminate murders of a selected group of individuals; again, the murderer was another easy guess because the plot gave them out right off the bat. I suppose the reason behind most of the bland plot had to do with the lack of experience that the main director had in the production of a mystery themed variety show. From a quick Google search, I've found that Zhu Lin was known for her work "The Amazing Race China", "Dunk of China", "Me and My Agent", etc., most of which were live action variety, sports variety, and singing competition. I feel like if iQiyi chose to work with a more experienced director, the show might have been better than how it ended up to be.

The Puzzles
Since the show has placed a heavy emphasis on being a deduction-based mystery show, they should focus on solidifying their plots to avoid plot holes, as well as building on the puzzles so that it would be engaging for the audience to watch. Personally, I feel like the puzzles in this show was rather weak. Other than the 12 Chinese Zodiac puzzle with the up-side-down mechanical room, I can't really recall any other particular intriguing puzzle off the top of my mind. "The Great Escape", being a similar show that focuses on room escape, the puzzles in that shows were so much more complex and was so engaging with the audience that by the end of the cast have solved the puzzles, I would feel a similar satisfaction as if I was there escaping with the members.

The Timeframe of the Show
Each full episode is around 60 minutes, but at least 1/3 to half of each episode are full of sponsored commercials. Even if I've already paid for my membership to skip the ads in-between each segment of the episode, they still managed to embed them within the puzzles. I was pleasantly surprised by how clever they've added them in at first, but as the show drags on, it just leaves a bad taste in my mouth, making me feel like I've watched an entire hour of commercials. I suppose it's the way how iQiyi programs their shows, but because of the unskippable ads, I can't really rate this show for more than 2.5 stars.

In general, disregarding the ads, I would say this show is a mediocre bite size variety show. I wouldn't treat it as a brain twister kind of mystery show since the puzzles aren't too challenging, but it's definitely a great stress reliver to burn out some extra time.

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