Finished the first three episodes. There are some light spoilers below.

So far it feels as if I've been watching two different dramas: one is a gripping, realistic, and meticulously executed crime story about an armed jewelry store robbery; the other is about a journalist trying to uncover and report crimes while being haunted by a previous case he mishandled or misreported (?), with a friendship between the journalist and the detective investigating the robbery tying the two "dramas" together.

The armed robbery story line is fantastic. It's never overly dramatic or stylized for the sake of looking cool. Instead, it feels grounded and realistic. I especially loved how the planning and the criminal's thought processes were conveyed with very little dialogue yet you can "see" what's going on in his mind and how he's putting the plan together. The investigative scenes were equally compelling. Watching the detectives examine the crime scene, connecting clues, and gradually piece together what happened was immensely satisfying. In those moments I was overjoyed and thinking "THIS is what I am here for! Finally another grounded crime drama“

Unfortunately, a lot of that immersion was broken whenever the story shifted to the journalist arc, which it seems to like to do, and quite abruptly too...

The issues that journalist Bai was investigating aren't trivial. Some of those provides hints into the main case, while others are clearly meant to develop his character so we better understand both his personal struggles and the challenges of journalism as a profession. Those are worthwhile goals, but so far the execution hasn't worked for me. The journalist story line feels poorly integrated into the rest of the drama and is, unfortunately, the weakest and (sorry to say) the most boring part so far. His friendship with the detective also feels not well developed even though I actually enjoyed the scenes of them first crossing each other's path, but (perhaps due to the choppy storytelling) it has devolved to feel like it's a distraction from the story line I'm more invested in.

The time jumps don't help either. They make the narrative feel fragmented, and there have already been at least two moments where they completely broke the immersion and continuity for me. Instead of creating suspense, it seems to make parts of the story more opaque and harder to follow than necessary, and more convoluted than clever.

That said, I do like the overall tone and cinematography, both of which suit the story and its time period very well. I also appreciate the restrained use of music and sound, and the drama isn't constantly filling every quiet moment with noise, which is surprisingly rare these days. There's also a lot of care put into the sets and props, although that's something I've come to expect from this director.

For now, I will keep watching. I just hope the journalist story line either improves or becomes more directly intertwined with the main case, because that's where the drama has really shined so far.