Have you ever asked yourself this:
If the auxiliary line was changed during the college entrance examination, what would happen now?
What if I had the courage to confess that night?
If you didn't do this line of work after graduation, what would happen now?
We are always regretting, always greedy for a life without deviation.
"If I had/didn't have..., what would have happened now?"
The American drama "Relative Universe" makes the answer to this question a reality: in a parallel world, another self made a different choice from himself at a critical moment, and finally had a completely different life.
The two self A and B are obviously very similar,
look exactly the same
The exact same first half of life
However, the status, circumstances, and families of the two are completely different.
A has been a grass-roots civil servant for many years, and his colleagues who are able to engage in relationships get ahead of him when he tries to be promoted, while B has become a government official.
A eloped and got married with the girl he liked at the time, and they have been together for 28 years, but B has long been without the company of the girl.
Even the physical condition has changed, B has high cholesterol, while A has a normal body.
We have seen a lot of stories in parallel worlds, from the long-lived British drama "Doctor Who" to the recent popular "Stranger Things", but they are either busy explaining scientific terms, or busy fighting monsters and closing the cracks in time and space.
Never before has a show explored the tremors, fears, unease and excitement we face in parallel worlds from a human perspective.
And the show talks about it.
The story is set thirty years after the Cold War.
During the Cold War, scientific research competitions and experiments had an accident, opening the door to connecting parallel worlds. The government concealed this from the public, and the male protagonist A, who works at the grassroots level of the government, did not know about it, until he met his male protagonist B from another world.
It turned out that on the other side, the upper echelons of the government were fighting infighting. The forces trying to subvert the regime started murdering mutiny and killing people "on this side", and the male protagonist's wife was included on the kill list, because the male protagonist B, who served at the top of the government on the other side, was also involved in the struggle.
So B came here, trying to find the murderer and find out the truth.
Male protagonist A meets male protagonist B.
As the male protagonist A asked: The two have the exact same genes, family, childhood, the first half of their lives... Why do they have completely different life trends.
Is it because of different life experiences later on?
Maybe the long life is not important at all, and the choice at the critical moment determines the different fork in the life.
The choice at the critical moment is so important. Did we make the choice, or did the choice make us?
If life is a collection of choices, will people change if there are more choices? Or, who are we who determine our choices?
That's the theme of the show: fatalism.
We go to fortune-telling, we go to ask for signatures, don't we just want to spoil life? If you are destined, what you do now is to complete the given life? What's the point of a long life?
If it is a choice that determines life, is such a choice right or wrong for such a life?
Of course, this topic has not been discussed too much in the play. After all, it will be crazy to go deeper into it.
In addition to the fatalism-style discussion, elements of the Cold War, spies, and parallel worlds, coupled with Uncle JK's explosive acting skills, make the show worth chasing.
The Cold War style is very strong.
Isn't the door to the parallel world the Berlin Wall? The second round of the male lead B's unit is mysteriously like the KGB?
Even the action scene at the end seems to pay tribute to the most Cold War-style secret agent movie "Bourne Bourne": handheld photography, sharp and concise action style.
The finale to say, of course, is Uncle JK's acting skills.
Uncle JK in my impression is the ruthless boss who will open employees on Christmas Eve in "La La Land"
Or the strict and perverted music teacher in "The Cracking Drummer".
Uncle JK like this, there is also in the play, that is the B version of the male protagonist.
The A version, which subverts JK's previous image, has a hunchback and hunched back, the whole face is downward, and he is meticulous in his work, like a soft persimmon of a good man.
"Two people" are in the same frame, and the sitting posture can explain everything.
If Pan Yueming's split performance in "Chasing the Murderer in the White Night" makes you very addicted, then you can't miss the performance here.
So, although there is only one pilot episode, it is already very exciting.
And now, the biggest meaning of the show to me is that I hope that one day, when the other self sees me, he won't say "God, what have you been doing all these years?"
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